The Jensen Huang scandal shows that no matter how sophisticated artificial intelligence becomes, there’s no accounting for human stupidity.
asserted
intelligence → show → stupidity
The now ex-boss of Nvidia, who has admitted to an affair with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang – and is also accused of having relationships with two employees – once boasted that cyber security was the next big market for artificial intelligence (AI).
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security → admit → intelligence
But who needs tenacious hackers when the boss of the world’s most cutting-edge firm can seemingly fall victim to one of the oldest espionage tools – one described by Chairman Mao as the ‘beautiful woman stratagem’, or meiren ji in Mandarin?
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boss → need → Mandarin
It was not the first time, and it will not be the last time, that a powerful man with a global-sized ego has apparently walked into a honeytrap.
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man → walk → honeytrap
But as the tech race with the US heats up, so Silicon Valley and its hapless tech nerds have become a prime target.
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Valley → heat → US
China’s spy chief, Chen Yixin, recently described AI as ‘the main battleground in global technological competition’ and companies appear to be aware of the threat, running clunky training courses on how to spot a dodgy approach.
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companies → describe → approach
Jensen Huang, the now ex-boss of Nvidia, admitted to an affair with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang (pictured together) – and is also accused of having relationships with two employees
Shirly Shen of Internship Union, based in Hong Kong, was named by MI5 in a warning about Chinese spies posing as ‘headhunters’ for China’s main spy agency
OpenAI, whose AI models are among the world’s most sophisticated,
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models → admit → world
First there’s a blonde with champagne, then, when that doesn’t work, the spies send a redhead – and next a young man.
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spies → ’ → redhead
Only the staff who resist these temptations reportedly survive.
uncertain
who → resist → temptations
But when Huang, the most powerful man in tech, apparently falls into a honeytrap, it suggests the training sessions still have a long way to go.
uncertain
sessions → fall → way
Here in the UK, MI5 has warned that Chinese intelligence services are trying to cultivate ‘long-term relationships’ and have been known to ‘exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships... to pressurise individuals to co-operate with them’.
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services → warn → them
In evidence to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, MI6 described the ‘gamut of blackmail, honeytrapping’ employed by China.
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MI6 → describe → China
Silicon Valley brings to mind the hapless Roddy Ho from the Apple TV series Slow Horses.
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Valley → bring → series
Suspected spy Christine Fang targeted a swathe of Democratic Party politicians across the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond before she fled back to China in 2015
Rupert Murdoch met his third wife Wendi Deng in Hong Kong when she was working as an intern at Star TV.
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she → target → TV
There have been rumours that Deng was a Chinese intelligence asset
The arrogant, socially inept computer nerd, played by Christopher Chung – who struggles to communicate with anything without a screen – is easy pickings for ‘Tara’, the ‘girlfriend’ who turns out to be a terrorist plotting a cyber attack.
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who → play → attack
For the Roddys of the tech world, seduction most often happens via their screen.
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seduction → happen → screen
Both UK and US intelligence agencies have warned about fake LinkedIn profiles, usually featuring photos of alluring Asian women, real or AI-generated, and designed to build online relationships with targets.
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agencies → warn → targets
The aim is to persuade them to share information or to entice them to dubious overseas ‘conferences’ where a formal approach can be made or the techie can be sexually compromised.
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techie → persuade → conferences
Last month, Changli ‘Sophia’ Luo, a glamorous China-born entrepreneur, pleaded guilty in a court in Manhattan to wire fraud after attempting to extort more than $1billion (£753million) from Wesley Edens, a financier and the co-owner of Aston Villa.
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Luo → bear → Villa
They’d met on LinkedIn and she threatened to release a secret recording of their sexual encounter later unless he paid up.
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he → meet → encounter
No evidence was presented to the court of hostile intelligence links, though every Chinese citizen is obliged by law to assist the country’s spy agencies on demand.
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citizen → present → demand
MI5 recently warned about Chinese spies posing as ‘headhunters’, naming Amanda Qiu, chief executive of BP-YR Executive Search, a company in Beijing, and Shirly Shen of Internship Union, based in Hong Kong, as fronts for the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s main spy agency.
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MI5 → warn → Security
The fake profiles were used to target people with valuable knowledge or skills.
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profiles → use → knowledge
‘The headhunters are typically China-based individuals who make initial contact with a target before referring them to an officer,’ the MI5 alert said.
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alert → base → officer
And I will tell you, it is weird,’ says James Mulvenon, chief intelligence officer of Pamir Consulting, which provides risk assessments for companies investing in China.
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which → tell → China
‘I’m getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn requests from the same type of attractive young Chinese woman,’ he told The Times.
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he → get → Times
He described how two such women showed up at an ‘investment risks’ conference he hosted in Virginia in the US, attempting to gain entry.
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he → describe → entry
‘We didn’t let them in, but they had all the information [about the event] and everything else.’
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they → let → event
Recently declassified documents show how suspected spy Christine Fang targeted a swathe of Democratic Party politicians across the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond before fleeing back to China in 2015.
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Fang → declassify → 2015
This included former congressman Eric Swalwell, who sat on an influential intelligence committee.
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who → include → committee
It has even been reported that sex workers in some of the most prosperous Bay regions, including Menlo Park (home of Facebook, now Meta) have been paid by foreign spies for information about their clients.
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workers → report → clients
Then there is Katrina Leung, a Los Angeles-based consultant and Republican fundraiser suspected to be a Chinese spy who had affairs with two FBI agents who were overseeing her case.
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who → be → case
She convinced them she was working for the Bureau, too, while continuing to pass secrets to Beijing before her arrest in 2003.
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she → convince → 2003
While technology is a focus of Chinese espionage, ‘beautiful woman stratagem’, or meiren ji, is not confined to the world of the nerds.
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stratagem → confine → nerds
‘We are constantly having to remove people from our embassies and consulates in China because they get into these honeytraps,’ Dennis Wilder, a former CIA China analyst and now senior fellow at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post.
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Wilder → have → Post
In 2013, when British pharmaceutical giant GSK was embroiled in a corruption scandal in China, a secretly filmed video of its China head, Mark Reilly, having sex with his Chinese girlfriend in his Shanghai apartment was emailed to the company’s chief executive and other board members.
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head → embroil → executive
The purpose of this meiren ji appeared to be to put pressure on GSK during the corruption investigation.
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purpose → appear → investigation
Gaining entry to the apartment and placing the device would have been tricky, and was assumed to have been the work of skilled intelligence operatives.
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Gaining → gain → operatives
The Chinese security services have used compromising video material in several other politically convenient corruption cases.
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services → use → cases
Around the same time as Mark Reilly’s case, China punished 15 government officials in Chongqing after they too appeared in secretly recorded sex videos.
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they → punish → videos
…and 36 more, not listed.
The Aporia
