Canadian expert David Vigneault warns of China’s ‘industrial-strength’ attempts to steal new technologies

Hostile spy agencies are now as focused on infiltrating western universities and companies as they are on doing so to governments, according to the former head of Canada’s intelligence service.

David Vigneault warned that a recent “industrial-scale” attempt by China to steal new technologies showed the need for increased vigilance from academics.

"The frontline has moved, from being focused on government information to private sector innovation, research innovation and universities,” he told the Guardian in his first interview since leaving the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which is part of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing alliance with the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Vigneault said China’s leadership had been on a long programme of military regeneration after being horrified by how swiftly the US army took over Iraq in 2003.

Beijing decided to invest in “asymmetric capabilities” and steal as much technical knowledge as possible from the west.

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    58·
    3 days ago

    Wait wut? This article wants me to be upset at Chinese students for *checks notes* going to school at our universities and applying the knowledge they fairly learned in their home countries? And I’m supposed to consider this “stealing technical knowledge”??

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        42·
        3 days ago

        I already read the article. I basically stand by my comment. Also are you seriously calling me a tankie for pushing back against a piece of obvious sinophobic fearmongering? Because I’m an anarchist, not a tankie 🏴🏴🏴

      • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        55·
        3 days ago

        The only thing in this article that even remotely contradicts my summary is

        He said he said (sic lmao) seen “the full spectrum” of approaches – from cyber-attacks to “people who are infiltrated into programmes, get the information and bring it back”.

        which yeah, I’m sure a nation-state like China is doing cyber-attacks on our institutions as all the big nation-states do, and no nation-states should be doing that (or just existing at all 🏴🏴🏴), but like…all your scientific artifacts should be available to the public regardless of nationality anyways, i.e. academics have no business keeping secrets. So unless they’re going and making life Hell for researchers, I really don’t give a fuck if China’s national security apparatus is antagonizing USA’s national security apparatus because I see any national security apparatus as enemies of humanity.

        Otherwise, the article is just sinophobic fearmongering about Chinese people gaining knowledge at scale.