09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Probably the wrong thread for this, but western agents are usually western nationals or even embassy officials with diplomatic ammunity, so it would be quite an escalation to kill them.

Doing so would also 'cross a line' and invite similar treatment of Chinese agents in the west.

Notice how there were no stories of Chinese spies killed in the US or other western countries.

Both sides show restraint when dealing with each other's spies caught domestically because firstly they can, and secondly to safeguard their own people when they get caught themselves. Not every spy will get caught, but it is pretty much inevitable that one day someone will.

The US excel at SIGINT, but HUMINT has always been the Chinese domain.

That's not to say China can't do SIGINT or the US is bad at HUMINT, it's just that traditionally both have the most experience, success and built up the most capabilities using their own respective preferred methods on intelligence gathering.
Oh, is the US better at SIGINT? With these new supercomputers, and possibly quantum computers, I wouldn't bet on that.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Oh, is the US better at SIGINT? With these new supercomputers, and possibly quantum computers, I wouldn't bet on that.

China might be making significant gains in recent years, but that needs to be offset against the decades of accumulated US dominance of the field.

The world's biggest and best computer software and hardware companies had all been American, or based in countries easily compromised by US intelligence, until quite recently.

That is a lot of accumulated experience and capabilities to offset.

What more, in terms of intelligence gathering capabilities, it is your ability to compromise and monitor deployed assets that matter. US SIGINT has an inherent current advantage because most of the world's major corporations, and governments especially, currently runs software written by American (and allied country) companies on computers built by America (and allied country) companies.

That is why the he US has been so desperate to stop Americans from using Chinese hardware and software.

There is also the military aspect of it. US also has the most spysats, spyplans and spyships operating world wide, often on China's doorstep, while China conducts no such overtly hostile military intelligence gathering operations against the US.

The US does not conduct such operations purely to annoy China, but by not reciprocating, Chinese intelligence is missing out on having the same quantity and quality of SIGINT data to use for analysis.
 

delft

Brigadier
What HUMINT?



Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
MAY 20, 2017

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Share This Page
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved

But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

Still others were put in jail. All told, the Chinese killed or imprisoned 18 to 20 of the C.I.A.’s sources in
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, according to two former senior American officials, effectively unraveling a network that had taken years to build
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Assessing the fallout from an exposed spy operation can be difficult, but the episode was considered particularly damaging. The number of American assets lost in China, officials said, rivaled those lost in the Soviet Union and Russia during the betrayals of both Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, formerly of the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., who divulged intelligence operations to Moscow for years.

The previously unreported episode shows how successful the Chinese were in disrupting American spying efforts and stealing secrets years before a
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
gave Beijing access to thousands of government personnel records, including intelligence contractors. The C.I.A. considers spying in China one of its top priorities, but the country’s extensive security apparatus makes it exceptionally hard for Western spy services to develop sources there.

At a time when the C.I.A. is trying to figure out how some of its most sensitive documents were
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
two months ago by WikiLeaks, and the F.B.I. investigates possible ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russia, the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services like those in Russia and China.The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. both declined to comment.

Details about the investigation have been tightly held. Ten current and former American officials described the investigation on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing the information.Investigators still disagree how it happened, but the unsettled nature of the China investigation demonstrates the difficulty of conducting counterespionage investigations into sophisticated spy services. CreditCarolyn Kaster/Associated Press..

The first signs of trouble emerged in 2010. At the time, the quality of the C.I.A.’s information about the inner workings of the Chinese government was the best it had been for years, the result of recruiting sources deep inside the bureaucracy in Beijing, four former officials said. Some were Chinese nationals who the C.I.A. believed had become disillusioned with the Chinese government’s corruption.

But by the end of the year, the flow of information began to dry up. By early 2011, senior agency officers realized they had a problem: Assets in China, one of their most precious resources, were disappearing.

The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. opened a joint investigation run by top counterintelligence officials at both agencies. Working out of a secret office in Northern Virginia, they began analyzing every operation being run in Beijing. One former senior American official said the investigation had been code-named Honey Badger.

As more and more sources vanished, the operation took on increased urgency. Nearly every employee at the American Embassy was scrutinized, no matter how high ranking. Some investigators believed the Chinese had cracked the encrypted method that the C.I.A. used to communicate with its assets. Others suspected a traitor in the C.I.A., a theory that agency officials were at first reluctant to embrace — and that some in both agencies still do not believe.

Their debates were punctuated with macabre phone calls — “We lost another one” — and urgent questions from the Obama administration wondering why intelligence about the Chinese had slowed.

The mole hunt eventually zeroed in on a former agency operative who had worked in the C.I.A.’s division overseeing China, believing he was most likely responsible for the crippling disclosures. But efforts to gather enough evidence to arrest him failed, and he is now living in another Asian country, current and former officials said.

There was good reason to suspect an insider, some former officials say. Around that time, Chinese spies compromised National Security Agency surveillance in Taiwan — an island Beijing claims is part of China — by infiltrating Taiwanese intelligence, an American partner, according to two former officials. And the C.I.A. had discovered Chinese operatives in the
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, according to officials and court documents.

But the C.I.A.’s top spy hunter, Mark Kelton, resisted the mole theory, at least initially, former officials say. Mr. Kelton had been close friends with
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, a C.I.A. officer who in the 1990s was wrongly suspected by the F.B.I. of being a Russian spy. The real traitor, it turned out, was Mr. Hanssen. Mr. Kelton often mentioned Mr. Kelley’s mistreatment in meetings during the China episode, former colleagues say, and said he would not accuse someone without ironclad evidence.
This started two months before US tried to set up a colour revolution in China. Probably China knew all about the network for a long time and destroyed it because became troublesome.:D
 
What HUMINT?
Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Crippled U.S. Spying Operations
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

By
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
MAY 20, 2017

Nobody outside of the intelligence community really knows what's going on inside of it. The real question is why did the US intelligence community or particular officials leak or break such a story to the public. Can be disinformation or signalling for a variety of reasons. Can also be someone making things up for reasons completely unrelated to the intelligence world, though this is less likely.
 
Top