Pulse of Truth

2508 readers

19 users here now

Cyber Security news and links to cyber security stories that could make you go hmmm. The content is exactly as it is consumed through RSS feeds and wont be edited (except for the occasional encoding errors).

This community is automagically fed by an instance of Dittybopper.

Commenting rules:

Be respectful.
No bigotry (including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia).
No pornography.
Nothing illegal.
More rules will be added when necessary

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

krogoth@infosec.pub

A Student Said He Was a Hobby Plane Spotter. He Was Allegedly Taking Photos for the Chinese Government (www.404media.co)

submitted 1 week ago by lemmydev2@infosec.pub to c/pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Weiheng Zeng originally said he took photos of planes for an aviation fan website. Later he admitted a suspected Chinese government official had given him specific locations in the U.S. to go photograph.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Did he actually do anything illegal? It sounds like he spent some time tooling around in a FedEx parking lot, but not much more than that.

Beyond the question of legality, what threat does this actually pose? The Chinese will now have a picture of the aileron of a max 8? It's not like these planes are some deep secret, they carry the public around.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well if he knew he was doing it for the Chinese government secretly, yeah pretty sure that is illegal.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Flights are publicly trackable...what would be the point of this person covertly taking pics of planes to give to China?

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not all flights. Military planes and drones.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Do those routinely route through the Fedex parking lot of a public airport?

Because that's where he was 'caught' spying.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 week ago

Okay, sure. But, like, why? Any Chinese government official could just go take pictures of the plane. It just doesn't make any sense

[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 2 points 1 week ago

Being an undeclared foreign agent is illegal, regardless of what you're doing. I imagine the Chinese government wouldn't have asked him to take those pictures if they didn't have some value.

[–] lath@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

It's about logistics. Staying updated without attracting attention, supposedly, just in case.

Staying aware of the enemy logistics offers the chance to cripple it early in case of a war. There might not be an active plan for it, but it will be an option if needed.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 1 points 1 week ago

Of course! He has a Chinese name!