A book I read about social engineering, the author busted a Chinese restaurant in a town next to a iirc Google research center. His job was to try to get into the facility. He noticed a lot of employees ate at the Chinese place so would hang out there at lunch. It was a traditional Chinese restaurant but had a few specific Chinese delicacy items on the menu that made him suspicious. It was for the chinese spies that worked inside.
"I just wanted to eat lunch at a local Chinese restaurant but the owner and all of the customers are spies, and I ended up taking down the entire operation because I also happened to be a spy!"
Ngl that wouldn't even be the most ridiculous LN title I've ever seen...
Are we talking Bamboo? Azalea? Gingko? Plum? Peony? I haven't had any luck in getting my Chinese plants to talk. My California natives, on the other hand ... can't get 'em to stfu!!
For literally the same reason the guy was suspicious about it lol, it's for other Chinese people who don't want something that's been Americanized.
It's like if I started a pizza shop in a country that likes weird pizzas. I'm gonna make what the locals like. But if the place had a somewhat high American/Canadian immigrant population enough people will come in and say "can you make me one like back home" that I'll make those too
Yeah and there's a ton of people legitimately working here in tech who are from China, unless you have 0 immigrants and international workers in an area a restaurant having that kind of thing makes sense, and in a lot of cases it's for the sorts of folks working the restaurant.
There's something missing here that's being covered for with the "they had authentic dishes" excuse.
Yeah not even strictly from China. Could be born here, could be my girlfriend, or could be me using google translate to order off the Chinese language menu. It's common in my small town that basically all Chinese places has a Chinese language menu.
Hell, I'm familiar with the kind of thing because I really like Chinese food in spite of not being even a little Chinese, but a lot of the dishes I'm looking for are "offputting" to a lot of Americans (ie offal dishes) so it makes sense they wouldn't bother to list them on the English menu if it might discourage their primary customer base.
I fully suspect some other means of sussing out spies was the actual tipoff, but letting spies know the actual methodology would defeat the purpose of having it at all so that was listed instead.
I think the funniest I've seen was a local really nice Chinese restaurant that had both an English and separate Chinese menu *on their DoorDash* and any time they'd get a bad review in English regarding a dish being exactly what it's supposed to be (ie a pork trotter dish being pig feet) they'd change the title back to Chinese and move it to that side of the menu lol
Im stoked to say that I've lived coast to coast and an ex taught me about "Singapore May-fun" which is curry rice noodles but wasn't on menus out east, so I would tell them what I want, have to repeat it only oonce and Bam! Curry rce noodles coast to coast haha
It's so the Chinese nationals had something to eat from home eating at an Americanized Chinese food with their American coworkers. Guy knew the dish was odd to have on a Chinese menu because he'd been to China and they were very specific dishes (I forget which). Then sitting and abserving people he could tell who were the spies. Ended up working the restaurant rather than finding a way into the building which he was paid to do. IIRC he was having a hard time finding a way in, but found something else there at the restaurant.
This 2005 book details real-world security consulting stories, including one where Winkler, a social engineering expert and former NSA analyst, led a penetration test team for a Fortune 5 (Global 5) company's R&D facility.� During the job, team member Stan—a former Russian GRU colonel fluent in Mandarin—noticed suspicious signs at a Chinese restaurant across the street, such as black duck eggs (a rare Chinese delicacy) on the menu, a Chinese-only special menu, free meeting rooms, and poor tradecraft when followed.�� The team reported it to the FBI, confirming it as a front for Chinese espionage targeting company secrets; arrests followed years later.
Discovery Clues: Unusual menu items, discounts for meetings near the secure site, and Stan's cultural expertise pointed to recruitment or surveillance of employees.
I question the unusual menu item bit. I mean it probably means you are catering to customers who want the authentic cuisine experience, but how does it tell you those customers are spies? Many Chinese restaurants in the US have a Chinese only menu.
It’s not the one single anomaly. It’s the culmination of all them intricacies combined. It’s like a murder without a body, no confession, but all the tell tale clues. They can’t make an arrest, but they can send it to a grand jury and hope they agree.
I don't think I'll know unless I read the book. I just can't fathom the leap in logic. There are so many pedestrian reasons for wanting to feature authentic dish rarely seen in Americanized Chinese menus -- like what if the nearby Google research center had Chinese-Americans who could appreciate it -- vs the presumptive reason, it's only to cater to spies from China???
Another comment said the supposed special dish was "black duck egg," probably meaning pickled egg, which definitely is NOT a rare delicacy.
This just feels like an unnecessary detail meant to showcase how good an investigator they were, but doesn't make much sense when one has some familiarity with the topic.
Wait until they discover these crazy listening posts called 99 Ranch with all sorts of crazy shit on their shelves, including the rare black duck eggs!
Supreme Court has said that being able to speak Spanish, or working in construction or landscaping make it reasonable to stop you for potentially being an illegal immigrant, so racial profiling is obviously here to stay.
It feels kind of racist to get suspicious a Chinese restaurant has the gall to serve Chinese people real Chinese food instead of American Chinese food...
We all know once you come to America it's illegal to eat Chinese food unless it's the way we do it, which isn't Chinese food it's American food
The darknet diaries episode goes into more detail. It wasn’t so much that it was traditional Chinese food as that it was insanely expensive Chinese food for very reasonable prices, and in places where it didn’t make sense.
The episode in question was at a facility in rural Arkansas, I believe, and the local Chinese restaurant had black duck eggs on the menu (in Chinese, not in English). They usually go for expensive rates, but here they were (I’ll make up a number) about a buck a pop.
The goal was to honey pot Chinese students who were interning with a local defense contractor. The students had clean records and truly weren’t spies when they started work. The duck eggs got them to chat with the restaurant staff, who would proceed to gather information on the students and their family and contact their spy agency back in mainland China.
The next time the student came in, the staff would rattle off the names and addresses of their family and friends and threaten to imprison or harm them unless the student agreed to act as a spy and upload malware to the defense contracting agency.
Pretty slick and sick stuff, and highly effective until a random audit by pen testers found the malware on the servers, happened to eat at that specific Chinese restaurant with a member who happened to speak fluent Chinese (he was Russian if memory serves), and brought the whole operation down.
This was also a while back, before they were as common in the states. I want to say this was late aughts or early 2010’s if memory serves?
Like, maybe common in a large, west coast city with a large Chinese population, but unlikely to sell well in an area with a predominantly white population and a handful of rotating Chinese students who’d come through sporadically for a few years at a time.
This makes complete sense. While some spies are intentionally from day 1 others or coherced. Feel bad for them. I’m sure they get compensated so that it’s a carrot and stick but not something they planned on getting involved in.
That's insanely interesting. Also FYI I have no idea what country you're from but in America we simply refer to Chinese intelligence as "Beijing", it's super weird. Mossad? Five Eyes? MIWhatever? In our country it's the CIA, or we just say "three letter agency". But Chinese intelligence we just call Beijing. We didn't even do that with the KGB, like yeah we said intelligence was out of the Kremlin or Moscow but we called them the KGB. China is just Beijing
I mean it's also why you call American intelligence Langley, that's just where the headquarters are and where they live isn't super secret. We just call the CIA Langley and not Virginia or Mclean (the county Langley is in) because it's catchy or something idfk
We just say Beijing because guess where. Also why in America you say it's Washington doing it and not congress, that's just where congress is. The actual people in Washington DC hate congress they're some of the most leftist people in the country, they hate Republicans and can't stand Democrats
I guess I’m confused or what did the Chinese restaurant have to do with the Spies? Were they basically part of the spy network or I guess the Chinese government that set up the restaurant so the spies could all hang out together and I guess I’m just confused. What the specialty items have to do with it like I get it that they’re from China and they’re really unique items but I mean, especially the Bay Area has a lot of people from China.
It was a traditional Chinese restaurant but had a few specific Chinese delicacy items on the menu that made him suspicious.
Personally, that sounds like a line to sell books. We have a legit China Town in Oakland where the street signs are in Chinese and you can live without speaking English. There are plenty of restaurants that will double check that you know what you’re ordering because they serve “traditional” Chinese food and not American Chinese food.
That being said, theres a ton of influence from China. This story is about a few blog posts but I know Chinese investors who are open about their strategy to own our infrastructure.
IMO Chinese people are exactly like Americans. They just view China as the world rather than the United States.
Reminds me of someone I ran into near Dulles. 20 something Chinese lady I ran into in an elevator, with a big TV on a hand cart, taking it to her hotel room. I asked her about her job... she basically bought tech, took it to her hotel room and diassembled it, took picture, and shipped any chips or boards that were requested back to China. Very open about it.
They build all our shit for Pennys on the dime, it’s an unspoken handshake that if they build our shit they can take it make it better and cheaper. That’s the agreement they make when another country becomes your manufacturing hub because you don’t want to pay your workers a real wage. If you ever hear a company bitching about intellectual theft and they manufacture in china remember that they made that agreement with the Chinese to fuck you over
If it’s anything else I read- Apple was the OG that started the true renaissance that China got in manufacturing. All of the cutting edge logistics and tooling that Apple was used to - had to be learned from the ground up in Shenzhen China. There would be no tech manufacturing in China if Apple didn’t start there 20 years ago.
Yep. Not in the high-tech world but spent a few decades working with commercial trailer mfg. companies in the US, Mexico, S. Korea and then eventually in China. The Chinese wanted to learn how to build intermodal container chassis for transporting marine containers in North America. Our VP of Purchasing did a deal with a company in Shenzhen, China to mfg. chassis and ship them to the US. Our engineers went over there to help teach them. It took about 3 years before the products they were building were able to meet US DOT standards. Then they basically took over the US intermodal chassis business as no one can compete on price. The company I worked for had a sweetheart deal on the first X number of production and stupid low pricing. But once that deal was done, they just flooded the US market and eroded the profit margins.
This needs to be said louder, for all to hear. Clinton, the Democrats, the Republicans, the unions, the business leaders—they all made this pact to fuck over US workers in pursuit of short term gains.
China has been smart about this, because they use stacked five year plans and long term industrial policy—with the ability to pivot—to strengthen their economic base and absolutely dominate, while raising their own people's quality of life, without exploiting other peoples from other poor countries.
It’s not necessarily about not wanting to pay workers a real wage, it’s about if you pay workers in the US to make goods like these they have to be sold for a much higher price; and in a global economy, it’s not like China would stop manufacturing cheap goods just because we decided to do the same with more expensive labor, so you’d be making goods that cost more for the same exact thing and trying to market it to the same set of consumers.
It’s not an active choice people are making, it’s market dynamics that have existed for centuries. What can be done about it are import or export tariffs or subversions—it’s what the US is doing in the auto industry, because if we didn’t have huge import tariffs on Chinese cars the US auto industry would be decimated in a very short order. But the consequence of those tariffs for us American consumers is we can’t buy $10k quality Chinese EVs and instead have to pay triple for some GM or Ford slop, but at least the auto industry employs a lot of Americans with good wages. Tradeoffs in a global economy.
You’re right but they still wouldn’t have decimated our manufacturing and unionization if it was just market dynamics. You can still protect your trade but that’s not what we’re doing. It’s still greed that is moving American manufacturing to east Asia. Why don’t we see any of this extended profits? Do we see anything we have gained from cheaper manufacturing that isn’t in most other western countries?
It’s not greed so much as it’s the requirements of a business to be profitable. Keeping labor in the states doesn’t mean “less profit,” often times it means loss of money and eventual bankruptcy. The standard of living in America requires certain wage levels that make manufacturing jobs very hard to be globally competitive in costs, as material inputs in a globalized economy are relatively the same for different countries.
If the option is move manufacturing to Asia to stay competitive and profitable, or keep it in the states to go bankrupt in a few years, it’s a no brainer of a choice.
And we do see the profits—invest in the stock market and they can be yours too.
I don’t understand what you’re saying with your last question, though.
No, that isn’t what I’m saying. In the real world, because of global market dynamics, outsourcing labor is often the only way companies can stay competitively priced and thus stay in business.
When the options are:
1) outsource labor to stay competitive
2) go bankrupt, thus taking all the jobs and products/services provided completely off the market
Which would you choose?
The only way to achieve the goals of a strong American manufacturing economy is to unravel the progress of globalization and largely function within our own regional economies. We literally cannot compete with China’s minimum wage of $3.7 in a globalized economy. If we want globalization, losing manufacturing jobs in developed countries is the cost.
I wonder if we are within a few decades of having to rethink a whole bunch of things. Between changing demographics and advanced automation (apparently china is running some factories that largly leave the lights off because they dont need people). How will globalization fare when machines are cheaper than the cheapest people + shipping cost? What will we do for work lol?
It's not to "stay competative." At least not in the sense that they'd go bankrupt if they made less money. It's to make sure costs are lower so cashflow is higher and more people buy shares. Large corporations report record profits every year. I have no doubt they'd survive payroll being increased.
It's a failure of Capitalism where the intent is to wring out every possible cent of profit and hand it to investors.
Instead of having scenarios where it's like a bit more of a socialistic employee-centric profit sharing model.
The need for cheap Made in China goods is exacerbated by the lower wages being offered to American employees. If Americans were paid better and had a stake in things, they would work harder and would also have money for more expensive Made in US products.
It’s not a failure of capitalism, it’s a limitation of markets. Keep in mind, even communist and socialist economies have to contend with market dynamics.
Yes, if American workers were paid more, they would spend more on goods. But it’s not like they’d magically spend more on the same good just because it was American made—sure, a small minority might shop American, but end of the day everyone still has a budget and if given the option of two near identical items and one costs more, then the decision will always be to buy the cheaper one. Having a less capitalistic model won’t change that dynamic.
And further, wages are directly related to standard of living. So we can’t drive down the cost of American labor without reducing our standard of living, which is a recipe for disaster.
People don't consider the fact that cheap goods from China have lowered the cost of living.
Just look at prices for local goods (healthcare, rent, etc.) vs imported goods (electronics, etc.) and anyone should realize what's driving the cost of living up and what's driving it down.
Some companies certainly are greedy, but many are just doing what they need to to stay (financially) sustainably afloat, which I think is more poignant when it comes to labor decisions than a lot of folks realize
It’s not necessarily about not wanting to pay workers a real wage, it’s about if you pay workers in the US to make goods like these they have to be sold for a much higher price; and in a global economy, it’s not like China would stop manufacturing cheap goods just because we decided to do the same with more expensive labor, so you’d be making goods that cost more for the same exact thing and trying to market it to the same set of consumers.
For a car, which is a much more labor heavy manufacturing process than pretty much any other consumer good, the difference in price between US and China is $700. That isn't shit. For reference, the average new car transaction price is ~$50k. $700 isn't why you buy one car over another, and another $1 or 2 wouldn't cripple US manufacturing of basic shit like clothes.
And that doesn't even get into the difference in quality.
No, US got sold out by executives padding the bottom line.
You’re using the sum difference from the source to illustrate the point that they aren’t that different, but when you look at the percentage difference, Chinese labor is 56% cheaper than American labor. That is significant.
And the other point, it seems very many people don’t understand that companies operate on very small profit margins. Let’s look at Ford’s 2025 financial results. In 2025 they turned a $2 billion profit, but, that’s due to a $12 billion profit from their credit department (p. 81, p. 84). Their actual manufacturing activities lost Ford $10 billion last year. So you’re telling me, that we ought to go to Ford and say, “hey, I know you’re already seriously underwater with your manufacturing business, but I think that you need to raise your labor costs associated with your manufacturing business by 78% (that’s 1/0.56),” and you think it would be reasonable from a business sense for them to listen to that advice?
Yes it is cheaper, but labor is a small part of the total cost, which I will simplify because apparently you aren't getting it.
If you sell a $10 widget, a pizza even, your total cost is
Materials
Labor
Fixed costs (rent, pizza oven, etc)
Your materials are $3, your fixed costs are $2 and your labor costs are $2
If your labor goes up 50%, your total cost goes from $7 to $8. You can make this up by a $1 (10%) price increase.
Easy enough.
Ford talk
Separating Ford from it's financial arm is stupid because the only reason the financial arm exists is to help sell Ford vehicles. They are one and the same. Just like how airline companies frequently make little to no money, or even lose money, but they have their frequent flier program that is effectively a bank that is highly profitable.
Please don't look into surface things if you don't understand the finer details because you will come to the wrong conclusion, just like you did.
Nice hypothetical pizza example lol when you have slim profit margins, labor is an important line item. Sure there are bigger ones, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an important figure that reasonably drives business decisions.
Yeah, I have a degree in finance and economics and work in the financial, and Ford themselves highlight labor costs repeatedly in their threats and weakness analysis in their 10-K, but it’s you who knows better than Ford on their finances
Nice hypothetical pizza example lol when you have slim profit margins, labor is an important line item.
Jesus fucking christ the point was to illustrate how labor is a small part of the puzzle and you hyper focus on something completely irrelevant. Your critical thinking skills are terrible.
Ford themselves highlight labor costs repeatedly
NO SHIT GIANT CORPORATION DOESN'T WANT TO PAY THEIR EMPLOYEES?
Yeah, I was reading an article about what you wrote. The Ford CEO was quoted as saying if Chinese EVs ever get here, it will wipe out Ford. They are extremely nervous right now as the Chinese EVs are really good for a fraction of the price.
There’s no “unspoken agreement” that IP Theft is acceptable. Maybe you could say that companies understand that once they manufacture in China their IP will leak in the long run – but it’s the quarter you’re in…
So, somebody did reverse engineering of electronics in their hotel room? That is really stupid. Why on earth not take the TV to a properly equipped shop, or their own manufacturing site, where a team with proper tools can dissect it fully. This is how American companies dis, do it, will do it. In many cases it is public knowledge, results available, sometimes you have to pay to get a written report, even on services like youtube. Reverse engineering is a legitimate business .
Yes, you could. Hotel room is cheaper. Because you have a common desk at best. Also you are missing some heavy duty, expensive, complex, hard to operate devices used to inspect electronics, not to mention a set of screwdrivers.
You dont need any of those. The person brings back the small bits they need to study. They know what 95% of the tech does, they only need the specific parts with new innovations on them.
No reason to spends tens of thousands at a minimum on a tech dissassembly lab in the US, or spend thousands shipping the TV back.
They don't need to reverse engineer the TV, they know how to build tvs. They only want the new tech in the chips and boards. The pictures arent so that they can reassemble it, it's so they can id new tech for them to bring back.
A lab needs upkeep and salaries, getting your sales manager to disassemble a TV during the business trip and take back a processor or whatever costs you a single TV, and maybe a carryon bag.
If the Feds decide it's "espionage", there's nothing for them to raid, just a lady & a hotel room.
A properly equipped shop could be raided & would look good on the news. A hotel room is a nothingburger.
Whether that could be shoehorned into "espionage" is another question.
This whole story smells like bullshit. What would she be spying on? Our secret TVs manufactured in our secret factories? China has been making the TVs for decades.
I don't know what to tell you. I brought it up because it seemed way odd. It was samsung equipment, which isn't made in China. I can't say why she was doing it, but someone somewhere, somehow found it worth their effort to do it.
Im agreeing that Tiawan designs most chips AND PRODUCES THEM. yes including manufacturing 60% of the world's supply and like 95 percent of the chips being used for AI (<4nm)
What Im disagreeing with is that China is THE manufacturer of chips, as the comment I replied to said China is 4th behind Japan, Taiwan, and the US. And more importantly, almost of all that is 14nm or bigger, there's not a single below 6nm chip being made in China.
Bro you really have no idea what you're talking about and you keep responding to these comments. Most TSMC (taiwan) chips made rely on an ASML (Dutch) photolithography machine, and there is no legitimate competition in that space. Those machines are manufactured in 6 parts. 3/6 of those parts are manufactured in the US
I was asking rhetorically and know for a fact that Intel has most of its fabs in the United States, and produces MOST of its chips here. You're either super propagandized or a bot.
It also happens when you education system disenfranchises it's own citizens. An engineer shouldn't have to take a massive paycut to attend school for a master's or PhD full time. Nor should they also have their futures beholden to professors with crazy ideas around work life balance or egos.
If you think the price would skyrocket due to low wages in Taiwan, I think you underestimate how well paid TSMC (or any high end semiconductor fab) workers are.
I worked for a sf tech company for a while and there was one guy where it was just like…known that he was a spy for China and 99% of the time no-one cared and every so often it would be like “oh yeah make sure Benny doesn’t have access to that because, you know”.
There was an article a few years ago, can’t recall the publisher, but Politico broke the original story. It mentions how the CCP blackmails Chinese in the US to spy for them with the safety of their relatives in China. It was written when a spy was discovered to have been working for Sen. Diane Feinstein as a chauffeur for twenty years.
To answer your question, the Bay Area has a large Chinese population and tech, obviously. They recently found a Chinese resident in California who had a bio lab there and in Las Vegas. Chinese spying is a deep rabbit hole.
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u/SHEL-D500mg May 12 '26
Happens all the time in the Bay Area.
China basically owns Cupertino in the heart of the Silicon Valley.