
A $230k debt and a LinkedIn message led an ex-CIA officer to spy for China - onemoresoop
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/how-230-000-debt-linkedin-message-led-ex-cia-officer-n990691
======
DevX101
If you are involved in a secret affair without your partner's knowledge or if
you're closeted non-hetero sexually, you shouldn't apply for high level
security clearances or run for politics.

Competing states can find this information out and potentially blackmail you.
U.S. is currently pressuring a Chinese company to sell Grindr, presumably
because of potential security risks like these.

I know of people who've gone through the clearance process and it's VERY
thorough and personally invasive to minimize the risks of government employees
being compromised due to their personal lives.

~~~
baybal2
> it's VERY thorough and personally invasive to minimize the risks

And yet, near completely useless as shown by cases known to wide public.

If you think blackmail is the only thing that can compromise a man, you have a
lot to learn about life.

History: some of most baffling espionage cases were "walk ins"

I think, it is the type of personality that services all around the world seek
– somebody brilliant, but easy to guide, and motivateable with BS pretenses,
that itself makes such people to seek to play with fire.

~~~
GVIrish
> And yet, near completely useless as shown by cases known to wide public.

Just because a system isn't foolproof, doesn't mean it's useless. There are
certainly many improvements that can be made to how we protect secrets and
conduct investigations into individuals but what we have in place now is far
from useless.

~~~
tgragnato
> When he received a LinkedIn message from a Chinese headhunter.

At the beginning I wondered how can the Chinese know who to contact.. On
LinkedIn! Then a glimpse at the OPM data breach made my realise that the
system might not be useless, but certainly dated and suitable to a very
different threat model.

It's not easy to update your operating procedures to an information asymmetry
at your disadvantage, after decades of advantage in info gathering.

Realising that, the top comment starts to make a lot more sense, even if at
first sight it's potentially unrelated to the topic: they need to be much more
careful about all sorts of things.

~~~
caymanjim
Because people who worked for the CIA have resumes too. Do you think they all
have cover jobs? Sure, some do, but most people don't. I've worked for a
number of defense intelligence agencies. In my case, indirectly via commercial
entities, but it's not hard to read between the lines. We dealt with
classified information, but the fact that I worked for them isn't classified,
and the nature of the projects isn't classified. I put this all on my resume,
and so does almost everyone else who works in intelligence. It's just another
career.

~~~
tgragnato
That's the point. The US has a loose approach. China is aggressive and takes
advantage of every weakness. This is not an isolated case, as you will be well
aware.

[https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/state-department-employee-
arr...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/state-department-employee-arrested-and-
charged-concealing-extensive-contacts-foreign-agents)
[https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/using-
china-...](https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/using-china-as-an-
example-f-b-i-video-warns-americans-about-study-abroad/)
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-
spie...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-
espionage.html)

> "the country’s extensive security apparatus makes it exceptionally hard for
> Western spy services to develop sources there"

That's why I wrote it's an asymmetry.

------
save_ferris
This was the big fear that came out of the OPM hack back in 2015[0], that the
exfiltrated data could be used to mine for targets of coercion by foreign
governments.

With all of the personal data floating around the web and government systems
clearly unable to keep up with modern security best-practices, we can almost
guarantee this is going to get worse.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach)

~~~
creaghpatr
>It has been described by federal officials as among the largest breaches of
government data in the history of the United States.

Huh, that sounds like a pretty big scandal but I’d never heard of this until
you posted it.

~~~
uneasy-sausage
OP was incorrect about the year - it was 2013. The OPM breach included ANYONE
who filled out/submitted an SF86 form to the USG. I believe fingerprint data
was compromised at all - our (US) government flopped real hard on this issue
and put millions of people's personal information into the wild.

------
Waterluvian
To me this is a story about how financial security impacts national security.
It gets me wondering about the mortgage he couldn't pay. What were the terms?
How out on a limb did he get with his finances?

I doubt this is a fresh argument but it makes me more inclined to see things
like mortgage regulations as a national security issue.

~~~
CodesInChaos
Financial stability is one of the most important criteria checked when you
apply for clearance.

I read through a public list of the decisions on clearance appeals a couple of
years ago, and financial concerns were a very common reason for denied
clearances. (Might have been
[http://ogc.osd.mil/doha/industrial/](http://ogc.osd.mil/doha/industrial/))

Another thing I found interesting from that list was that a lot of concerns
(e.g. earlier drug consumption) could be successfully addressed, but lying on
the questionnaire was pretty close to an absolute no-go. I also expected a lot
more denials for political opinion to stop ideologically motivated
whistleblowers, but barely found any such entries.

~~~
Cidan
Many years ago, I worked for a contractor where we required clearance. We
hired this one sysadmin "stick it to the man" type of guy that was extremely
well educated and talented.

When he got to the part of the form that asked if he has ever consumed drugs,
he said "yes" as he should have by being honest. The follow up question asks
something along the lines of, "If yes, will you ever consume drugs again?"

The jack-ass decided to answer "I won't not do them again..." We fired him a
few days later.

~~~
mijamo
Are those questions about illegal drugs or all drugs? Can you answer you don't
take drugs when you smoke or drink alcohol? What if you have Marijuana in a
country where it is legal? What about alcohol in a country where it is not? Is
the trouble for the government that you are willing to go against the law, or
that yoj could be under influence?

~~~
dlgeek
"In the last seven (7) years, have you illegally used any drugs or controlled
substances? Use of a drug or controlled substance includes injecting,
snorting, inhaling, swallowing, experimenting with or otherwise consuming any
drug or controlled substance.

[...]

In the last seven (7) years have you intentionally engaged in the misuse of
prescription drugs, regardless of whether or not the drugs were prescribed for
you or someone else?

[...]

In the last seven (7) years has your use of alcohol had a negative impact on
your work performance, your professional or personal relationships, your
finances, or resulted in intervention by law enforcement/public safety
personnel?"

They also ask a bunch of other questions as follow-ons.
[https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86-non508.pdf](https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86-non508.pdf)
form page 93 PDF page 96.

------
0xDEFC0DE
Working link: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
security/how-230-0...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
security/how-230-000-debt-linkedin-message-led-ex-cia-officer-n990691)

------
iliketosleep
Near the end of the article: _After a preliminary forensic investigation, the
thumb drive was found to contain "malicious malware," according to the
affidavit._

Isn't malware, by definition, malicious??

~~~
anonymous5133
It is not necessarily malicious. Some malware is purely designed as a prank
type of stuff or to do something funny to the computer.

------
MichailP
How come shortsighted thinking became so popular? Cut jobs, close factories
for short term gain of the elites, but in the long term? There may be no one
left to rule...

~~~
philipov
That's because once they're done looting, the elites can now just move to New
Zealand or somewhere.

~~~
lostlogin
That shameful episode with Peter Thiel is the prime example.
[https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/88843382/peter-thiel-
citizens...](https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/88843382/peter-thiel-citizenship-
details-revealed)

------
fredgrott
aside note folks....there has been a very severe increase in spurious attempts
to hack email accounts if you by accident email any person in China ...I
recently had to stop sending any email comments to Chinese developers via
email..

Not sure if its widespread but there was a significant uptick recently.

This not legal advice or even security advice..but take care

~~~
anonymous5133
Yup. For anyone who is a security type IT person at your company, make sure
you send out bogus phising emails to employees to see who falls for it and
what type of data they give away. At my work if you fall for it the first time
then you get training not to do it again. If you fall for it a second time,
terminated. They just consider it to be too high of a security risk to keep
you around if you fall for it a second time.

------
trpc
A yet another reason to recognize that life is so pathetic, so here is a guy
who spent his entire youth supposedly serving his country (or actually serving
his bosses agendas and ambitions?) for peanuts and he is now an old jobless
man with thousands of dollars in debt that he has to become a spy to pay off
his debt

~~~
CryptoPunk
Just because someone ends up in dire straits, doesn't mean they are good.

He could have spent less to avoid debt. He could have gotten a job in the
private sector. In a country like the US, there is no excuse for resorting to
treason to get a pay check.

~~~
trpc
>He could have spent less to avoid debt

Easier said than done in most cases, not all people are 20 or 30 something
above average IQs and can write some app or website and by the end of the year
he would raise a couple of million from investors or get a job in some fancy
startup, most lives are just pathetic and the need for money can make people
do unimaginable things, the guy is 61 years old and he is jobless and in debt

>no excuse for resorting to treason

of course there is no excuse and it's totally a treason, I am just noting that
how pathetic life can be

~~~
neilv
You might want to edit to clarify. It sounds like you're saying that most
people who are not startup techbros have pathetic lives.

------
gberger
> The "defendant, who was entrusted with our nation’s critical secrets, put
> our country and human lives — including the lives of assets — at risk for
> financial gain," prosecutors said in their sentencing memo.

What does "lives of assets" mean?

~~~
iaw
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_\(intelligence\))

------
un_montagnard
The page is unavailable.

~~~
agjmills
Come back soon!

~~~
agustif
lol, they already took it down? that was fast

------
1024core
If he was ex-CIA, how did he have classified files to sell?

~~~
Scoundreller
Stored a lot in between his ears?

Or he knows which civilian resources they considered reliable and pointed them
in that direction.

------
satokema
I have no major debts and gave up smoking, where do I sign up?

------
thinkloop
The US obviously spies on China like crazy but we never hear about it, is this
Western bias censorship? Is it possible that China spies much more than the
US?

~~~
DGAP
We do hear about it, and in the Western press primarily:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-
spie...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-
espionage.html)

The difference is that when US-run agents get burned, they get publicly
executed by the Chinese government, as opposed to put on trial for
imprisonment.

