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Chinese Compiling "Facebook" of US Government Employees
schwit1 writes: According to private security firm CrowdStrike's founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, the Chinese are compiling a massive 'Facebook' like database on American federal government employees for use in espionage and blackmail. The data was stolen from high profile attacks against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as intrusions into the Anthem and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance networks. "That can now be used to embarrass you publicly and force you to work for the Chinese government," Alperovitch says. "It's, in effect, a private version of Facebook with much more detail about your life than even Facebook has that the Chinese now have access to."
They're using the pre-2004, non-proper-noun sense of "facebook".
Truth is that up-to-date, accurate and detailed, organizational structure of army or other organization that participates in national defense is a prized reference tool useful both in peace and in a war time. Many of the organizations take extra precautions to distort, obfuscate real org chart and to hide key areas, such as communications/network, nuclear etc.
If enough time and efforts are invested all the org charts can be recreated, however in reality, due to the resource limitations only generals and top-lieutenants are in a typical org tree. Chinese made their own life easier since they have now a significant details and granularity of the information. Be sure that selected individuals will be targeted for intelligence and recruitment operations.