
Woman from China Carrying Malware Arrested After Entering Mar-a-Lago - somerandomness
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/us/mar-a-lago-zhang-chinese-secret-service.html
======
United857
> She was allowed to enter by Secret Service agents stationed outside the
> resort after the Mar-a-Lago security manager on duty verified that her last
> name matched the surname of a member of the club,

Zhang is the third most common last name _in the world_ (source:
[https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-most-common-last-name-on-
Ear...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-most-common-last-name-on-Earth)).

Definitely a bit lax on the part of security/Secret Service to just do a last
name check... I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese intelligence have exploited
similar holes before.

~~~
empath75
To be fair to the secret service, trump has put them on a terrible situation
making them have to secure that place instead of using camp david like
everyone else.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
I live less than a mile from Mar-a-lago, and I drive by it all the time. It
seems insane to do anything high-security there.

~~~
Redoubts
Why is that?

~~~
rswail
Because the President is already provided with a "weekend" place to go called
Camp David that is secure (it is a US military base), guarded by both USSS and
US Marines, is located close to DC (thus only requiring helicopters instead of
AF1), has a golf course and other recreational facilities.

It has been good enough for every President since FDR. Trump uses Mar-a-lago
as a money making exercise, raising the membership fees after becoming
President and charging the USSS and other government security services for the
facilities they use to guard him.

It's (yet another) rort.

~~~
codezero
Never heard rort before! TIL.

------
dmix
The 4 cell phones thing and her sketchy story is suspicious. But anyone could
have malware on a USB stick. Especially from China.

That said this sounds way too sloppy for state espionage. Maybe it’s private?
Or they are recruiting way too many people and let some bad ones in.

~~~
zip1234
Too sloppy for state espionage? In my experience, the level of competence in
government varied widely. This is entirely plausible as state espionage.

~~~
0815test
Yup. Moreover, most "state espionage" and the like is really just a _state-
sponsored_ variation of garden-variety opportunistic/criminal activity that
would otherwise be quite ordinary. This is something that most people might
not generally realize, because there's so much focus on _high-profile_
espionage. But that's rare and not at all the common case.

------
elliekelly
Reading the article I was immediately concerned the cellphones and/or malware
were used as probable cause for her arrest. Four cellphones is definitely
excessive but not illegal (at one point I had three for work + a personal) and
malware on a USB stick could happen to _anyone_. From the complaint[1] it
looks like she's being charged for knowingly making false statements to gain
access to a restricted area and (thankfully) not for having the
phones/malware.

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/404159332/USA-v-Zhang-
Compla...](https://www.scribd.com/document/404159332/USA-v-Zhang-Complaint)

~~~
hermitdev
Why did you have 3 cellphones for work? That seems excesive to me. I can
understand 1 for work, one for personal - I had this situation for quite a
while myself.

I'd prefer to only carry 1 phone, but I won't 'byod' to a company that
reserves the right to remotely wipe my personal phone.

~~~
elliekelly
It absolutely was excessive. I had a US work phone and two international work
phones because I dealt with foreign regulators who needed to be able to
contact me at a "local" phone number. I'm not sure I ever managed to have all
four charged at the same time.

And I learned about BYOD the hard way. I do a bit of freelance legal
journalism on the side and at one point I had a Reuters email address even
though I wasn't an employee and I had it set up on my personal iPhone. One day
I was getting off the subway and the entire phone went blank. A complete
factory reset. Reuters had accidentally wiped the _personal_ cellphones of
everyone who had set up the company email on an iPhone. I remember one guy
saying he lost the video of his daughter's first footsteps. This was before
companies had controls around BYOD but I will certainly never allow a company
to have any access to my device again.

~~~
hermitdev
Yeah, your example of someone losing their kid's first steps video is the sort
of reason I keep my stuff separate. Either give me a phone, or dont expect an
off hours response.

If BYOD just meant they can remotely remove my Outlook account and any local
cache, sure, I'd be fine with that. Wipe my entire phone? Go take a shit in
the woods and wipe with a ponderosa pine cone.

------
droithomme
Comparing this to myself, I often carry two cell phones, I assume my USB
drives are not infected, but have no idea if they are and if they are I
wouldn't be able to tell based on what I understand of infections that live in
the firmware, and when I was much younger, in my teens and early 20s, I
definitely snuck into quite a few nice swimming pools at hotels and clubs,
along with every one of my peers! I also snuck into a major party presidential
convention once because why not, and it was educational and interesting and
democratic to do so anyway.

I don't have two passports, but I've heard a lot of people do.

So this all sounds dodgy when they report on it like that, but there's also a
chance she's just someone going for a swim. In which case though trespassing
charges and false statements charges are still legit.

Of course there's more to the case than this, she changed her story multiple
times and eventually said that a person unknown to her had asked her to fly
from Shanghai to Florida in order to speak to Trump. I think it would be a
waste of time to try to get to the bottom of what she was up to, best way to
handle this is get a quick conviction and permanently deport her back.

~~~
rorykoehler
Going for a swim without a swimsuit?

~~~
droithomme
For her case that fits into the general bit where she changed her story a
bunch of times. (Assuming that's the case, she alleges she never said she was
there to go swimming.)

In my own case as a teen, not having a swimsuit never stopped me. I definitely
never had a towel since hotels provide that, it's one of the advantages of
hotels vs random people's backyard pools where they definitely knew you
weren't supposed to be there. Even when questioned by hotel staff (which
seldom happened) saying I was with the Smiths often passed the test if I was a
guest or not. Another tactic was to take the elevator up, then down and out to
the pool. Never approach the pool directly from off-property.

Mar-a-Lago would obviously be considerably harder to sneak into since the
staff there knows who the members are even if the Secret Service doesn't.

------
floatingatoll
It is inconceivable that the Secret Service permitted the leak of this level
of detail to the press. That she was carrying malware makes this an espionage-
class event. The intelligence community must be fuming mad that these details
weren't sealed.

------
prototyperaptor
The NYT article either leaves out that the woman was carrying Republic of
China passports, or is erroneously conflating RoC and PRC.

~~~
gcb0
it says "passaports". Do people from RoC must now have a PRC passport too
after the recent occupation? I have no idea how passports work for people
under the Taiwan political mess.

~~~
jpatokal
> after the recent occupation

???

Taiwan citizens can get two flavors of PRC passport-equivalents for travel to
the PRC:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Travel_Document](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Travel_Document)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainland_Travel_Permit_for_Tai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainland_Travel_Permit_for_Taiwan_Residents)

PRC nationals going to Taiwan need an almost-visa, but can use their PRC
passport:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_%26_Entry_Permit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_%26_Entry_Permit)

------
saagarjha
> She was allowed to enter by Secret Service agents stationed outside the
> resort after the Mar-a-Lago security manager on duty verified that her last
> name matched the surname of a member of the club, according to a complaint
> filed in federal district court in South Florida.

I mean, Zhang is a pretty common surname, so if that's the only checking they
did this sounds pretty inadequate…

------
mikeyouse
Why again did we decide that it's okay for our President to spend every
weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs? The Secret Service has
already said they can't and won't keep a log of all guests to Mar-a-Lago. Can
you imagine the number of bugs/listening devices that are already there?

Dozens of foreign nationals already work there on H2B visas[1], they have
open-air national security crisis response meetings in front of random Palm
Beach socialites[2], he's personally profiting off of the club's increased
membership fees[3] and Secret Service expenses[4], existing members included
several people with criminal backgrounds and most recently the proprietor of
the 'massage parlors' that ensnared Robert Kraft[5] and she was already caught
selling access[6] and illegally bundling contributions[7] -- This seems like a
security risk approaching the level of all the Russian weirdness.

[1] - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-mar-a-lago-
cl...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-mar-a-lago-club-in-
florida-seeks-to-hire-40-foreign-
workers/2018/07/05/5ef094b8-8099-11e8-bb6b-c1cb691f1402_story.html)

[2] -
[https://twitter.com/i/moments/831212884675981313?lang=en](https://twitter.com/i/moments/831212884675981313?lang=en)

[3] - [https://www.thedailybeast.com/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-
doub...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doubles-to-
dollar200k)

[4] - [https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405407-trumps-
go...](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405407-trumps-golf-cart-
rentals-cost-taxpayers-more-than-300k-report)

[5] - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-spa-owner-
and...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-spa-owner-and-frequent-
mar-a-lago-guest-sparks-concerns-about-porous-environment-at-presidents-
club/2019/03/14/19c955a6-442e-11e9-aaf8-4512a6fe3439_story.html)

[6] - [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-
massa...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-
parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/)

[7] - [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-
massa...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/a-florida-massage-
parlor-owner-has-been-selling-chinese-execs-access-to-trump-at-mar-a-lago/)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Why again did we decide that it 's okay for our President to spend every
> weekend at his private, unsecured, for-profit clubs?_

We elected him. Presidents get this purview. If this pisses you off, register
to vote, volunteer for campaigns and join your local political club.

~~~
mikeyouse
My point is more -- Why this President?

It would never been acceptable at any point in prior history. Jimmy Carter
famously had to sell his family's peanut farm to avoid any perception of a
conflict of interest. In the same election that Trump won, it was a huge
campaign issue that people seeking influence donated to The Clinton Foundation
-- a Foundation that the Clinton's did not, and could not financially benefit
from. Yet it's okay that unelected Mar-a-Lago members that are currently
putting money in the President's pocket can run a hundred billion dollar
government organization from the shadows and steer its funds?[1]

What changed in the American psyche? Why did we collectively assent to let
this President break all of the norms that constrained previous
administrations?

[1] - [https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-
trump-i...](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/26/mar-a-lago-trump-
investigation-va-contracts-1015803)

~~~
lurquer
Jimmy Carter did not "sell his family's peanut farm."

His mother and brother managed it. In fact, ol' Billy Carter got in a bunch of
trouble using it as a sort of slush fund when he was hanging out with the
Libyans.... but, I suspect that is long before your time....

Nobody sells off nothing merely to take a 4-year gig. At most, they simply let
other family members take over the business.

~~~
mikeyouse
You're right, I had the history wrong -- he put the ownership into blind trust
from which his brother was embezzling. In either case, _a peanut farm_ was
important enough to avoid impropriety but somehow all these businesses
actively putting money into the President's pocket are kosher?

What would people have said if all of the sudden the Iranians started buying
tons of peanuts exclusively from Carter's farm?

~~~
lurquer
You did have the history wrong.

What's more interesting is WHY you believed 'fake news' about Jimmy Carter
selling off his family farm.

I can't think of ANY President who 'sold off' anything. Kennedy certainly
didn't.

Neither Bush did. (Indeed, you may wish to compare the frequency of Trump at
Mar-a-lago vs. Bush Sr. at Kennebunkport...)

Reagan had Rancho del Cielo -- his several hundred acre ranch at which he
spent so much time that it was referred to as the "Western Whitehouse."

Obama went from $0 to a multimillionaire.

The Clintons went from a $0 to several hundred million. (As far as the
Clintons... well, if you think the Clinton's didn't benefit from the Clinton
Foundation, I guess you've drunk the Kool-Aid... You oughta take some time to
see how many millions of dollars in speaking fees, travel, and accommodations
the Foundation paid to the three Clintons.)

The Bush's were already incredibly wealthy, but probably quadrupled their net
worth through their semi-private 'Carlyle Group' investment fund.

Your animosity towards Trump leads you to attack the one area where he's head
and shoulders above the others: he's going to leave office with a lower net
worth.

~~~
mikeyouse
There are all the obvious corruption problems with post-Presidential
activities, and obviously it's a huge source of corrupting influence. The
Clintons became obscenely wealthy -- but that had nothing to do with their
Foundation (speaking as an expert in nonprofit finance).

My only animosity is toward public corruption. The Bushes visiting
Kennebunkport was obviously different because _other people couldn 't pay to
access the president at Kennebunkport._ The Saudis bought _500 rooms_ at a
hotel that the President personally owns immediately after the inauguration.
That's completely different in scale, kind, and timing in terms of the
'normal' corruption and I'm flabbergasted that it doesn't register as such.

Phrased another way:

What's the method to illicitly influence the Bushes at Kennebunkport? How
about the method to influence the Obamas after they've left office? You could
absolutely make a case about influencing the Clintons since Hillary obviously
wanted to run for President. The story to illicitly influence the current
President is very straightforward and keeps happening in the open. Regardless
of what happened in the past, shouldn't we try to stop it when it's happening
now?

------
gcb0
so, in summary for the article: journalists found that her story checks out.
and it's related to an event organized by a prostitution entrepreneur who
claims to have access to Trump, and the secret service filled in a report
saying they have no idea of such event?

~~~
mxcrossb
I think the human trafficking angle is most likely. Someone was trying to
introduce her to this Ms. Yang to get her in to her business, but wasn’t aware
that the event was cancelled.

------
gaoshan
This will turn out to have been a mentally ill person. I seriously doubt a
real intelligence operative would show up for work with multiple passports, a
pile of cell phones and a cover story that hinges upon a non-existent event
being scheduled.

~~~
ggggtez
You can't just go around calling everyone mentally ill because you don't like
the idea that this person really was a spy.

There are lots of people who want to spy, not just the CPC. If it helps you
sleep at night, blame a company spy from TenCent instead.

