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USA Busted Trying to Bug China's Presidential 767
morcheeba writes "A new Boeing 767-300ER was refitted to become China's presidental aircraft. What goes into a plane like this? Besides the bedroom, sitting room, bath with a shower, there was a 48" TV, satellite communications, anti-missile defense systems and advanced avionics. And oh yeah, numerous high-tech listening devices. Wonder how those got in. Read the article at washingtonpost.com." CD: The question is, what was the bug in the headboard for?
Since so many things are manufactured in China and exported to the USA, who's to say that the Chinese haven't been doing this for years? I think it would be very easy to covertly place bugs in things the president has in the Oval Office or Air Force One (electronics, etc.) They just might be doing it a lot more effectively.
The future isn't what it used to be.
It's not a bug, it's an undocumented feature.
You know I've often wondered how countries can trust US equipment sold to them (or Russian equipment, etc): Who says that the day Saudi Arabia pisses the US off all of their F15s might respond to the "die now" signal and plummet to the ground? If I were ever to buy hardware from a country other than my own I'd go through every single mm of it with a fine tooth comb, and then I'd reflash every piece of circuitry, etc: There is no way I'd ever trust what was delivered. Sorta defeats the premise of military trade, but perhaps that's a good thing.
If this story is true then this will be a disaster for US military and commercial companies: Already there is a world wary of Echelon, but if now they have to worry about every other device being trojan horsed. Having said that, the next time you drink from that "made in China" cup, think to yourself "Would it be in their national interest to put a chemical that slowly leaches into Westerner's systems, causing cancer or just stupifying the society (i.e. lead)."
The US has also used the following nifty tricks to spy on its enemies and its allies:
1. The ambassador in some Communist country (maybe even the USSR, I don't remember exactly which) would avoid potential bugs in his office by holding conversations on the balcony outside. Intelligence officials noticed there was often a lot of branches on the ground, so they put together a fake tree branch containing a listening device and planted it outside the balcony. Eventually a gardener picked it up, but said intelligence officials grabbed it out of the trash, dusted it off, and replanted it.
2. When Khruschev came to visit the US during the 1960s, the CIA spent $2 million to divert the plumbing to his hotel bathroom to a special container so they could analyze his fecal matter. Apparently they were hoping to find out if rumors he had cancer were true. The $2 million conclusion? Khruschev needed more fibre in his diet.
3. The Cabinet room in Ottawa (the capital of Canada for the ignorant) has special curtains that are always drawn. The reason? The US Embassy (an ugly postmodern glass-and-steel combo with foot-thick windows) is just across the street, and happens to have a ton of spying equipment on the roof, including laser devices capable of picking up subtle vibrations of windows and passing the data to a computer that spits out a coherent version of the conversation.
4. The CIA (although I thought the NRO - National Reconnaissance Office - ran American spy satellite operations) is rumored to have at least one satellite that has the space version of stealth technology. This satellite reportedly uses mirrors to foil visual detection from the ground, thereby enabling to spy on without knowing he is being watched.
CIA agent to Boeing exec, after arriving at Boeing facility at midnight: "Hi, we're taking over your facility for the next 8 hours for a matter of national security. Go home. If you tell anyone about this, you'll be put in jail for the rest of your life."
Boeing exec: "Uh.... ok.... uh...."
Probably not too much more complicated than that.
q:]
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Then we should stop whining when we find out that other countries have been spying on us. It makes us look like a bunch of hypocritical crybabies.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Heck, it's not the spying they're taking personally. It's the insult of not bothering to cover your tracks well enough.
To put 20+ bugs in a plane and assume that the Chinese won't find them is simply insulting the Chinese intelligence community and via them, the Chinese government. That's what they're taking personally. It's kind of a "Just how stupid do you think we are?" personal.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
We have these things called Facts...
1: The American spy plane was in international waters (as recognized by the rest of the world save China)
2: The pilot of the Chinese plan was killed because he flew too close to a larger plane and ran into it
First off two wrongs don't make a right. The bigger question to me is why would the US do this to a plane that will be examined from the top down the second it gets delivered? The mostly likely conclusion is to generate more tensions between the US and China.
From the get-go the bush administration has been very adamant on trying to create a new red-scare ostensibly to help defense contracts get through. Think back before 9/11 and look at the various games of cat and mouse the US has been playing with China.
The sad part is that there is lots of trade to be lost by being percieved as the world's biggest spy. Look at the European take on MS and government collusion, Echelon, etc.
In the end this kind of strategy will cost companies revenues, jobs, and negatively affect the economy just to appease the military-industrial complex. In a slumping economy pissing off your potential customers is very bad business and I doubt the big defense contracts are going to make up for what the US is going to lose in trade by its reputation. Even if they did the money comes from American taxes, so its a no-win situation.
This is cold war politics at action. The Russians took this kind of thing as par for the course, but our current administration does not have a firm grasp on how important perception is in the 21st century. The old cold war games may now not be non-event exchanges but could cost us dearly.