Name: Chinese agent exploited LinkedIn's 'relentless' algorithm to find contacts and gather intelligence, admission of guilt says
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Chinese agent exploited LinkedIn's 'relentless' algorithm to find contacts and gather intelligence, admission of guilt says

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A man who admitted to being an agent of the Chinese government used LinkedIn's "relentless" algorithm to find new batches of US government contacts, telling investigators that his daily search for new sources on the social network "felt almost like an addiction," according to a signed admission of guilt.Dickson Jun Wei Yeo pleaded guilty on July 23 to being an illegal agent of China. As The Washington Post , he used the cover of academia to travel to the US and acquire "nonpublic information" for Beijing, in part by recruiting Americans to write paid reports for his phony think tank.In his , Yeo admits to using a "professional networking website" — identified by The Washington Post as LinkedIn — to find government and military contacts likely to possess sensitive information."According to Yeo, the website's algorithm was relentless," the admission states. He checked the site "almost every day to review the new batch of potential contacts suggested to him by the site's algorithm," telling investigators "that it felt almost like an addiction."Those contacts were then paid between $1,000 and $2,000 for reports on topics such as the sale of F-35 aircraft to Japan and the US-China trade war. Those reports, ostensibly academic in nature, were then submitted to contacts known to Yeo as agents of Chinese intelligence.LinkedIn has long been known as a recruitment grounds for intelligence agencies. Last year, that it was "prime hunting ground," where "Chinese spies are the most active."Have a news tip? Email this reporter:{{}}Email addressEnter captchaBy clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our and Copyright © 2022. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.

A man who admitted to being an agent of the Chinese government used LinkedIn's "relentless" algorithm to find new batches of US government contacts, telling investigators that his daily search for new sources on the social network "felt almost like an addiction," according to a signed admission of guilt.Dickson Jun Wei Yeo pleaded guilty on July 23 to being an illegal agent of China. As The Washington Post , he used the cover of academia to travel to the US and acquire "nonpublic information" for Beijing, in part by recruiting Americans to write paid reports for his phony think tank.In his...

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Chinese agent exploited LinkedIn's 'relentless' algorithm to find contacts and gather intelligence, admission of guilt says

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