Raytheon engineer arrested for taking US missile defense secrets to China

[Cookie Monster]

If they can't contain even that, I doubt that them arresting a single engineer can make a difference.

My point, if a random engineer with dual loyalty can access "entire electronic warfare library," then a proper spy can probably get just anything from them.

He didnt access the US Navy's electronic warfare library. It was a separate incident in which hacking was involved...according to the article.

 

[StormBreaker]

Its a lite joke, Storm...

But think about it. If the laptop contained valuable information about the AMRAAM - how difficult would it be for our buddies across the border to build it with a 'Made in China' tag on it. Keep in mind, if the Chinese have the blueprints available, there is no requirement for reverse engineering.

...which is why I used the term 'knockoffs'. A Chinese-made AMRAAM with a another name like PL-120 is still an AMRAAM by technology.

My Air Jordans are 'Made in China', but they're still the real deal.

I also had a theory, like madam messiach mentioned about indigenous AESA solution, it could very well be related with integrating US/Western origin AAMs and other missiles.

Just imagine the market potential thunder will create by having such feature...

 

[8888888888888]

I assume the leader of the organization, in this case Nato which is USA can spy on their lesser ally like Germany?

 

[AViet]

When Wei Sun, a 48-year-old engineer at Raytheon Missile Systems, left for an overseas trip last year, he told the company he planned to bring his company-issued HP EliteBook 840 laptop along.

Sun, a Chinese-born American citizen, had been working at Raytheon, the fourth-largest US defense contractor, for a decade. He held a secret-level security clearance and worked on highly sensitive missile programs used by the US military.

Since Sun’s computer contained large amounts of classified data, Raytheon officials told him that taking it abroad would not only be a violation of company policy, but a serious violation of federal law, as well.


Sun didn’t listen, according to US prosecutors. While he was out of the country, Sun connected to Raytheon’s internal network on the laptop. He sent an email on Jan. 7, suddenly announcing he was quitting his job after 10 years in order to study and work overseas.

When Sun returned to the United States a week later, he told Raytheon security officials that he had only visited Singapore and the Philippines during his travels. But inconsistent stories about his itinerary led Sun to confess that he traveled to China with the laptop.

A Raytheon lawyer examined the machine, and confirmed it contained technical specifications prohibited from export by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), in addition to security software that is itself export-controlled and requires a special license to take outside the United States.

Sun was arrested by FBI agents the next day. His attorney, Cameron Morgan, did not respond to a request for comment. Raytheon said only that the company “cooperated with this investigation,” declining to elaborate further.

Court documents reviewed by Quartz refer to Sun possessing classified filesrelated to several different air defense systems designed by Raytheon for the US military and sold to American allies and proxies around the world.

The case, which has not been reported until now, is yet another example of China’s increasing efforts to acquire American military technology. The country’s security services have already compromised dozens of crucial US weapons systems, such as the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system, and the Aegis ballistic missile defense system used by the Navy. In 2018, Chinese hackers stole top-secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile being developed by the Navy known as Sea Dragon. The intruders reportedly managed to get massive amounts of sensitive signals and sensor data, in addition to the Navy’s entire electronic warfare library.

The weapons with which Sun worked are “pretty much top-of-the-line American systems,” according to Dean Cheng, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation who studies China’s military capabilities.

The AMRAAM, or Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile, is used on US fighter jets like the F-16 and F-22 to destroy other aircraft before they can be seen by anything but radar. It has also been converted into a ground-based air defense system, which may have been Sun’s focus, since prosecutors describe his work as focusing on ballistic missile defense.

The documents also say Raytheon employees will provide testimony about the Stinger missile, a “man-portable” air-defense missile that can be fired by troops on the ground, made most famous when the US supplied it to Afghan warlords fighting against occupying Soviet troops.

Perhaps most significant is Sun’s involvement with the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, an effort to replace the interceptor used by US air defense systems to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon cancelled the program last year because of technical problems, but information about the project would still be useful to China to understand what the US might do to defend from conventional or nuclear missiles. Missile technology has become central to Beijing’s strategy to deter US power(Quartz member exclusive) in the Pacific, making up for deficiencies and a lack of experience with weapons systems like jet fighters.

China would be eager to learn how to defeat the missiles by understanding the technical details of how they find their targets with radar and other sensors, and how they respond to attempts to jam or distract them, Cheng told Quartz.

China already has its own equivalents of these weapons, so it’s not necessarily seeking to copy US technology. However, as one example, China’s advanced air-to-air missile has never been used in combat, while the AMRAAM has, so its design may offer lessons that China’s defense industrial base has yet to learn.

Cheng said this is “one piece of the larger Chinese espionage picture…we tend to focus on Chinese cyber [but] they have human intelligence, they have people trying to steal examples of it in other countries as well.”

None of the documents shed any light on Sun’s co-conspirators, if any, and it’s not clear if Sun was acting at the behest of Chinese intelligence.

“I can assume that Chinese government agencies are keeping their eye on former citizens who are working in big US companies [like Raytheon],” said Janosh Neumann, a former counterintelligence officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service who now lives in the United States.

Regardless, William Mackie, the lead prosecutor on the Sun case, said someone like Sun can do damage without directly cooperating with anyone. The files Sun allegedly took out of the country could have just as easily been purloined by an adversarial spy service without the engineer’s knowledge.

“If your computer gets left in a hotel room, somebody could image the whole thing and you’d never know it,” Mackie told Quartz. “There’s always the risk of something like that—no different than if somebody took pictures or copies of blueprints or a paper file.”

Legal filings suggest that Sun, who initially pleaded not guilty, is preparing to change his plea to guilty as part of an agreement with the Department of Justice. He is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 14.

https://qz.com/1795127/raytheon-engineer-arrested-for-taking-us-missile-defense-secrets-to-china/

The Chinese frauds at it again. Case after case after case. This just proves how dependent the Chinese are on American scientific and technological know how, and where things stand in this competition. The Chinese are dependent, the US is not. That really says it all.

This just proves how dependent the US are on ethnic Chinese scientists. They are all at key projects of the US science and tech. If you read any American technical and engineering book today, the chance is that you would see ~ 20 - 30% quotations from Chinese names (Wang, Lee etc.). If Korean and Japanese are counted, the ratio may reach nearly 40%.

How the US can compete against China in next 30 years is clearly in doubt. They have 1.4 billions people with extremely high IQ.

 

[Menthol]

The US and Western countries are the leader while China is the follower. All these cases just prove Chinese dependence on American and Western know how. You don't see the US stealing other countries IP to gain economic and military advantage.

I don't think USA doesn't steal anything.

If you have world greatest intelligence network and world greatest spyware... I doubt it.

But USA is smart by saying for security reason.

The same security reason as China has actually.

But in China case, it's twisted as military build up.


In the competitive world, everyone is learning (aka stealing) each others.

That is why all cars from different brands and countries look alike. The same as other products.


Since we all hardcore in world political affair (that's why we are here in this forum), things like this are hard to deceive us.

 

[FedererExpress]

Immoral and unethical people. A shameful bunch of people.

 

[Verve]

Why blame Chinese when the Americans themselves can't protect their own assets!

Fire all the Chinese from sensitive jobs!

 

[gambit]

This just proves how dependent the US are on ethnic Chinese scientists.

Wrong. You have a false understanding of 'dependent'.

To be 'dependent' on something, it means you MUST seek that something out based upon its characteristics. Look at it from a drug user's perspective. You need X drug because of A, B, C, etc...

We hired people based upon their qualifications, not because of their race/ethnic origins. I know you are desperate to suck up to the Chinese members of this forum, but do try to be subtle about it.

 

[Viet]

The US should fire all chinese working in sensible fields from defense to electronics. Replace them by Vietnamese ethnics. Win win.

We are always loyal to host countries.

 

[Nefarious]

Dog eat dog ladies and gents, protect yourself at all times.

 

[Paul2]

Wrong. You have a false understanding of 'dependent'.

To be 'dependent' on something, it means you MUST seek that something out based upon its characteristics. Look at it from a drug user's perspective. You need X drug because of A, B, C, etc...

We hired people based upon their qualifications, not because of their race/ethnic origins. I know you are desperate to suck up to the Chinese members of this forum, but do try to be subtle about it.

You are dependent beyond measure on cheap imported science/engineering talent, and you don't admit it.

Apple for example hires best brains in China for peanuts by American own standards. Chinese CEOs, CTOs of companies with millions USD in capital agree to abandon their entire life's work to work as ordinary engineers for American salaries.

Apple's upcoming VR goggles are almost entirely RnDed by Chinese talent, and research funded by Chinese state grants, science funds, and universities.

A US company who got a $14M COSMO grant from your airforce 2 years ago, got it only thanks to their unit stuffed almost entirely with people from Beiijing University alumni and its research network. Their tech head is a Chinese guy, a party member, and they don't even want to admit that he exists on their website. They have profiles of every executive down to deputy VP and GM level, but not him.

A man who lead a Schkval clone program for US navy is a Chinese expat who moved to USA in nineties. USA did not pay for his free education, nor his 2 decades research career.

Seeing this things happen, I can't help, but feel tearful. If people don't define this as unfair, what if?

US always gets in arms with Chinese expats taking their research back with them to China, some times slapping them with espionage claims, but a reverse is still fine because of some legal casuistic?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

You are dependent beyond measure on cheap imported science/engineering talent, and you don't admit it.

Apple for example hires best brains in China for peanuts by American own standards. Chinese CEOs, CTOs of companies with millions USD in capital agree to abandon their entire life's work to work as ordinary engineers for American salaries.

Apple's upcoming VR goggles are almost entirely RnDed by Chinese talent, and research funded by Chinese state grants, science funds, and universities.

A US company who got a $14M COSMO grant from your airforce 2 years ago, got it only thanks to their unit stuffed almost entirely with people from Beiijing University alumni and its research network. Their tech head is a Chinese guy, a party member, and they don't even want to admit that he exists on their website. They have profiles of every executive down to deputy VP and GM level, but not him.

A man who lead a Schkval clone program for US navy is a Chinese expat who moved to USA in nineties. USA did not pay for his free education, nor his 2 decades research career.

Seeing this things happen, I can't help, but feel tearful. If people don't define this as unfair, what if?

US always gets in arms with Chinese expats taking their research back with them to China, some times slapping them with espionage claims, but a reverse is still fine because of some legal casuistic?

If you mean the COSMO satellite that is Italian.

 

[Paul2]

If you mean the COSMO satellite that is Italian.

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/987f4fd265...&sort=-relevance&index=&is_active=true&page=1

 

[vi-va]

Hey you know, with a few Groupon vouchers - we may get a Group Discount on AMRAAM knockoffs which'll be just good as the real deal.

Somewhere in India, the Minister of Defense, Rajnath Singh just learned that now JF-17's will be armed with AMRAAMS (too). His reaction...

View attachment 602837​

Sorry to say, Rajnath Singh doesn't quit sure what's AMRAAM. He is a politician.

 

[gambit]

You are dependent beyond measure on cheap imported science/engineering talent, and you don't admit it.

What is there to 'admit'? It is standard business practice to pay the lowest cost to have the most gain. If a US company hired a Chinese/Indian/French/Spanish/whatever person, it is because of his/her qualifications, not because of race or ethnic origin. That is what you guys have been positing all this time -- that US companies hired Chinese simply because the person is Chinese. If you have a lower value than your neighbor for the same labor, that is your prerogative, and it is also standard business practice. If that is the case, it is silly to claim advantage over your neighbor because of something else other than a lower value of labor. You want to work for me for peanuts? Then I will pay you in peanuts. Happy?