Same with friendships, all sorts of things. Someone that's super into the same things as you and appears to help you and encourage you like a friend you never had? That's not a friend, guarantee you.
You fail to imagine that someone who threats you like shit can also be any of those things.
You need to get out more for your own good.
"dirty ass programmer" contrasted with "beautiful woman" is a stereotypical example, but not a rule. It represents an asymmetry in typical social interactions. If you're getting much more than you deserve, it's a trap. Got it?
On a serious note. The Chinese will go to great lengths to steal tech that they want. I have heard some interesting stories regarding fake cell towers and phone tapping next to factories and not for some crazy important tech either. Just something the Chinese did not yet know how to do and wanted to compete without spending years of R&D.
America has a bling problem; especially younger folks. It’s our Achilles heel. There are Americans who will sell out our nation for a pittance, just so they can strut around, looking cool.
Although you would run the risk of being murdered. So there's that.
And one particular 79 year old.
The US doesn't have the institutions or culture in place to recruit and shepherd people into that kind of espionage. Or any espionage, really. We're notoriously horrible at HUMINT. With the possible exception of a brief period during the Cold War, we've always been hopelessly obsessed with developing and wielding technological solutions, not without some success, to be fair. Why spend $10 million on building a long-term HUMINT espionage program when we can pay Palantir $10 billion to run contractors to steal secrets remotely.
Israel... I dunno. Given the deep cultural and social ties and relatively easy mobility, and the fact most of the US and Israeli defense and information sectors are privatized and diffuse, Israel can probably just rely on poaching people, much like a corporation. By contrast, China's problem until recently has been brain drain. Chinese want to move to the US, China can just leverage that demand and flow of people.
I'm not sure Americans are any more susceptible to bribery than elsewhere. We're a tremendously wealthy country, with median incomes nearly twice those of even some wealthy Western European countries. The problem with recruiting established professionals is that access to highly valuable information is strongly correlated to career success, and career success means you have much more to lose, and thus less incentive to accept bribes, especially given how harsh our sentencing is compared to most of the rest of the world. (I wouldn't be surprised if corporate espionage results in longer prison time here than China, notwithstanding that for the really severe defense-related cases China will quickly put you to death, as shown by the recent CIA asset fiasco.) Most bribery cases seem to be low-level wage employees without much to offer except in exceptional situations, or government or military workers being paid much less than market rate compared to their counterpart in private industry. Elsewhere, the high-profile, high-level cases, most of the time it's not even clear the accusation is well founded.
While the current state of corporate espionage seems much more opaque, looking back at the history of French corporate espionage might be worthwhile. I don't know much about the specifics, but during the 1980s and 1990s France had a notoriously brazen corporate espionage program, much of which has been well documented and researched, so useful for understanding how it works generally.
And of course there was almost certainly a lot lost in the sudden withdrawal of USAID.
There's a lot of Israeli "cybersecurity" firms, some of which overtly make and sell spyware.
> I'm not sure Americans are any more susceptible to bribery than elsewhere
Americans are more expensive, but high level political bribery and compromise is possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_of_Paul_Manafort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina
Not so sure about that. I remember reading an interview, back in the '90s, with a lobbyist that was convicted and jailed for bribery. He said that US congress[wo]men were surprisingly cheap. He could get a billion-dollar contract awarded, for a couple of thousand bucks.
I think Johnny Walker Red[0] sold sub secrets (the worst kind), for just a couple of million bucks.
Then, there was ABSCAM[1]. That was embarrassing.
2. No re. second paragraph(?). How many of the recent high profile "leaks" have been driven by money? Most seemed ideological.
That said, when you read stories of people who did perform espionage for money, the dollar amounts are usually embarrassing. "Just do leetcode, bro."
I doubt we hear about the real damage.
But yeah, the idea that it's happening at scale seems somewhat farfetched.
In September 2023, News Corp reported that Rupert Murdoch would retire from the board of News Corporation. He would also retire from the board of Fox Corporation and his son Lachlan Murdoch would replace him on both boards. The retirement would take effect in November 2023.
The siblings voting rights in NewsCorp are inactive / on hold or somesuch and Lachlan has his block and his dad's, and there's a slew of detail.
...
"Preparing my report," Lawrence says. "Doesn't do me any good to make observations if I don't send them out."
"Quite right," Margaret says thoughtfully.
This is an excellent time to stoke the chapel's pathetic iron stove. He puts in a few scoops of precious coal, his worksheet, and the page from the one-time pad that he has just used to do the encryption. "Should warm up now," he says.
"Oh, lovely," Margaret says, "I'm all shivery."
Lawrence recognizes this as his cue to initiate a rescue operation. About fifteen seconds later, he is up there in the hammock with Margaret. To the great surprise of neither one of them, the quarters are awkward and tight. There is some flopping around which ends with Lawrence on his back and Margaret on top of him, her thigh between his.
She is shocked to discover that he has an erection. Ashamed, apparently, that she did not anticipate his need. "You poor dear!" she exclaims. "Of course! How could I have been so dense! You must have been so lonely here." She kisses his cheek, which is nice since he is too stunned to move. "A brave warrior deserves all the support we civilians can possibly give him," she says, reaching down with one hand to open his fly.
Then she pulls the grey wool over her head and burrows to a new position. Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse is stunned by what happens next. He gazes up at the ceiling of the chapel through half-closed eyes and thanks God for having sent him what is obviously a German spy and an angel of mercy rolled into one adorable package.
When it's finished, he opens his eyes again and takes a deep breath of cold Atlantic air. He is seeing everything around him with newfound clarity. Clearly, Margaret is going to do wonders for his productivity on the cryptological front--if he can only keep her coming back.
Also, the reason Singapore doesn't have Bangkok's sexpot image is that these clubs are waaaaaay more expensive, squarely targeted at Chinese speakers (although there is an equivalent Indian scene) and whiteys are a rare sight.
https://www.ricemedia.co/the-secret-business-of-thai-disco-a...
Since COVID, Singapore's retail scene has been almost entirely overtaken by Chinese chains. Coffee chains like Luckin Coffee, Chagee, and more are sprouting up everywhere, including in the heartlands. Ma la hotpot/stir fry outlets follow, and then there are the Chinese bubble tea chains like Mixue.
The underbelly is also entirely of mainland Chinese stock. Sex workers, masseuses, and KTV hostesses in Singapore are majority mainland Chinese, who collect tens of thousands a day from men who patronise these establishments.
The number of lonely male tech workers who engage in parasocial relationships online is not insignificant. Twenty years ago, I never would have believed that people would pay money just for some written or verbal acknowledgment from someone on the internet. Attractive female whom men "support" for an illusory relationship can milk thousands from some people.
Getting security clearances after background check shows payments of this type is probably difficult.
What is it on the Internet with calling women 'females'? I'd understand if you had written 'males' and 'females' OR 'men' and 'women'. This indicates an attempt at objectification to me.
I don't have a view one way or another but maybe this time it isn't about women.
I guess I am more attuned to this when the topic is "'sex warfare' by beautiful Russian and Chinese young women on nerds".
Historically, "man" comes from Old English "mann," which originally meant "human being" or "person" in a gender-neutral way, without specifying male or female. Back then, the word for a male human was actually "wer" (like in "werewolf"), and for female, it was "wif" (as in "wife"). Over time, "man" shifted to primarily mean "male," but terms like "mankind" hung onto that older, inclusive sense.
So, using "man" in the "mankind" context isn't really a misuse or inherently sexist: it's tapping into the word's original roots. That said, I get why folks prefer "male" and "female" for clarity today. Peace!
I understand the ethymologic perspective, but the above statement is part of on going discussion.
E.g. > To refer to all human beings, use terms like “individuals,” “people,” or “persons” rather than “man” or “mankind” to be accurate and inclusive.
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-...
I personally like 'man' as it had a poetic ring to me. I also think it makes sense to pay attention to the differing perception of language, as I want to be able to communicate effectively with all kinds of people.
I use "Males" or "Men", and "Females" or "Women" interchangeably. This is the first time I see anyone indicating there is a connotation for objectification there.
The Peter Thiel's of SV are presumed immune from sexpionage by The Times?
When I look at instances in my social circle, it seems like it doesn't really work. The relationships typically seem to suffer from a lack of mutual interests. The woman's beauty quickly dwindles as time passes. And the woman feels like she is missing out on a "real life" because all she does is be at the side of the man, instead of building her own career. The attraction of the man seems to dwindle quickly too. I know a few such couples, where the man told me that their sex life is dead, even though he wished it were different.
What that tells me is that to work on your attractiveness, working on your career is not the way to go.
The match-up of pretty female and ambitious and successful male can and has worked through all of history. Yes beauty fades, which is why there better be other layers of connection, but that doesn’t have to be shared interests. I share very little interests in common with my wife of 34 years. We don’t connect in that way. We connect on the level of mutual respect, mutual need, and mutual service.
Our society has become so disconnected from concepts like “respect” and “service.” We are amusing ourselves to death, as the saying goes. But these things work. They are timeless.
Yet, we spend 1 hour hanging out in the morning every single day while we drink together the coffee I make in a $25 drip coffee machine.
Secret of a long marriage! 20 years going strong.
This article jumps right in the deep end, quoting a Silicon Valley insider:
> I’m getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn requests from the same type of attractive young Chinese woman,
Now on the first read you might think "is that it?" -- is this seriously what the article is about? But the same insider also said:
> It really seems to have ramped up recently.
So yeah, like I said.
nreece•3h ago