{"id":17023,"date":"2023-02-09T18:33:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/us-says-chinese-military-behind-vast-aerial-spy-program\/"},"modified":"2023-02-09T18:33:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T17:33:21","slug":"us-says-chinese-military-behind-vast-aerial-spy-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/us-says-chinese-military-behind-vast-aerial-spy-program\/","title":{"rendered":"US Says Chinese Military Behind Vast Aerial Spy Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s balloon that crossed the United States<\/a> was equipped to collect intelligence signals and was part of a huge, military-linked aerial spy program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration said Thursday, outlining the scope and capabilities of the huge balloon that captivated the country\u2019s attention before being shot down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fleet of balloons operates under the direction of the People\u2019s Liberation Army and is used specifically for spying, outfitted with high-tech equipment designed to collect sensitive information from targets across the globe, the U.S. said. Similar balloons have floated over five continents, it U.S. said.<\/p>\n

The statement from a senior State Department official offered the most detail to date linking China\u2019s military to the balloon that traversed the U.S. before being shot down last Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean. The public details are meant to refute China\u2019s persistent denials that the balloon was used for spying, including a claim Thursday that U.S. accusations about the balloon amount to \u201cinformation warfare\u201d against Beijing.<\/p>\n

In Beijing, before the U.S. offered new information, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning repeated her nation\u2019s insistence that the large unmanned balloon was a civilian meteorological airship that had blown off course and that the U.S. had \u201coverreacted\u201d by shooting it down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is irresponsible,\u201d Mao said. The latest accusations, he said, \u201cmay be part of the U.S. side\u2019s information warfare against China.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s defense minister refused to take a phone call from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the balloon issue on Saturday, the Pentagon said. China has not answered questions as to what government department or company the balloon belonged to, or how it planned to follow up on a pledge to take further action over the matter.<\/p>\n

The U.S. offered a flatly contradictory characterization of the balloon and its purpose. It said imagery of the balloon collected by American U-2 spy planes as it crossed the country showed that it was \u201ccapable of conducting signals intelligence collection\u201d with multiple antennas and other equipment designed to upload sensitive information and solar panels to power them.<\/p>\n

The official said an analysis of the balloon debris was \u201cinconsistent\u201d with China\u2019s explanation that it was a weather balloon that went off course. The U.S. is reaching out to countries that have also been targeted, the official said, to discuss the scope of the Chinese surveillance program, and is looking into potential action that \u201csupported the balloon\u2019s incursion into U.S. airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official provided details to reporters by email on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter, which had already forced the cancellation of a planned visit to China earlier this week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.<\/p>\n

The official said the U.S. has confidence that the manufacturer of the balloon shot down on Saturday has \u201ca direct relationship with China\u2019s military and is an approved vendor of the\u201d army. The official cited information from an official PLA procurement portal as evidence for the connection between the company and the military.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the U.S. government has publicly called out alleged activities of the People\u2019s Liberation Army. In a first-of-its-kind prosecution in 2014, the Obama administration Justice Department indicted five accused PLA hackers<\/a> of breaking into the computer networks of major American corporations in an effort to steal trade secrets.<\/p>\n

Alleged hackers with the PLA were also charged in 2020<\/a> with stealing the personal data of tens of millions of Americans in a breach of the credit-reporting agency Equifax.<\/p>\n

The post US Says Chinese Military Behind Vast Aerial Spy Program<\/a> appeared first on SecurityWeek<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s balloon that crossed the United States was equipped to collect intelligence signals and was part of a huge, military-linked aerial spy program that targeted more than 40 countries, the Biden administration said Thursday, outlining the scope and capabilities of the huge balloon that captivated the country\u2019s attention before being shot down. The fleet of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.show.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}