Archisman Goswami

Once more, as in centuries past, wars are rather easily started and then fought without perceptible restraint – remarked noted strategic theorist Edward Luttwak in his 1995 essay on the re-emergence of what he glumly termed ‘Post-Heroic Warfare’. “Present circumstances call for even more than a new concept of war, but for a new mentality that would inject unheroic realism into military endeavour precisely to overcome excessive timidity in employing military means”.

Luttwak’s assertions, capturing the strategic zeitgeist of the post-Cold War era and written primarily in relation to contemporary military tactics, could well have been written yesterday. The attempted mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in Russia this summer, and the subsequent mysterious death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin testifies to the fact that the modern global security arena is characterised both by the resurgence of state competition, and the increased salience of private security actors and the “weaponisation of everything”. As strategic competitors to India such as China openly championing their strategy of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’ and blurring the lines between state and the private sector in national security affairs, there is yet time to acknowledge the ‘unheroic realism’ and lack of ‘perceptible restraint’ still guiding hostile strategic interactions in our brave new decade.

Perhaps nowhere are these confluent facets- a lack of restraint, the blurring of lines between state and non-state actors in the security arena, and the ‘weaponisation of everything’– more evident than with regards to private intelligence companies (PICs), whose role within geopolitical competition has remained relatively understudied in comparison to its martial counterpart, private military companies (PMCs). Like the latter, the former provides plausible deniability for both states and high net-worth individuals (HNIs) willing to pay the requisite fees for their services. As such, the expanding role of PICs presents novel counterintelligence risks and opportunities for countries such as India, which must contend with the possibility of their use by countries such as China, but also to a lesser extent, Pakistan. This article seeks to identify some of these risks and outline recommendations to counter them from an Indian perspective.

PICs: A brief explainer

The emergence of PICs dovetails that of the modern national intelligence service in the 19th century. As early as the 1860s, Pinkerton, among the world’s oldest PICs still in operation, was tasked by the administration of Abraham Lincoln with conducting counterintelligence operations against the Confederacy during the American Civil War – a responsibility that it pursued alongside “strikebreaking” and “unionbusting” workers on behalf of individual tycoons and wealthy corporations during America’s so-called ‘Gilded Age’. In line with this temporal setting, the popular image of a privately-hired spy remains associated with that of the stereotypical private investigator – a Chandleresque, trench-coated and trilby-hatted shadowy figure skulking around a street corner.

Over a century on, PICs maintain a close – though not always even-tempered –  relationship with governments, often being provided with legal/political protection by the latter in exchange for their services and the promise of plausible deniability in intelligence operations. In the 1990s, the fledgling Russian Federation, under Boris Yeltsin, tasked US PIC Kroll in 1992 with tracking down funds siphoned away from the state during the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the same company being contracted by the Filipino and Kuwaiti governments to gather intelligence on Ferdinand Marcos’ and Saddam Hussein’s secret bank accounts respectively. More recently, governments such as Iran and China have been known to use PICs to spy on dissidents and conduct covert operations against adversary states. However, this relationship has not been universally equanimous. The so-called ‘Trump dossier’, supposedly containing kompromat on the then newly-elected President of the USA, Donald Trump, was released in 2017 by spy-for-hire Christopher Steele- contracted by Fusion GPS, a Washington DC-based “opposition research firm”. Beyond governments, HNIs may also seek to defend their interests or target governments using PICs, with private intelligence operatives hired by Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, claiming in 2019 to have obtained evidence of the Saudi government hacking his cell phone.

With their centrality thus established in both politics and business, it is no wonder that the private intelligence sector today is a multi-million-dollar industry. In London, seen by many as the PIC capital of the world, the private intelligence industry is estimated to be worth as high as $19 billion, serving clients ranging from finance and legal firms, high net-worth individuals, and even governments. PICs such as Hakluyt, Black Cube, and most notably, firms such as Bellingcat have all made their mark on the modern global security landscape. As the lines blur between civilian society and its associated legal, financial and political institutions on one hand, and the strategic realm on the other, it may be forecast that PICs will only grow in terms of both financial and geopolitical importance. It is in this regard that India, with its growing clout on the global stage and status as a regional power, must account for the new counterintelligence challenges posed by the deployment of PICs by adversary states for strategic gain.

PICs: India and Counterintelligence challenges for the 2020s

With national security in the 21st Century necessitating greater liaison between governments and the private sector, one of the accompanying risks of such public-private partnership may be argued to be the increased scope it offers for PIC interference. Indeed, like most other global powers, India in recent years has expanded technical cooperation between the state and the private sector, particularly in the fields of cybersecurity and space technology. While central to India’s national security needs, the pursuit of public-private partnerships must be done in consideration of the ease it provides to PICs, hired by adversary states, to access state secrets. Unlike intra and inter-governmental interactions, the private sector lends itself to greater internal transparency – something which may be exploited by PICs. Given the fact that PICs themselves operate in the free market, their cohabitation of this space with private companies with close ties to the government holds the potential to allow the compromise of strategic interests, and give India’s adversaries a competitive advantage – comprising a significant counterintelligence challenge in the process.

A more imminent risk lies in the use of PICs by adversary states to interfere in India’s political and electoral processes, or those of countries. While ‘covert action’ as conducted by PICs remains among the most opaque aspects of their activity, their forays into the spheres of disinformation and election interference have been well recorded in recent years, ranging from ‘Team Jorge’s’ alleged interference in Kenya’s recent elections on behalf of key candidates, to the hiring of PIC ‘Team Alpha’ by South Korea’s intelligence agencies to interfere in the country’s own elections. Global precedents aside, India is no stranger to the involvement of PICs in electoral processes, with political candidates having long been alleged to have used Indian PICs to gather information on their rivals, much like their international counterparts. The weaponisation of PICs by adversary states such as China, however, may lend a more sinister touch to such activities, with the use of PICs to spread disinformation, or to support/undermine specific candidates having key national security implications for India.

Beyond the dissemination of black or grey propaganda, however, PICs may be actively used to harm or harass Indian diplomats, or persons of interest on behalf of hostile states, but also high net-worth individuals and economic offenders based abroad. Once again, precedent points towards the possible use of private spies by economic offenders based abroad to obfuscate or subvert legal proceedings aimed at their extradition back to India. Similarly, PICs may be used to stalk or otherwise badger Indian nationals and diplomats, particularly in third countries where law enforcement have been known to demonstrate laxity towards such issues. Possibilities range from simple stalking and physical surveillance, to more intimidatory tactics such as the staging of break-ins, or hacking/tapping sensitive computer systems or phone lines. The use of such tactics- which may serve to help both hostile states such as China seeking to undermine Indian strategic interests, or absconding tycoons seeking an edge in legal cases filed against them in foreign courts- must be accounted for by central agencies developing new counterintelligence strategies against private spies.

Future Scope and Recommendations

Using PICs, or any private security actor more generally, is always a double-edged sword. While they may provide governments with plausible deniability to avoid embarrassment or diplomatic retaliation, their mercenary nature may equally present challenges the nation’s strategic interests, especially if the balance of power between themselves and the state tips towards the former due to existing circumstances- as the mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in Russia this summer and the subsequent mysterious death of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a plane crash shows. It is with these considerations in mind that one may present the following recommendations for Indian counterintelligence practitioners in dealing with them.

First, third-party individuals or organisations with reliably tied in with Indian strategic interests may be used to liaise with large PICs and to develop contacts within them. In Western countries, particularly the UK, US and Canada, where the private intelligence industry is more organised and active, these intermediaries may include industrialists, journalists, and other influential figures with connections within both local diaspora communities and the financial/political establishment. Brokers such as these may be used to provide information about the distinct functioning of PICs in relation to their local environments, while facilitating access to their internal plans- even as they add to the distance between these companies and India’s local diplomatic presence to avoid embarrassment or the compromise of information. These tactics of adaptive denial would also aid Indian authorities in developing a better understanding of PICs, and the risks and opportunities they pose in terms of counterintelligence.

Second, and from a legalistic standpoint, India may consider amendments to domestic laws regulating private detective/intelligence agencies. While the government did pass the Private Detective Agencies (Regulation) Bill in 2007, which from a counterintelligence perspective, reflected some limited efforts to prevent their use by adversary states against Indian interests- for instance, only allowing Indian citizens to operate as registered private detectives in the country, and making such agencies register with the government. Sixteen years on, however, the insufficiency of these measures are clearer than ever.

The emergence of insider threats have made questions surrounding citizenship increasingly irrelevant in the counterintelligence sector- as seen in the recent arrests of former naval officer Ashish Pathak and freelance journalist Vivek Raghuvanshi for spying for unnamed foreign powers. The existing laws may be amended by introducing provisions for random and regular ‘re-vetting’ of private detectives/ spies, and the provision of additional powers to the Intelligence Bureau to investigate the activities of such agencies operating at home.

Third, the national security establishment may consider establishing specialised units to advise and oversee the security procedures implemented by private companies working with the government on sensitive projects. Regular auditing of these partners security procedures, liaising with their insider threat detection units (and aiding their establishment if non-existent), and the development of common strategies would not only prevent the risk of foreign PIC operatives compromising India’s interests, but also increase trust and cooperation between the state and its private partners on joint projects.

Offensive tactics may also be considered when dealing with hostile PICs, and the government may be well advised to countervail them by utilising other PICs itself. However, if it chooses to do so, it would be worth considering the potential counterintelligence risks of their use- including the potentiality of information being compromised by these mercenary actors, and the associated risks of increased access to the state by private actors driven by profit.

The interplay between market forces, represented by PICs, and better-defined state actors, is one that despite its apparent novelty, simply illustrates the broad spectrum of actors that India has had to deal with in the past, and will have to continue dealing with in the future. For New Delhi to be successful in this endeavour, it will have to acknowledge their associated risks and opportunities- and account more explicitly for them in its future pursuit of counterintelligence.

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Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics – Part 2

Case of Edward Peng Xuehua

Edward Peng Xuehua’s case exposed one of the ways that Chinese intelligence officers work to collect classified information from the United States without having to step foot in this country.

Peng first came to the United States in 2001 on a business visa and stayed legally as a non-immigrant worker. He married and in 2006 became a permanent resident, and six years after that became a full citizen. He had a registered business, US Tour and Travel, which served visitors from China planning to study in the United States.

Peng handled dead drops of sensitive information on behalf of Beijing’s Ministry of State Security was sentenced on 17 March 2020 to four years in prison and $30,000 fine for spying for China.

Peng was arrested in Hayward, California, in September 2019 for arranging transfers of money and SD cards loaded with stolen data in different locations across the United States on behalf of China’s premier intelligence body. Peng pleaded guilty in federal district court in Oakland, California, to one charge of illegally acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.

Peng, 56, was exposed by what court filings said was a “double agent operation” targeting the MSS. The operation led them to Peng, who in 2015 was seen picking up an SD card with US secrets that the double agent, under instructions from her Chinese “handlers,” left inside a book at the front desk of a hotel in Newark, California.

Months later Peng was watched picking up another book dropped at the same hotel that also held a secrets-loaded memory card. He then flew to Beijing where, according to investigators, he contacted MSS agents and handed over the card.

The FBI watched on several other occasions between 2016 and 2018 when Peng either picked up the stolen US secrets or left money for the double agent in hotels in both the San Francisco area and Columbus, Georgia, at the direction of MSS agents.

Stephen Su’s Case

Chinese national Stephen Su aka Stephen Subin aka Su Bin, a businessman and entrepreneur residing in Canada, who specialized in aviation and aerospace products as the owner of a company named Lode-Tech, was arrested in Canada after an affidavit was put in by the FBI giving evidence that Su Bin and two others had broken into Boeing and other companies stealing data on the C-17 as well as F22 Raptor and JSF projects.

In August 2014, a Los Angeles grand jury indicted Su Bin for his involvement in a cyber-espionage scheme perpetrated by PLA hackers.

Su Bin managed to make close business contacts within the global defense industry community, and used those contacts to gain insight into protected technology and eventually unfettered entry into company files.

Between 2008 and 2014, Bin helped two People’s Liberation Army hackers steal more than 630,000 files from Boeing related to the C-17 cargo aircraft. The group also targeted data related to the F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft. Su Bin instructed the hackers on which individuals, companies, and technologies to target, and helped translate the data they obtained from English to Chinese. Bin and his co-conspirators also drafted and distributed reports directly to a department in the PLA’s General Staff Headquarters. Such reports specifically identified what they obtained, how they obtained it and its value to their financial benefactors.

By 2014, the U.S. Dept of Justuce (DOJ) had enough evidence to convince the Canadian government to arrest the suspect and consider an extradition request. Su Bin waived his rights to the extradition process and agreed to return to the U.S. to face the charges.

Xiaoqing Zheng’s Case

Xiaoqing Zheng, 59, of Niskayuna, New York, was convicted of conspiracy to commit economic espionage and sentenced, on 31 March 2022, to 24 months in prison for conspiring to steal General Electric (GE) trade secrets, to benefit China.

Zheng was employed at GE Power in Schenectady, New York, as an engineer specializing in turbine sealing technology from 2008 until the summer of 2018. Zheng and others in China conspired to steal GE’s trade secrets surrounding GE’s ground-based and aviation-based turbine technologies.

He hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Zheng then mailed to himself. It was a technique called steganography, a means of hiding a data file within the code of another data file. Zheng utilised it on multiple occasions to take sensitive files from GE.

Xiaoqing Zheng was a Thousand Talents Program member and willingly stole proprietary technology and sent it back to China.

Xu Yanjun’s Case

On 10 October 2018, the FBI arrested Xu Yanjun, a Chinese intelligence agent who had been targeting an employee of GE Aviation to acquire trade secrets on the company’s jet engines. Xu was arrested when he met the target employee in Belgium in April 2018and was extradited to the United States in October and charged with economic espionage.

The target was contacted from a Chinese university that expressed interest in the target’s work from an academic standpoint. The target was invited to travel to China to talk about his and his company’s work. While there, he was introduced to his case officer who was using a cover identity.

The case officer held out another invitation to him to visit China and instructed him on the means of packaging info and transmitting it.

Eventually the target was invited to a meeting in Belgium, and asked to bring his company computer and hand off more technical data.

Xu used the aliases and a cover identity as representative of a professional organization called the Jiangsu Science and Technology Promotion Association. In his work, Xu was also identified as interacting with the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Xu Yanjun was charged on 10 October 2018 with conspiring to steal trade secrets from major US aviation and aerospace companies. Xu was identified in the charges as an agent of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). 

The FBI was aware of Xu Yanjun having set up a meeting with the target engineer in Belgium that would involve the hand-off of more sensitive information.

Xu pleaded not guilty in federal court in Cincinnati on 12 October 2018. Xu was sentenced on 16 Nov 2022 to 20 years in prison for plotting to steal trade secrets from from US and French aviation and aerospace companies. Xu Yanjun was accused of a lead role in a five-year Chinese state-backed scheme to steal commercial secrets from GE Aviation and France’s Safran Group, which was working with GE on engine development.

Jun Wei Yeo’s Case

Yeo Jun Wei aka Dickson Yeo, a Singaporean and a Chinese agent pleaded guilty on 24 July 2020, at the US District Court, Columbia, of spying.

Yeo was first approached by Chinese agents while he was studying and made a presentation on Southeast Asia’s political situation at Beijing in 2015. He was offered a contract to work with the PLA. Yeo refused to sign the contract but he continued to assist and work for the intelligence service.

Between 2015 and 2019, Yeo had made frequent trips to China, meeting different operatives for at least 40 times. When Yeo was in United States, he was instructed not to communicate with the intelligence officers to avoid interception. Yeo was issued with a bank card to facilitate payments to his targets.

Yeo recruited Americans to provide information that he would pass back to his PRC handlers. He concealed his PRC affiliation from his recruits. He identified their vulnerabilities, like dissatisfaction with work or financial difficulties, and offered money in exchange for information and written reports.

Yeo began working with Chinese intelligence officers as early as 2015, initially targeting other Asian countries, but then focusing on the United States.  In response to taskings from his Chinese handlers, Yeo worked to spot and assess Americans with access to valuable non-public information, including U.S. military and government employees with high-level security clearances.  After Yeo identified American targets, he solicited them for non-public information and paid them to write reports.  Yeo told these American targets that the reports were for clients in Asia, without revealing that they were in fact destined for the Chinese government.

In 2018, Yeo created a fake consulting company that used the same name as a prominent U.S. consulting firm that conducts public and government relations, and Yeo posted job advertisements under that company name. Ninety percent of the resumes Yeo received in response were from U.S. military and government personnel with security clearances, and he passed resumes of interest to one of the Chinese intelligence operatives. Yeo also used a professional networking website that is focused on career and employment information to carry out the taskings he received from Chinese intelligence officials. 

In 2015, through LinkedIn, Yeo spotted and contacted a civilian who was working with United States Air Force on the F-35B military aircraft programme. The civilian held high-level security clearance, and was having financial trouble.

Sometime later, when Yeo had enrolled an Army officer to write a report for money, one of the Chinese intelligence officers instructed Yeo to recruit him to provide classified information. Yeo returned to United States in November 2019 with plans to ask the Army officer to provide classified information, and reveal who he was actually working for. However, upon arrival at the airport, Yeo was stopped by law enforcement, questioned, and eventually arrested. No further contact with the Army officer could be made by Yeo.

Yeo was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment on 9 October 2020.  After release by USA on 30 December 2020 and upon return to Singapore, he was detained before being released on 14 December 2021 conditionally after they ascertained he no longer posed a threat to the intelligence of Singapore.

READ ALSO: Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics – Part 1

The post Proven Cases of Espionage in the US appeared first on IMR.

China’s main espionage activities in the United States are the illegal export of military and dual use technology. Of the 260 cases documented or in courts, 80 per cent occurred in the US. 43.7 per cent of these cases related to (in the US) IEEPA, EAR, and ITAR violations.

Known intelligence operations conducted by the Chinese have thrown up a basic question. What is the percentage of cases which have come to light? Is it 10 per cent or 90 per cent of Chinese operations. Quite likely the former. So, how many people are spying worldwide on behalf of the Chinese government? No one knows the answer. Yet some conclusions can be drawn.

Key Findings

There are over 600 documented cases of China’s worldwide intelligence collection efforts. Some of the major findings are:

•  There has been a phenomenal expansion of its espionage efforts over the last  20 years.

•  Many Chinese government agencies, People’s Liberation Army, State Owned Enterprises, private companies, individuals, and several universities are involved in conducting espionage.

•  A major effort is directed towards military and space technologies.

•  Predominantly (over 90 per cent) of espionage activities involve Chinese ethnic people, of whom 80 per cent are males.

•  Social media is used by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) to target foreigners with access to sensitive information.

•  Visa and border control system is used by the MSS to identify potential recruitments and manage clandestine assets.

•  Almost half of China’s traditional espionage efforts are targeted against Taiwan (political and military secrets).

•  Priority technologies have been identified in government strategic planning documents

•  Made in China 2025, Space Science and Technology in China, and A Road- map to 2050, the National Key Technologies R&D Program, and the 13th Five Year Plan – for foreign science and technology collection efforts.

•  China follows a ‘whole of society’ approach to espionage, which negatively affects America’s economy, diplomatic influence, and military capabilities.

•  China uses espionage  and coercion against government entities and business decision making to threaten European national and economic security

Legal Framework for Espionage

The CCP uses all elements of society, ie, universities, think tanks, foreign affairs departments, government sponsored overseas educational programs, military liaison programs, friendship and student associations, etc, – and through them, foreign government officials, scientists, academics, and students – to support its global espionage efforts. All Chinese government departments are required to support Ministry of State Security (MSS) intelligence operations.

China’s legal system has been moulded to ensure the intelligence apparatus can exploit private industry to gain access to foreign individuals, secrets, and technology. In 2014, 2015, and 2017, the National People’s Congress and State Council made public the requirements that all Chinese citizens and companies (operating in China or Chinese companies abroad) must collaborate in gathering intelligence.

Article 22 of the 2014 Counter-Espionage Law states that during a counter-espionage investigation, ‘relevant organizations and individuals’ must ‘truthfully provide’ information and ‘must not refuse’.

Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 states that “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of the national intelligence work known to the public. The state protects individuals and organizations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.”

Article 14 provides intelligence agencies authority to compel any entity to provide this support: “The state intelligence work organization shall carry out intelligence work according to law, and may require relevant organs, organizations and citizens to provide necessary support, assistance and cooperation.”

The National Intelligence Law Implementing Regulations, was published in November 2017, which explained that “When state security organs carry out the tasks of counter-espionage work in accordance with the law, and citizens and organizations that are obliged to provide facilities or other assistance according to the law refuse to do so, this constitutes an intention to obstruct the state security organs from carrying out the tasks of counter-espionage work according to law.”

Companies and citizens face severe punishments for noncompliance.

Chinese Organizations Conducting Espionage

Espionage activities correlated to their sponsoring organization (the “customer” receiving the information or technology) showed five distinct clusters of organizations engaging in espionage. The governing CCP uses government, quasi-government, academic, and commercial entities as mechanisms to conduct all forms espionage abroad. Most interesting of these are China’s ‘non-traditional collectors’ which include State Owned Enterprises, universities, and private companies. The employment of such a broad set of entities for intelligence collection indicates China’s ‘whole of society’ approach to espionage.

China’s Ministry of State Security or Ministry of State Security (MSS) was formed in June 1983.

Central Military Commission (CMC) Joint Staff Department, Intelligence Bureau (formerly 2 PLA) is responsible for collecting and analyzing foreign military intelligence including technology.

People’s Liberation Army (PLA) collection capabilities include military attaches conducting overt and clandestine collection, students, and other collectors under government and commercial covers.

There are 150,000 State Owned Enterprises (SOE) of which 50,000 are owned by the central government and include aerospace and defense companies, subordinate research institutes, and technology transfer organizations. In 2018, Xi Jinping directed all SOEs to amend their bylaws to ensure the concepts of service to the CCP keeping national and economic security above  profit.

Some private companies and individuals indulge in illegal exports or trade secrets for commercial benefit. University are often  involved in establishing shadow labs to copy foreign research and commercial production facilities to replicate foreign material and technology.

Other PRC government elements like PLA Political Department Liaison Office, United Front Work Department (UFWD) and many universities under  the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) work for espionage.

SASTIND

SASTIND assigns research projects to ministries with military production responsibilities and manages military acquisition requirements for the CMC’s Equipment Department. SASTIND has two departments (Comprehensive Planning Department and the International Cooperation Department) responsible for developing and tasking technology related intelligence requirements, and for collecting intelligence related to them. MSS and PLA Joint Intelligence Bureau are also involved.

SASTIND also has direct supervision over seven universities as well as                       contracts for defense research with 55 additional universities. As many as 35 institutes and universities are on the US Department of Commerce Entities List for their  research in support of Chinese defense entities involved in the theft  of technologies.

There is a near equal distribution of espionage activities between the four major organizational clusters (MSS, SOE, PLA, Private Companies).

Aerospace & Aeronautical Equipment

China strongly focuses on collection of foreign aerospace and aeronautical equipment. The primary collectors are the PLA Joint Intelligence Bureau and private  companies conducting export violations, and individuals (Insider Threats) working in foreign aerospace companies.

Key technologies stolen or attempted are: Cryogenic pumps for space vehicles, valves, transfer lines, refrigeration equipment, space qualified radiation hardened circuits, components for the storage and use of liquid hydrogen, cryogenic coolers, Ka-band space communications, satellite/missile insulation blankets – germanium coated polyimide film, and multi octave travelling wave tubes used as amplifiers in satellite transponders. Major systems include the Space Shuttle, Delta IV Rocket, F-15 Fighter, C-17 transport, F-22 Fighter, F-35 Fighter, B-1 Bomber, Ch 46/47 Chinook, C-130 training equipment and much more.

Information Technology

Information technology is a high priority target with strong  emphasis on advanced semiconductors and manufacturing technology. The US restricted semiconductor sales to the Chinese company ZTE for evading sanctions on Iran and North Korea and repeatedly lying to Department of Commerce officials and lifted the ban after the company paid a $1 billion fine and agreed to reprimand its Board. Chinese company Huawei faces charges of espionage in the United States, Germany, and Poland.

Key information technology objectives include microelectronics, microwave integrated circuits, microprocessors, circuit boards, crypto key devices, data and voice transmission systems, semiconductors, and trade secrets such as laser manufacturing techniques.

Analysis of Espionage Cases

China’s dominant espionage activities overseas are economic espionage, and export control violations. Half of them are related to ITAR, EAR, IEEPA, covert action, research violations in high-tech sectors.

Next is economic espionage. Traditional espionage comprises one-fourth of all espionage activity.

‘Silicon Valley’ in northern California is the number one spot for China’s illegal technology collection efforts.

Information technology, aerospace and aeronautical equipment takes priority over automated machine tools and robotics.

Research universities are also primary targets for collection efforts most often accomplished through talent programs (i.e. Thousand Talents Program, Hundred Talents Program, etc.). In numerous cases, professors, graduate students, and PLA researchers have also been arrested stealing research from overseas universities for use in China.

Chinese spies have used public and commercial encryption, hosting meetings in China  to avoid detection, dead drops, covert communications) and use of third countries for meetings.

Surprisingly a number of cases have been detected where the Ministry of State Security demonstrated no discernible tradecraft in agent recruitment, tasking, communications, and data transfer with no significant attempt to hide the activity.

READ ALSO: Chinese Espionage Operations and Tactics – Part 2

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ALSO READ: Philosophy and Methodology of Intelligence and Big Tech – Part 1

Human Error – ‘Free Will’ is the Hurdle

The paper points toward an interesting thing – the element of ‘Free Will’ in human minds. It says that in the future, with the invention of technologies and enhancement in intelligence research, the exactitude of predictions will certainly grow but it will never reach total precision. And the reason for that is the “Man has an element of free will, and can always act irrationally, even against his own interests.” As long as men with ‘free will’ are there, there is no way to verify the conjectures about the intentions, and free will can surprise anytime. One can say that the ‘Human Error’ that these tech products and improvisations are trying to minimize is Free Will, which was a key hurdle in influencing/controlling the system in the past.

New Improvisations

Nothing has affected the ‘Free Will’ of humanity more strongly than the Corona pandemic. While waiting for the lockdowns and restrictions to go over, everyone was literally forced to spend more and more time on technology platforms. Many businesses around the world and the very idea of their existence vanished during this phase and everyone seems to lose something or the other but we cannot let this fact go unnoticed that it is the Big Tech club that has emerged as the biggest beneficiaries of Covid pause. The recent stats on their quarterly revenue tell a lot.

Google, Microsoft, and Apple’s combined revenue crossed over $50 billion in the April-June quarter. Facebook saw a 101% increase (as compared to the same quarter in 2020) and for Amazon, it was the third consecutive $100 billion quarter, its sales grew 27% to $113 billion, in the last three months.

On one hand, in between the news on new variants and third wave, many countries are still struggling to recover, and to restart their economic cycle, on the other hand, the Big Tech owners have started pursuing new aspirations in new domains, not in cyber but in the physical world i.e. farmland, sea and space.

The Case of India

In Arthshastra, Aacharya Chanakya has said: “ACQUISITION and SECURITY, are dependent upon peace and industry. Efforts to achieve the results of works undertaken is – industry. Absence of disturbance to the enjoyment of the results achieved from works is – peace.”

While the Indian government is drafting the guidelines for social media and eCommerce, these tech giants have already started entering into new domains and sectors. Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon have already started capturing the fin-tech and payment markets; there are already Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Facebook Pay and WhatsApp’s recent P2P money transfer feature.

Now they have started exploring microcredit, digital insurance, MSMEs, retailers and social commerce and their growing financial portfolio is a serious matter, from the national security point of view. Recently, the RBI warned against these patterns which can cause financial destabilization in the long run.

After one and a half-decade of behind-the-scene predatory practices, they are now in an open fight with the domestic companies. Now there is frequent news about small traders, retailers, startups and telecom operators raising concerns over the FDI and trade policy violations and on the unethical/discriminatory business approach of these US content providers. The confederation of all Indian traders (CAIT), a body of over 8 crore Indian traders, was forced to move the Supreme Court against the hegemony of Amazon and Flipcart kind of eCommerce platforms and their alliance with selected suppliers and local private banks.

In 2019, during Reagan National Defense Forum, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos shared his deep commitment toward the home country’s intelligence and defence department’s interests and criticized fellow Big Tech players for not doing enough on their part, out of the pressure of some of their employees and socio-public groups. And he said: “If Big Tech is going to turn their backs on the Department of Defense, this country is in trouble. That just can’t happen.”

A recent development is that Amazon is planning to diversify its entertainment portfolio in India too and looking for ways to acquire multiple film and media distribution players.

Economic security is one of the most important dimensions of national security, and the question before countries like India, who are embracing the Big Tech products to the fullest is – how they will deal with this situation where things are now beyond simple profit/loss calculations.

Perception Management

Social media platforms are the biggest mediums of trend creation, and trends can build/affect/and can damage the perceptions.

When the song of a school kid from some remote village, goes viral on social media, the chief minister of the state invites the kid to his house and felicitates him, literally, for being viral. Even though it seems a normal and healthy trend but unknowingly such activities legitimize social media to shape and control the narration. And this is not the first time, there are many such incidents in the past when some street singer, some Baba ka Dhaba, some housewives, some old person, getting the name, money and fame overnight and all these heart-touching stories, for a moment make people think that is the real power of social media, this is the real empowerment of the common people!

Now, this is something which is visible, it is a visible trend, there is a need to look at that is not visible, which is hidden and, if speaking in the language of intelligence, then let us test those hypotheses for which there is not enough information that can refute it.

From the last 3-4 years, a tsunami of social media influencers belonging to all age groups, all castes and communities and all classes of the society is emerging on these platforms. There are thousands of influencers who are running their shops on these tech platforms – YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. They have enormous viewership and one can say that if these are the real numbers, then they have good public support too. When they produce something viral, their content spreads like corona virus, they go global and then they receive endorsement/promotion from the local and global perception management ecosystems, existing in politics, media and businesses.

These tech platforms provide the opportunity to not just earn money but to earn name, fame and brand as well. On one hand, these trends develop some aspirations in the rest of the young minds. Today, we see engineering kids turning more and more YouTubers, Rappers, and Standup comedians, at a time when we need the engineering talent most. There is nothing wrong with pursuing creative talent but it is about the mindset of switching on or off a trend.

On the other hand, what kind of content these influencers produce needs to be seen as well. Around 98 per cent of these influencers produce content that promotes anti-national sentiments and social divide in the name of caste/ community/ regionalism/ language, etc. They promote violence, vulgarity, abuse and all sorts of objectionable/ unethical things. In a way, they are trying to bring some of those challenges of the past, from which India is working hard to move on.

Let us assume a future scenario – what if the Indian government has passed some bill in parliament, which is in the interests of the business, economy or any other larger national interest like the Article 370 abrogation, CAA or recent agricultural reforms. What if these foreign tech platforms would ask their influencers to use their power to create chaos in the society (if that law does not suit their particular interest group/ lobby)?

This is a job of creating misinformation and disinformation. Can one expect these social influencers to act independently and freely and with some sensitivity toward the national security interests of India? Unfortunately, for a majority of them, we cannot! And what if they continued with the foreign agenda? How would the security agencies be able to deal with the tsunami of social influencers, which is paid by, nurtured by, promoted by foreign platforms!

That’s a serious national security concern.

Conclusion

What is the solution? Solutions come to mind only when we think about changing our role – from Guest to Host. We are more on the receiving and defending side. The situation needs to be turned around.

Big Tech is a business model that is based on the study of psychological and behavioral aspects of the human mind. We will have to think about what unique capabilities do we possess and what, as a country, we can offer to the world, which would be more magnificent and productive for the future of humanity!

These platforms are the result of a few decades of investment (on information, technology, and the human mind) but we have a unique asset with the history of thousands of years of investment – the Bhartiya Mind.

To recall that heritage and to encourage the young Indian minds, there is a need to work on the two dimensions simultaneously, and with equal priority.

The potential of business and market information of India, as well as the war strategies/ doctrines of the world, need to be promoted in a big way, among the youth and professional community.

This will help them in developing self-consciousness and with a self-conscious mind, they will be able to explore their own country’s potential in a better way and will be able to craft business strategies, based on an understanding of human instinct/ psychology. That in the future would be able to disrupt the tech dominance.

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Big Tech and Big Data are the two most talked-about trends of our time. From their ever-increasing dominance to staggering market cap numbers, to anti-trust/regulatory issues to ideological conflict with the elected governments/representatives of the world, to new stunts in space, for several reasons, they make headlines more often than any other business on earth.

While discussing the Big Tech and Big Data people often tend to forget that there is an interesting history and background associated with their origin, perhaps because that is one of the least discussed matters of our time.

Computer, internet and cyber, the foundational elements of Big Data and Big Tech, have been invented as an outcome of military and intelligence R&D projects.

The person who used the term ‘cyber’ for the first time, an American philosopher and mathematician Norbert Wiener, in his book (1948) “Cybernetics – or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine,” his thesis was that “a society can only be understood through the study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine, are destined to play an ever-increasing part.” His next book, which came two years later in 1950, was “The Human Use of Human Beings,” and the theories given in the book inspired many automation efforts that we see today.

As a Tool of Intelligence and Surveillance

Big Tech companies are often propagated as the ultimate dream of an entrepreneur. For many people, these are the ‘garage startups,’ initiated by some college dropouts and computer scientists, who accidentally, one fine day, caught the attention of some visionary venture capitalist, who decided to fund and to bet on those childish-looking ideas and later those ideas, as we know, conquered the whole world! Those stories of hard work, determination, and dedication, are indeed inspiring.

But at the same time, there is a long history of the American scientist fraternity, their businesses and intelligence communities working together as well, from the creation of atomic bombs to satellites to the famous moon landing efforts. And the internet itself is an enhanced version of ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency Network) of the United States’ Department of Defense.

Producing commercial entities as the joint initiatives of defense and intelligence agencies, which can bring massive mutually beneficial information, is a part of the United States’ long strategic tradition. The Silicon Valley and the consortium of tech startups that it produced, which we today refer to as Big Tech, are also not the exception.

Generally, when we say Big Tech, we refer to a few US tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, and from the last one or two years, Twitter is also seen as a part of this club. But there are dozens of other tech companies, quite big in operation and scale, that exist in Silicon Valley, like Instagram, LinkedIn, HP, Adobe, Cisco, Oracle, eBay, Uber, Tinder, Airbnb, Spotify, Foursquare, AngeryBirds, Lyft, etc. If we zoom in and observe their business models, we find that these have embedded advanced surveillance capabilities from the beginning.

Silicon Valley – the Background

The stories behind the foundation of Silicon Valley, which has been branded as the ultimate destination of innovation and entrepreneurship and projected as an aspiration for the young Indian minds too, are equally unique.

It is quite a known fact that the defence contracts of the 1950s and 60s were the lifeblood of the Valley. Frederick Emmons Terman, the leader of Allied radio-jamming efforts in World War II, is credited as the father of the Silicon Valley. It is said that after the War, Terman returned to Stanford University and was appointed the dean of the School of Engineering. And in 1951, he spearheaded the creation of Stanford Industrial Park, which is now called the Stanford Research Park and the ‘engine’ of Silicon Valley, as it is home to over 150 high-tech startups, including HP, VMware, Tesla, Steve Jobs’ NeXT computer, and Facebook, etc. It was Terman’s vision to lease the Stanford University’s land to these high-tech firms.

The entrepreneurial journey of Silicon Valley started with military contracts for microwave and vacuum-tube technologies that were used in aerospace projects, then in the 1960s, they received lucrative contracts in the government’s space and defence programmes, including the popular Minuteman missile effort. For these high-tech startups of the Valley, the CIA and US defense department were their first clients.

Later, the US intelligence community-focused venture capital fund In-Q-Tel was launched too, which intended to finance companies whose products were of interest to the CIA and other agencies. In-Q-Tel’s portfolio now includes security companies such as FireEye and data analysis firms like Palantir Technologies.

The ideas of ‘venture capital’ and venture capitalist were coined to encourage the private sector investments in businesses by returning soldiers of World War II. The father of Venture Capital, Georges Doriot, who founded the first venture capital firm ARDC (American Research and Development Corporation), had a prolific military career, too. He worked as the director of the U.S. Army’s Military Planning Division, was appointed the Quartermaster General during World War II, and later being promoted to brigadier general.

One of the most promising ventures of Silicon Valley – Google – is considered as the biggest improvisation of mass surveillance in history. Google has cooperated with the CIA many times in the past but in 2010, when Google and CIA jointly invested in a private intelligence-based cyber security company – Recorded Future, it caught the attention. It was a tool of real-time web monitoring, to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions, and incidents.

With time, as Google started dominating the consumer market, its other side of working as the contractor of their home country’s security and intelligence agencies went into the shadows!

Geospatial Data

Over the years, Google openly coordinated with US intelligence agencies to transform many small startups into useful strategic assets and one such startup was Google Earth.

The core technology behind Google Earth is originally from Keyhole Inc., which was founded in 1999. At that time, Keyhole’s flagship product – Earth Viewer – was used to sell on CDs to real estate, urban planning, defense, and intelligence groups.

In 2003, CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel invested in the Keyhole, and then it also joined hands with their National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Later in 2004, Keyhole was acquired by Google. In 2004, Google made some other acquisitions too. It acquired the Google Maps from the two Danish brothers, Lars and Jens, and in the same year, it had acquired ZipDash, a real-time traffic analysis company.

Today, Google Map is the default app for Android OS (a product of Google) that has a 95.23 percent market share in India. Although with the recent self-reliance moves of the Indian government in the geospatial domain, and with ISRO and homegrown startups like MapMyIndia coming together, things will certainly turn around in the near future.

There are plenty of such less popular insights about Big Tech and these are not conspiracy theories. The information is official and mentioned in the documents, press releases, and accounts that are available in the public domain. But they never come to notice or become a part of popular discussion and that is somewhat interesting.

One can say that the idea of Big Tech, Big Data, High Tech Startups, Venture Capital, and everything that is associated with Silicon Valley’s culture and glamour have their roots in the military and intelligence ecosystem. The products of the Valley have ventured into all those areas, which have the potential to affect strategic calculations/interest from Economy to Media to Geospatial data to public opinion/perception management, and all this cannot be called a mere coincidence.

So, while referring tech dominance, one must keep in mind that we are referring to a different kind of dominance here – which is covered under the guise of democracy, liberty, equality, global citizen, one world, and now entrepreneurship, innovation kind of flowery words.

Too much discussion on the Big Tech and Big Data often ignores a basic reality, that there are some human minds, a psychology, some philosophy, and a strategic mindset, that works behind these products.

Philosophy and Methodology of Intelligence

In the year 1989, Prof Isaac Ben Israel, who is currently the chairman of the Israeli space agency, published his research paper titled “The Philosophy and Methodology of Intelligence – The Logic of Estimate Process.” The paper is one of its kind in the intelligence research domain, for two primary reasons: one, the intelligence is a closed domain and there is a lack of meaningful discussions on it’s working philosophy/methods and second, the paper got published at a time when the modern intelligence techniques were in their maturing stage, and this was the same time when the internet was transforming into the world wide web (in 1991).

There is a natural commonality between the intelligence process and big data, both depend on the three As – Availability, Accessibility and Accuracy of information. Since the internet is primarily a tool of military and intelligence works, an understanding of the philosophy and methodology of intelligence research can solve some of the questions related to the objectives and approach of Big Data and Big Tech.

There is a belief that intelligence problems are very complex, they certainly are but the problems related to the physical world are equally complex as well, as the paper perfectly puts “is it possible to solve or predict the weather (“clouds”)? If concrete physical problems can be solved with information and approximation then they can solve intelligence problems as well.

The paper highlights some of the traditional challenges of intelligence research that are related to estimation, approximation, and inexactitude (lack of precision). It critically evaluates the traditional processes of intelligence estimation that were prevalent at that time, such as anti-scientific historicism and pro-scientific historicism, and proposes an approach (amended critical method) based on scientific methods and refutation.

The conventional approach to intelligence research (before internet technologies) was based on historicist methods that emphasize historical processes or trends, and the idea of ‘holism’ to infer large-scale predictions. Those methods were based on the idea of involving/manipulating the dynamics of a society with the social and historic forces, and activism and influencing the trends/processes to push them in a particular direction.

The paper sheds light on the different challenges into those approaches such as obstacles in obtaining relevant information and deriving insights from that, difficulties in experimenting (on a large scale) with the hypothesis/approximations and in testing/validating them, relying too much on ‘what’ part rather than on ‘how’ (the causal explanations), and the lack of a logical process/flow and dependency on the known data, etc.

Prof Isaac has advocated that the scientific approach/measures are critical for analysis or accurate prediction about a group, society, or nation, and their major trends. The paper got published in 1989 and, two years later (in 1991), the internet emerged in its new avatar and become the world wide web, and things have been transformed since then.

After three decades, it is quite visible that these computer technology products and their improvisations are using a similar kind of approach (that is mentioned in the paper) in measuring/monitoring/predicting, and deciding the trends. And the issue of inexactitude in intelligence predictions has been resolved to a great extent.

To put it more succinctly, if Google or Microsoft windows were the platforms for facilitating the initial stage of intelligence research – ‘gathering of information’ then Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp, etc, can be seen as the mediums of ‘experiments’ (through greater public engagement and dependencies).

ALSO READ: Philosophy and Methodology of Intelligence and Big Tech – Part 2

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Big data analytics finds huge importance as far as intelligence inputs are concerned. It is being utilised to continuously gather intelligence for national and military intelligence during peace and war – the quantum varies as per the requirement, ie, during crises and war. Human analysis of this data is well beyond physical capability and, therefore, big data analytics-based intelligence provides the requisite output required for decision making and conduct of operations.

Aspects Associated with Data

Big data analytics gives a big boost to intelligence gathering when there is an information deluge because of the following aspects associated with future data:

•             Volume. Data is ever growing. It will grow at scale ranging from terabytes to petabytes.

•             Variety. Data received from different sources is in structured, semi-structured, unstructured formats.

•             Veracity. Managing the reliability and predictability of inherently imprecise data types is complex and challenging.

•             Complexity. Relationships, hierarchies and multiple data linkages are required to be connected and correlated

Discovery of useful, unexpected patterns data, non-trivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown and potentially useful information from data by automatic or semi-automatic means of analysis in order to discover meaningful patterns leading to data simulation and modeling will be the order of the day as part of the Intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) philosophy.

Enhancing Military Intelligence

Engaging and scrutinising social media platforms can give us answers to many security incidents which otherwise may go unnoticed. Big data analytics has a potentially significant role in helping to manage the data deluge and assisting analysts in focusing their efforts. The various defence intelligence agencies in the country should build on the huge investments being made in this area by the commercial sector.

In modern combat scenarios, a data scientist helping interpret and analyse data could save many more lives than hundreds of troops on the ground. Algorithms can be developed to analyse hundreds of thousands of open-source documents generated each hour and compare them with the human intelligence gathered and billions of historical events and then have predictive capability to anticipate specific incidents and suggest measures proactively. Big data analytics can provide the following platforms as value additions:

•             Threat Alert System. Alogrithms can be designed which can alert the commanders on the mention of concepts such as terrorism, bombs, riots, etc., across various information sources. Trending offensive videos/content specific to a person, organisations, geography, etc., can be undertaken.

•             Social Media Monitoring. Prime topics/ concepts being discussed in the social media can be monitored and studied specific to geography, person and organisation, etc. Analytics of information source, for example, affinity of information sources to a specific user group, geography, etc, will have high intelligence value. The sentiments of people regarding a policy or concepts can be known and proactive actions taken, as required.

•             Information Mining. Information in the news/documents related to a specific person, concepts, etc, can be searched to find out the posts related to a given concept. New information regarding a specific topic, for example, on missile defence – new articles, publications, white papers, patents and other information related to this topic comprise inputs that will be of great help in planning the intelligence strategy at the higher level.

•             Social Network Monitoring. A study of related people based on social networks can be undertaken. Topics discussed by related people which represent information about the behaviour of a person will have very high intelligence value. Macro analysis of social media graphs to identify users’ groups active on a website can be analysed.

•             Document Analytics. Concepts, topics discussed in a document collection can be studied. For example, the topics that the foreign ministry of Pakistan is focussed on, based on analysing the articles/documents on its website. The documents can be grouped into separate segments – documents discussing politics, sports, games, foreign affairs, etc. Finding trends related to specific topics might be an important way to discover the hidden insights in a document.

Perception in the Analytical Workflow

In counter-intelligence/ counter-terrorism (CI/CT) operations, big data collected by drones, satellites, UAVs, technical intercepts, etc., can be automatically analysed based on the big picture provided by ISR data, which can be created as part of the big data initiative. This will allow the CI/CT operations to be carried out in real time. Data intensive Geographic Information System (GIS)-based applications can be used with big data platforms in the hinterland to assist the forces deployed to fight left wing extremism.

Implementation Model

The military leaders of the future will not be able to cope if they cannot handle ambiguity in decision making. Missions and responsibilities coming in the way of military leaders today, were not even imagined a few decades ago. The social media platforms today are big enablers and not just mere search engines. They are a medium of communication that allows a multi-dimensional view against the earlier uni-dimensional view. Implementation should follow an evolutionary path within the wider information management/ information exploitation strategy and be coherent with the defence Information & Communication Technology (ICT) strategy. It should not rely solely on big data capabilities for the defence forces. Rather, the defence forces should build on the huge investment in this area being made by the commercial sector and in doing so, ensure that they are well positioned to track and exploit further commercial technological developments, as and when they occur.

To start with, the initial focus should be on day-to-day functional issues since this will help build up a case for the usefulness of big data. Some guidelines are as follows :-

•             Prepare the defence intelligence agencies culturally to transform operations based on big data analytics through change management applied top down.

•             Incorporate data analytics/data mining as a module in all the ongoing projects where better delivery can be achieved.

•             Initially, use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software on an experimental basis and then opt for own research & development (R&D) for product development after gaining sufficient experience to translate the requirement technically.

•             Technology and non-disclosure agreements on data sharing, to develop algorithms developed by industry, R&D institutes and academia on live data, which will be more realistic than development on synthetic data.

•             In-house skill set development, from the data analyst to the data scientist.

•             Pilot projects to validate concepts.

Indian Perspective

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has stressed on the need to focus on incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data computing in the armed forces as China was way ahead in terms of spending on this technology. The armed forces today are the repository of big data and there is a need to record, institutionalise the information and carry out predictive analysis using AI.

The Big Data applicability in defence forces is urgently required in the fields of intelligence and surveillance, border, maritime and space management, operational planning, logistics management, financial management, disaster management, cognitive analytics and analysis of archival data.

Some challenges in terms of requirement of qualified Big Data scientists, security policy related to data cleansing from legacy applications and achieving standardisation and change management issues can be overcome by following an evolutionary path of implementation which should be in synchronisation with the IT roadmap of the armed forces.

Final Word

Big data analytics is the way forward for enhance military intelligence. Intelligence gathering based on big data analytics has a potentially significant role in helping to manage the data deluge and assisting analysts in focussing their efforts. Evidence-based information superiority and fully analysed intelligence outputs will give increased situational awareness, which will be the primary requirement of commanders at all levels to fight a war of any type in the future.

Intelligence of such class, based on big data analytics, will enable commanders to assess the battlefield situation in real time and in a better way to take appropriate and timely decisions. Such a system can integrate the efforts of all intelligence gathering functionaries to optimise the resources and results. Intelligence report generation and distribution to local, national and international partners can become quick and easy. Such systems can be continuously refined in response to the changing behaviour of the target and stakeholders.

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