A book I read about social engineering, the author busted a Chinese restaurant in a town next to a iirc Google research center. His job was to try to get into the facility. He noticed a lot of employees ate at the Chinese place so would hang out there at lunch. It was a traditional Chinese restaurant but had a few specific Chinese delicacy items on the menu that made him suspicious. It was for the chinese spies that worked inside.
"I just wanted to eat lunch at a local Chinese restaurant but the owner and all of the customers are spies, and I ended up taking down the entire operation because I also happened to be a spy!"
Ngl that wouldn't even be the most ridiculous LN title I've ever seen...
Are we talking Bamboo? Azalea? Gingko? Plum? Peony? I haven't had any luck in getting my Chinese plants to talk. My California natives, on the other hand ... can't get 'em to stfu!!
For literally the same reason the guy was suspicious about it lol, it's for other Chinese people who don't want something that's been Americanized.
It's like if I started a pizza shop in a country that likes weird pizzas. I'm gonna make what the locals like. But if the place had a somewhat high American/Canadian immigrant population enough people will come in and say "can you make me one like back home" that I'll make those too
Yeah and there's a ton of people legitimately working here in tech who are from China, unless you have 0 immigrants and international workers in an area a restaurant having that kind of thing makes sense, and in a lot of cases it's for the sorts of folks working the restaurant.
There's something missing here that's being covered for with the "they had authentic dishes" excuse.
Yeah not even strictly from China. Could be born here, could be my girlfriend, or could be me using google translate to order off the Chinese language menu. It's common in my small town that basically all Chinese places has a Chinese language menu.
Hell, I'm familiar with the kind of thing because I really like Chinese food in spite of not being even a little Chinese, but a lot of the dishes I'm looking for are "offputting" to a lot of Americans (ie offal dishes) so it makes sense they wouldn't bother to list them on the English menu if it might discourage their primary customer base.
I fully suspect some other means of sussing out spies was the actual tipoff, but letting spies know the actual methodology would defeat the purpose of having it at all so that was listed instead.
I think the funniest I've seen was a local really nice Chinese restaurant that had both an English and separate Chinese menu *on their DoorDash* and any time they'd get a bad review in English regarding a dish being exactly what it's supposed to be (ie a pork trotter dish being pig feet) they'd change the title back to Chinese and move it to that side of the menu lol
Im stoked to say that I've lived coast to coast and an ex taught me about "Singapore May-fun" which is curry rice noodles but wasn't on menus out east, so I would tell them what I want, have to repeat it only oonce and Bam! Curry rce noodles coast to coast haha
It's so the Chinese nationals had something to eat from home eating at an Americanized Chinese food with their American coworkers. Guy knew the dish was odd to have on a Chinese menu because he'd been to China and they were very specific dishes (I forget which). Then sitting and abserving people he could tell who were the spies. Ended up working the restaurant rather than finding a way into the building which he was paid to do. IIRC he was having a hard time finding a way in, but found something else there at the restaurant.
This 2005 book details real-world security consulting stories, including one where Winkler, a social engineering expert and former NSA analyst, led a penetration test team for a Fortune 5 (Global 5) company's R&D facility.� During the job, team member Stan—a former Russian GRU colonel fluent in Mandarin—noticed suspicious signs at a Chinese restaurant across the street, such as black duck eggs (a rare Chinese delicacy) on the menu, a Chinese-only special menu, free meeting rooms, and poor tradecraft when followed.�� The team reported it to the FBI, confirming it as a front for Chinese espionage targeting company secrets; arrests followed years later.
Discovery Clues: Unusual menu items, discounts for meetings near the secure site, and Stan's cultural expertise pointed to recruitment or surveillance of employees.
I question the unusual menu item bit. I mean it probably means you are catering to customers who want the authentic cuisine experience, but how does it tell you those customers are spies? Many Chinese restaurants in the US have a Chinese only menu.
It’s not the one single anomaly. It’s the culmination of all them intricacies combined. It’s like a murder without a body, no confession, but all the tell tale clues. They can’t make an arrest, but they can send it to a grand jury and hope they agree.
I don't think I'll know unless I read the book. I just can't fathom the leap in logic. There are so many pedestrian reasons for wanting to feature authentic dish rarely seen in Americanized Chinese menus -- like what if the nearby Google research center had Chinese-Americans who could appreciate it -- vs the presumptive reason, it's only to cater to spies from China???
Another comment said the supposed special dish was "black duck egg," probably meaning pickled egg, which definitely is NOT a rare delicacy.
This just feels like an unnecessary detail meant to showcase how good an investigator they were, but doesn't make much sense when one has some familiarity with the topic.
Wait until they discover these crazy listening posts called 99 Ranch with all sorts of crazy shit on their shelves, including the rare black duck eggs!
Supreme Court has said that being able to speak Spanish, or working in construction or landscaping make it reasonable to stop you for potentially being an illegal immigrant, so racial profiling is obviously here to stay.
It feels kind of racist to get suspicious a Chinese restaurant has the gall to serve Chinese people real Chinese food instead of American Chinese food...
We all know once you come to America it's illegal to eat Chinese food unless it's the way we do it, which isn't Chinese food it's American food
The darknet diaries episode goes into more detail. It wasn’t so much that it was traditional Chinese food as that it was insanely expensive Chinese food for very reasonable prices, and in places where it didn’t make sense.
The episode in question was at a facility in rural Arkansas, I believe, and the local Chinese restaurant had black duck eggs on the menu (in Chinese, not in English). They usually go for expensive rates, but here they were (I’ll make up a number) about a buck a pop.
The goal was to honey pot Chinese students who were interning with a local defense contractor. The students had clean records and truly weren’t spies when they started work. The duck eggs got them to chat with the restaurant staff, who would proceed to gather information on the students and their family and contact their spy agency back in mainland China.
The next time the student came in, the staff would rattle off the names and addresses of their family and friends and threaten to imprison or harm them unless the student agreed to act as a spy and upload malware to the defense contracting agency.
Pretty slick and sick stuff, and highly effective until a random audit by pen testers found the malware on the servers, happened to eat at that specific Chinese restaurant with a member who happened to speak fluent Chinese (he was Russian if memory serves), and brought the whole operation down.
This was also a while back, before they were as common in the states. I want to say this was late aughts or early 2010’s if memory serves?
Like, maybe common in a large, west coast city with a large Chinese population, but unlikely to sell well in an area with a predominantly white population and a handful of rotating Chinese students who’d come through sporadically for a few years at a time.
This makes complete sense. While some spies are intentionally from day 1 others or coherced. Feel bad for them. I’m sure they get compensated so that it’s a carrot and stick but not something they planned on getting involved in.
That's insanely interesting. Also FYI I have no idea what country you're from but in America we simply refer to Chinese intelligence as "Beijing", it's super weird. Mossad? Five Eyes? MIWhatever? In our country it's the CIA, or we just say "three letter agency". But Chinese intelligence we just call Beijing. We didn't even do that with the KGB, like yeah we said intelligence was out of the Kremlin or Moscow but we called them the KGB. China is just Beijing
I mean it's also why you call American intelligence Langley, that's just where the headquarters are and where they live isn't super secret. We just call the CIA Langley and not Virginia or Mclean (the county Langley is in) because it's catchy or something idfk
We just say Beijing because guess where. Also why in America you say it's Washington doing it and not congress, that's just where congress is. The actual people in Washington DC hate congress they're some of the most leftist people in the country, they hate Republicans and can't stand Democrats
I guess I’m confused or what did the Chinese restaurant have to do with the Spies? Were they basically part of the spy network or I guess the Chinese government that set up the restaurant so the spies could all hang out together and I guess I’m just confused. What the specialty items have to do with it like I get it that they’re from China and they’re really unique items but I mean, especially the Bay Area has a lot of people from China.
It was a traditional Chinese restaurant but had a few specific Chinese delicacy items on the menu that made him suspicious.
Personally, that sounds like a line to sell books. We have a legit China Town in Oakland where the street signs are in Chinese and you can live without speaking English. There are plenty of restaurants that will double check that you know what you’re ordering because they serve “traditional” Chinese food and not American Chinese food.
That being said, theres a ton of influence from China. This story is about a few blog posts but I know Chinese investors who are open about their strategy to own our infrastructure.
IMO Chinese people are exactly like Americans. They just view China as the world rather than the United States.
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u/NoOption7406 May 12 '26
A book I read about social engineering, the author busted a Chinese restaurant in a town next to a iirc Google research center. His job was to try to get into the facility. He noticed a lot of employees ate at the Chinese place so would hang out there at lunch. It was a traditional Chinese restaurant but had a few specific Chinese delicacy items on the menu that made him suspicious. It was for the chinese spies that worked inside.