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Comment by katzgrau | Hacker News Reader

An engineer with a great pedigree and work background and social finesse who passes all interviews and interaction without detection... Willing to take on a high risk role... All for the good of the homeland?

I think you're describing a work of fiction. It's practically a James Bond or Bruce Wayne-like character. This particular person would be extremely hard to find/hire/compel by some competing nation, if they even exist.

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Meet Jack Barsky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Barsky

Doesn't quite fit the image of perfection described above

You may be underestimating the recruiting efforts and budgets of major nation-state intelligence agencies - Russia and China are doing exactly the same thing the US has been doing for a long time. Spending some tens of millions of dollars to accomplish inserting an advanced persistent threat inside of software used by some huge percentage of the US federal government is a tiny drop in the bucket of the budget of such agencies.

The main difference is that the US has historically accomplished it through a role in many cases as a vendor, or a supplier of essential high tech stuff (CIA/NSA and Crypto AG for instance).

The good of the homeland and money. You're essentially being paid to do two jobs. Go work for a good salary in a foreign country, and then collect a good salary from your intelligence agency.

Hell if you're targeting the US, why not do it? The worst that can happen to you is that you'll be deported and go back home to work a great job within the government.

> The worst that can happen to you is that you'll be deported

This is demonstrably not true.

> I think you're describing a work of fiction. It's practically a James Bond or Bruce Wayne-like character.

Diane Feinstein, the _Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee_, had a Chinese spy as her personal driver _for 20 years_. So yes, slipping engineers into tech companies is not that complicated and in fact happens all the time.

And then they move up the corporate ladder, loved by all? Read OP's original description, not the same. Driver spy is not a counterpoint.

Isnt that the FBI's job to vet people?

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