Shanghainese disco bunny steals UK govt official's heart, nicks his Blackberry

A top aide to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was seduced by a hot woman he met in a Shanghai disco, who came back to his hotel room. In the morning, his (unencrypted) Blackberry was gone. Crypto: 1, Penis: 0.

The group stayed at the disco for at least two hours. One senior aide was approached by an attractive Chinese woman. The couple danced and later disappeared together.
The security official said: "In these circumstances it was not wise. Nobody knows exactly what happened after they left. But the next morning he came forward and said: "My BlackBerry is missing." The prime minister's Special Branch protection team were alerted.

Link (via /.)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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OriGuy

Hey, at least it wasn’t his kidney.
Anonymous

The article implies that the blackberry was password protected. If you enter the wrong password 10 times in a blackberry, it blows away the data. Only way I could imagine they could get at the data would be to unsolder the memory chips and mount them in some sort of reader that can access and read the file system and formats. How big is the actual risk?
Angstrom

A female spy who uses Barbiturates to control the mark in a honey trap is known as a “Barbie”

Well, it should be the neologism IMO ;)
js7a

Ha! Lets see how much they like their nanny state of so much suspicion and enforced surveillability when that IMAP server gets pinged, the Chinese triangulate its location, and less convieniently-minded officials start getting anonymous suggestions about staying out of Darfur.
Perla

I’m sure if he went searching in the local markets, he might find his black berry. Yes, it’s possible she was a spy, but more likely she was looking for quick money. Silly man, that’s what comes about of letting your penis think. It’s never a good idea, they can’t do complicated calculations.
Teapunk

The Disco Bunny is just adopting a technique she learned from James Bond movies: Seduce them and they’ll give you the secret to world domination, or at least their Blackberry.
willie

I’m willing to bet that the Disco Bunny wasn’t even a she. I think the Chinese have pulled this sort of thing off previously in their spy games.
Nelson.C

A Guoanbu honey-trap operation for a jumped-up cell phone? I think not. They could have got the same info with a pick-pocket, with more deniability. And what information could they have gained from the phone? Do government aides routinely receive or send top secret documents with their blackberries?

If it was a honey-trap op, the girl would have returned the phone later, then asked for a small favour in return for her silence. That small favour would have led to another slightly greater favour, and so on until the aide was completely compromised. A turned insider is much more valuable than an IP address for Downing Street’s server.

No, my money’s on a simple theft of opportunity.
Certhas

“Do government aides routinely receive or send top secret documents with their blackberries?”

In the UK? I wouldn’t be suprised (at least they seem to occasionally leave them in the tube, or commuter train, etc…)
jeannieh

Maybe the Blackberry contained the top secret information needed for China to chronologically progress from “discos” to “clubs?”
edgore

“Do government aides routinely receive or send top secret documents with their blackberries?”

It’s known that Karl Rove used his (non-government supplied) Blackberry for all sorts of sensitive government work, including information that has been claimed to be covered by Presidential privilege, if not top secret (I haven’t heard one way or the other on that).

This has always amazed me, since I can’t imagine his sweaty, fat fingers being able to operate well on such small keys.
theWalrus

I give him credit for coming forward publicly. If it had been anyone from the bush administration, there would have been a cover up, then claims of executive privilege when the inevitable leak occurs.
IWood

I honestly thought that this was going to have something to do with organ donation.

Gonna be a long week, I think.
Ashcott

News in the media here (UK) yesterday that the UK Ministry of Defence had ‘lost’ hundreds of USB sticks and Laptops over the last few years. So nothing surprises me.

You got to hand it to this Chinese spook, she did her job well. A true professional.
vert

So… his Blackberry goes missing, and that means it was definitely stolen… by a *spy* no less?

There’s no chance he just *dropped* it somewhere, is there?
Cowicide

Zero? I think the penis at least deserves a point here.
Takuan

elenkhos, elenkhos… weren’t that So-crates guy the one thet said writin’ words down wuz gonna ruin our brains?

A simple question: What are China’s intentions? The current government, the majority Han, the significant military. I do not think a cold war is needed. I have long averred that simple Malthusian calculation of growth rates, population, rising expectations, environmental limits and actual available resources means China is doomed to implode within a decade. Other nations will encourage this of course, but always with a weather eye to global economic entanglements. Better for the USA to endure a full blown depression than a shooting war involving nukes and other WMD?
Takuan

good film by the way
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107468/
Takuan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121625646058760485.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Takuan

http://www.thestrategy.org.au/?module=displaystory&story_id=700&format=html
TEKNA2007

Zero? I think the penis at least deserves a point here.

Yeah, agree with you, Cowicide. I’m thinking Penis:1, Good sense:0. What else is new.
mdhatter

Very Mata Hari.
querent

As far as I can see, something like this is the only reason to go into intelligence. Get laid and compromise your government all in one fell stroke.
toolbag

#4 “Do government aides routinely receive or send top secret documents with their blackberries?”

http://www.military-information-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=1977

Don’t know if the UK has a similar classy network but I imagine they probably do. Unless they’re incredibly incompetent there shouldn’t be anything beyond secret on the phone. Can’t imagine they’d put TS on there. Although they do drive on the wrong side of the road…..
GregC

I lived in Shanghai for 3 years.

Though the Chinese gov’t has used honey-traps on Japanese gov’t officials before it’s quite common practice for a “disco” to be populated with multiple “attractive Chinese woman” (read: prostitute) who beyond wanting to provide “services” is also looking to rob you blind. Blackberrys are small and easy steal in that type of situation.

My guess is that is the deal. Happens to tourists all the time and they always act shocked!
Antinous

the UK Ministry of Defence had ‘lost’ hundreds of USB sticks and Laptops over the last few years.

More than 100 memory sticks and 650 laptops in four years. BBC article
elfajio

#5

I always assumed that these documents etc found in backs of cabs, trains and the like, which always make the front page of The Sun, are just handed over to the paper by whistleblowers then the cab story is made up just to cover their tracks?

Hmmm.
WeightedCompanionCube

Intentionally placing classified documents on unclassified networks is something US Government employees can go to jail for.

If the UK is anything like the US, nothing classified goes on a Blackberry, and it would have been sent the command to remote wipe as soon as it was reported to be in unknown hands.

Then again, they leave stuff on the train in the UK…
Kieran O’Neill

#10, #13: It’s amazing how quickly this went from “Blackberry possibly stolen by Shanghai hooker (or maybe just lost)” to “the incident had all the hallmarks of a suspected honeytrap by Chinese intelligence” to “Gordon Brown aide a victim of honeytrap operation by Chinese agents”.

*sigh* at the modern media.

The jingoism in just about all the articles I’ve seen on this from UK and US papers is a little scary, too. “growing threat”, “hostile intelligence service”, etc.

For all the Chinese government’s evil ways, we really do not want a new cold war between China and the West.
Kieran O’Neill

Sorry, that previous should start “#10, #18″.

#13: Takuan, from that article, “Chinese working in America have with growing frequency been expelled from the US for suspected industrial spying.”

The kind of stories I’ve been hearing in academic circles have been that Chinese Ph.D. students studying in the US have been afraid to leave the country at all during their entire 3-5 year degree for fear of arbitrarily being denied re-entry. That means no visits home, no international holidays and no attendance at international conferences.

“Suspicion” and perceived “threats”. Gotta love modern Amerika (and Airstrip One towing the line).
Takuan

what are China’s intentions?
jwb

There’s no such thing as an unencrypted BlackBerry.
ThinkPositive

Surely any fully grown man who would like this Barbie would be gay?
I had a few Barbies as a child and would really have liked this one. But it is a bad influence yes.
CharlesSpongeworth

Is “blackberry” actually a euphemism for “cherry” in this context?
Kieran O’Neill

#36: I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to rape Africa for any resources still remaining after the past rape by Europe/North America, before they went down.

Given that China’s population is greater than the entire continent, however, I wouldn’t see that taking very long.

I suppose they may take a large chunk of South East Asia with them too (minus India and Japan, anyway).

Happy days ahead.
eustace

ahh… savor the surreality…
someone posted to the wrong thread again. But with wonderful results.
Antinous

Shanghai Spy Barbie – scopolamine not included.
eustace

I think “Barbie” is the new jargon for techno-honey-trap cutie…
Kieran O’Neill

#31: I’m not sure if that’s intended to be a rhetorical question, a genuine inquiry or elenkhos. Nevertheless, I’ll bite: I honestly don’t know. I would guess it depends on what you mean by “China”. I get the distinct impression that the state industries, for instance, have a fair amount of power and independence from the national government. The same seems to be true for the provincial governments.

My guess would be that the overall goal is to continue the economic miracle as long as possible. Maybe, just maybe, some people in power actually want to do this for the benefit of the Chinese people, but that’s debatable. I really, really doubt that anyone in any real position of power in China is interested in war in any form with the West.

The West, on the other hand, especially the United States, is interested in maintaining its citizens’ privileged economic status. The strategy for doing this is to draw China into a cold war. That cannot be a good thing, especially at a time when the greenhouse gas outputs from China are a huge global concern. China in cold war state with the rest of the world is unlikely to cut back on its massive and rising coal use.

And while I was typing this, LastFM delivered me “Pretty Toy” by Velvet Acid Christ, featuring a sound clip from Fight Club:

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

*shudder*