I have been successful in reporting a fake account.... but it took me awhile to observe its removal on LinkedIn. The most obvious way is to click on the "more" button next to the "connect" button when looking at a person's profile. Clicking on "more" will give you a pull down menu with the option to "report/block". Going this route multiple times did not result in the desired outcome which was to report a person claiming to be the CEO of a non-profit for which I am board chair.
The second method, for which I did receive a response from LinkedIn leading to the desired outcome, is best accomplished by conducting a search for "reporting a fake account." Type this into the search box using the "Quick Help" function under "Me". Two relevant options will appear in the list: 1) reporting fake profiles and 2)reporting inaccurate information on another person's profile. I clicked on #2 and this is where you will find a link "Notice of Inaccurate Profile Information". Click on this link and a form will appear allowing you to fill out more detailed information about why you are reporting the account. Taking this approach resulted in a response from LinkedIn and I was able to provide them with more information.
It's incredibly obtuse and LinkedIn should make it much, much easier to report fake profiles or those with inaccurate information. The profile I reported resulted in its removal however the same "person" has 4 other profiles lightly populated, likely all fake.
13
It is astounding to me how little LinkedIn requires no evidence of the information on a profile. A scammer who I met at a high-level conference, unknowingly had false information on his profile. Upon information and belief, He claimed he was a Dr., yet he has no documentation on his bio showing he received a Doctorate from any university, but he uses the title. LinkedIn refuses to remove the Dr. without a court order.
The man claimed he was partners with the Obama Foundation and he wasn't, was unlocking a grant with UC of Davies, and he wasn't, ran the Empire State Building, and he didn't, and he violated an NDA with JP Morgan Chase reportedly for a previous non-disclosed issue. He had five bios and is now down to one. It is incredulous that LinkedIn permits him to maintain any bio.
Let the buyer beware, LinkedIn, in my opinion, is helping con artists to perpetrate fraud.
7
WOW false profiles on the internet who would have guessed ?
I especially like the picture of the guy in the trench coat, to add visual drama to this story.
History has proven people will believe any conspiracy theory.
4
This could be the hedline for another story: Chinese spies infiltrate White House
: includes White House officials
The former Obama White House official and career diplomat, Brett Bruen, said a user by the name of Donna Alexander contacted him in 2017 on LinkedIn. Her profile says she is a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology, but the photograph is of an actress.
A spokeswoman for the university said it has no record of an employee by that name.
Ms. Alexander’s network on LinkedIn includes White House officials and former ambassadors, according to screenshots seen by The Times. “This person seems to have ingratiated herself with or gotten accepted by a lot of people in the foreign policy structure of U.S. government,” Mr. Bruen said.
4
Considering the large number of students from China, it only makes sense to suspect that at least a few (hundreds) of them are performing some form of intelligence work for Beijing.
12
Scanning the comments, I've not seen anyone here mention Pakistan.
For the balance report, would Edward also report that in what manner, the CIA and NED (national endowment for democracy) recruits agents for the US?
15
I doubt this is only something China is doing; fraud is rampant and many countries see no wrong in committing fraud or espionage. We live in a global economy, after all.
9
It’s sad that this will hinder the effectiveness of LinkedIn: people will be more paranoid responding to even 2nd level contacts.
3
The Owners & Management of LinkedIn should be charged under the Espionage Act. I filed complaints about Chinese & Russian Hackers that wanted me to add them to my File on LinkedIn for the past 5 years.
I traced one Chinese hacker who stole my company’s Name. The Chinese woman on LinkedIn had a large following. LinkedIn refused to close the woman’s file. My lawyer traced the NYC address to a dead end. LinkedIn has an office in Ireland & Luxembourg but without staff. Sooner or later later we will find the owners & managers.
11
I received one of these and couldn't figure out how to report it to LinkedIn. I also found that the start-up I worked for had created fake profiles with pictures of models to make our company look bigger than it was. (I quit soon after.) Again, no way to report to LinkedIn. Like Facebook and Twitter, they won't care until their hand is forced.
15
I just got one of these this week. It was a bit bizarre: a local medical professional with last name Lin, but her pictures showed a blue-eyed brunette in poses more appropriate to Grinder than Linked-In. Her profile was sparse and un-grammatical. I tried reverse image search on the pics, but got no hits. Likewise googling her name combined with the places she supposedly worked.
So I wanted to report the profile, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that on Linked-In, which is odd and troubling. Every web-entity that aspires to importance should have an easy method of flagging posts and profiles for human investigation.
19
@Dan Coleman LinkedIn is very poor in terms of getting help or providing feedback. They don’t care.
4
As an experienced engineer, I've known about LinkedIn and fake contacts for years. Remember, anyone in China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc. works for the political party in charge regardless of their credentials. I consider these to be enemy states. That's why I ignore all requests from foreign nationals I haven't met personally. I even screen those Americans who might have connections and be doing business with these enemy states.
My background checks include businesses through Google and other search engines. I look for past contacts with compromised companies, even American ones. I look at news articles and buyouts. If I smell anything suspicious I ignore "friend" requests.
As far as I am concerned we are in a state of war with these countries.
17
Heck, I smelled red flag right away when I received several requests from half nude ''LinkedIn users'' from China. Nowadays we all need to be alert because, yes, threats are active all the time online. I am starting to miss the days of AOL ........
6
With all the focus on Russian media interference, I applaud the NY Times for (although stating the obvious) bringing to our attention to not forget China in this game.
12
Interesting - I was just sent an invitation to connect yesterday from a woman in China. I ignored it.
4
A former Obama senior foreign policy official, who doesn’t want to be identified, and Jonas Parello-Plesner, the former Danish Foreign Ministry official, became suspicious when they were approached by Chinese agents on linkedIn, under the guise of offering employment and opportunities.
The two men may well be the exceptions, thanks to their years in government service. They know what’s going on in the world of espionage and intelligence.
Other users on LinkedIn may be more gullible, especially if they are academics in ivory towers, and specialists working in high tech and sciences, who are less interested in geopolitics.
What I find worrying is how recruiters create fake accounts on social media in order to make contacts with the targeted users.
They post online photos using a host of dueling computer programmes called generative adversarial networks, or GANs, that can create realistic-looking faces of entirely imaginary people.
The two former US and Danish officials have the acumen and resources to check the profiles of their contacts and verify their identities. Other people don’t.
It’s time for universities and institutions to safeguard their scientific findings. Billions of dollars and years of research are being invested in R&D. They can't let rogue actors reap their harvest by taking a shortcut.
21
As if only China would be the only one using the so called social media. Look at how Trump got elected, or how the Brexit vote was influenced. "Social media"is poison for society!
22
Is this how they recruited William Dudley?
1
Unregulated social media, so far, has been responsible for more mayhem and suffering than social good, It must be regulated
15
In the early 90’s, I had just returned to the US from 11 years of living in Paris, sending out resumes on paper by mail.
One of the random “Consultant” ads seeking people with foreign language skills and experience living abroad contacted me.
It was the CIA.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
21
I've been hit by this a few times. I believe once was by a Chinese American, once from Israeli interests, both through LinkedIn. I also believe the same sort of deal takes place through SimplyHired. Taking this down should be a priority for LinkedIn and law enforcement. We should be able to use these platforms without concerns regarding foreign agency.
14
From first-hand accounts, I also know that China makes active attempts to infiltrate academia.
11
@Human,
The CIA identified this as a problem in the late 1970's. Believe me, they are watching Chinese, and other, academics very carefully. Frankly, I hope they have extended this to 1st generation as well.
3
@Human,
The CIA identified this as a problem in the late 1970's. Believe me, they are watching Chinese, and other, academics very carefully. Frankly, I hope they have extended this to 1st generation as well.
3
Today's Americans, not to mention people in nations innocent of large immigrant communities, never understood that much of the American WWII dread of Japanese was -not a reaction to a real threat-but in fact, was a conflation of all Oriental family philosophy , holding respect for elders in the family and state, of supreme importance-bonds stronger & more important than any national codes or Western ideas of national or democratic ideology. US terror, that given a large , youthful immigrant population, the Imperial Japanese could easily bend Americans of Japanese descent to it's will; was far more applicable to the Chinese American population, with it's strong confucian beliefs. As Americans believed implicitly what they saw & heard,( and once), whatever the government told them; it was easy to convince Americans that Japanese, with a seemingly impenetrable language, were "ticking time bombs"- much as FBI agents see Islamic immigrants today.
Chinese social beliefs about Western "invention" & enforcement of opium addiction, have simmered for two centuries among communities of immigrant Chinese. Western "imperialist conspiracies" are a powerful opening for mainlanders to convince foreign born Chinese children to see issues as Beijing desires. This has been true long before the WWW and internet.
The real suckers often seem to be we Americans, with our easily blinded fascination for shiny
things of lttle intrinsic value, we easily miss what's important.
3
Chinese may well recruit spies, or potential business contacts on Linkedin, but this article also reflect the xenophobic response US and Western countries may have reach hysterical level.
For example, I fail to see what kind of sensitive foreign information the Chinese could reasonably expect to gain from offering a trip to China, offering access to Chinese info, etc., etc. After all, wouldn't they want the spies to provide info that could collect information from outside China? May be these individuals were trying to sell information about China to individuals who might be interested in acquiring them.
As for the former US official who was offered a speaking opportunity at Zhejiang University, the recruiter might just want to bring a" well known" individuals to attend or speak at a local symposiums to increase his own "importance". There are probably fundings allocated to invite "foreign experts" (airfare and room and board), but no money for honorariums. Invitations to "belt and Road Initiative" organized at a Provincial level University is really not that hard to come by, and I would not be surprised if people are primarily invited for their potential connections for business and economic opportunities.
10
A premium LinkedIn account is a lot cheaper way to identify potential recruits when compared to sending an intelligence officer to schmooze at diplomatic functions and professional conferences.
And the article notes there have been successful operations.
I suspect the Chinese are using the security personnel data stolen from OPM a few years ago to help corroborate the LinkedIn profiles, too.
29
I got one of these messages on LinkedIn. Strangely, the role they wanted to recruit me for was not really connected to any experience I have listed on LinkedIn. Anyway, they seemed to want me to move to China for a role I'm not really qualified for.
A mentor of mine saw right through it and knew it was a corporate espionage recruitment situation. Since I already have experience living in Singapore, they prob thought China would be doable for me.
I declined, and stated firmly that they reason I was not interested in pursuing the role was that I was not interested in moving to China. The recruiter replied oddly: "Well. I see your message. Let's keep in touch."
13
Stone Age proverb: on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.
20
What is Mckinsey's role in this?
6
We should not be surprised! I am sure they are very active involved in the next election 2020. Nothing is news anymore.
13
@Linz
Sure, they stopped buying American agricultural products!
How is this surprising to anyone?
9
As much as I appreciate the piece, the piece itself has a red scare flavor. Not every Chinese who befriends people through social platforms is a spy, and not every Chinese connection you make is somehow ill-intentioned.
24
The burden of proof is on them.
6
Good way to make such offers less tempting?
Do something about the masses of unemployed academics needing jobs right here in the USA.
25
The strategy is just like scams, a cheap way to recruit: cast the net wide and hope some gullible people fall for it. It is like low end manufacturing, the quantity is large, price is low, profit margin is thin. This is a temporary phenomena. Just as China moves up the ladder to higher end manufacturing, their intelligence gathering techniques will become more refined, at which point it will stay mostly hidden from the public.
7
Linkedin is woefully equipped to address this threat. It's so called "Security Center" doesn't actually even give you an option to report fake accounts related to espionage or foreign interference. Their response is so inadequate, people should worry.
21
And I thought Linked In was ridiculous, without any purpose.
14
Well, the Chinese MO is to rob, replicate and replace so this no surprise.
What is surprising is that by having the courage to call the Chinese out Trump is actually doing the right thing.
The huge numbers of Chinese migrants and students in Western countries are subject to regime intimidation. Let's not be too naive.
28
An interesting parallel endeavor by the Chinese takes place on Facebook. Several weeks ago, I penned two or three sharply critical commentaries of Chinese foreign and economic policies on the Facebook page of Bloomberg news. About 24 hours later, I had two friend requests from very attractive Chinese female “students“ whose profiles appeared to have been launched just a day or two earlier. needless to say, I declined the invitations.
117
@David H
Something similar happened to me too after I wrote a SCIFI story re Chinese cyber war. I informed some people I knew and worked with and that's all I can say.
16
They must believe other countries do the same thing. My daughter created a Weibo account to stay in touch with her Asian classmates during school breaks and it was deleted because they tracked it to the US.
14
I’ve noticed the similar young attractive requests to connect on Linkedin but they are usually Russian or Slavic sounding names. I never accept and certainly didn’t expect any of it to amount to anything if I did, but have always wondered what these fake profiles are after, aside from trying to understand personal networks.
5
I realized that LinkedIn was a joke in 2016 when I discovered my fake persona had taken on a life of its own and became an independent ranching professional. I know I deleted my account. I don't remember if I deleted the fake account after I seized control over it, but I have no regrets about giving up that useless site.
8
@Brian
I have not found LinkedIn to be "useless" in my line of work at all. Then again, I'm not in a field that would be a target for espionage or (probably) fakery.
1
@io
If you need to more than just my anecdotal evidence why you shouldn't use a service like this, look up Ashley Madison. This is actually worse than that service. Sure, there was a lot of legal fallout from that service, but it was mostly civil litigation regarding unfaithful spouses. But if you accepted an espionage assignment through LinkedIn, you could face criminal charges and serious jail time.
I might have severed ties because I discovered the site appeared to create fake accounts to boost engagement, but it turned out to be much more nefarious than I could have expected.
4
No Trump fan, but I give him credit for at least finally standing up to China. 2-3 years ago no one on the left or right would dare do that.
42
@Chris, The CIA are doing the same since I was a little girl. We went too far, now they’ve a better way, and they are taking advantage.
3
@Chris. Eh, China is in it for the long game. Trump is way out of his league.
19
@Chris: Apparently the proposed TPP escaped your notice. There are other ways to ‘stand up’ than bellowing and pounding your chest in an impotent, self-destructive and futile attempt to intimidate the opposition - like forming strong alternative trade alliances and freezing the opponent out of them if it continues its bad behavior.
20
These recruiting efforts aren't being perpetrated by intelligence services. They are too sloppy. This is the level of stuff done by mischievous, bored teenagers or grownups who are entertaining themselves pranking the gullible.
8
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
On what evidence? Some of the attacks could be bored people, but former officials from Danish and U.S. gov't have to have been trained to spot espionage attempts, so why doubt their perception? I also suspect certain cultural differences could make an actual espionage attempt look more sloppy than intended...
9
Most intelligent professionals stick to connecting to people they know and use this as a basic vehicle to stay in touch with the same over years when they move around. Someone noted that if you have too many contacts, you should be suspect, clearly a lack of knowledge that if you are in certain positions and come in contact with new people doing 2-3 trade shows a year, you will have 500 in no time. This site is exceptionally popular with sales people among many others..... the same people getting ropped in on LinkedIn on some "spy" mission are probably the same the believe they have inherited millions of dollars from a long lost relative, but need to contact someone in Nigeria to collect....lol.
8
Hey LinkedIn. Police your site.
5
LinkedIn is a joke, it’s a huge waste of time. How many people trying to sell me insurance or office supplies can one person handle. I logged off awhile ago. It’s time has come and gone, time to shut it down!
13
Not surprised. Whenever you are dealing with foreigners be more careful and suspicious. Especially those new grads, unemployed workers... Don’t become a tool used by someone else.
5
Seriously. Brett Bruen looks like he stepped out of central casting for the role of a spy. Gotta love the trench coat.
21
@J Carlson Ha! Indeed
1
LinkedIn has about as much legitimacy, probity and integrity as Facebook and “Billy Bob’s Used Cars and Discount Oysters.”
13
Talk to a woman and three guys show up. Where did they think they where, Craigslist?
11
Just so happens that I deleted that this morning.
1
Greed and stupidity--a dangerous combination.
1
hahaha!!! suuuuureeeee.
Funny, i have many Asia contacts there for work, never once was i offered a job as a spy.
what's the salary? Haha!
1
Well, I am not the greatest fan of LinkedIn, but it does match people for jobs and create a place for young professionals to build a career profile. I am less a fan of Cancel Culture, wherein any problem or misuse means we have to bail.
3
Outstanding investigative reporting.
Thanks to the author and the New York Times for publishing this piece.
The information herein will certainly lead me to scrutinize LinkedIn and other invitations more carefully.
I am not of interest to foreign intelligence services, but have done international speaking in the past— it appears that one cannot be too careful.
26
Plenty of foreign governments use LinkedIn to contact people or research them. I criticized Saudi Arabia and listed my choices for what countries they would invade and had viewers and attempted connections from people at Saudi owned oil companies and such for months. I keep a profile on LinkedIn but limit my connections to those I know.
5
I'm pretty sure that this is the only time that adding a contact on LinkedIn has resulted in any sort of job offer being extended.
82
They do not even have to try that hard. Just present a real estate idea branding the Trump name and I can think of 3 people that would come slithering in a moment. Since Regan we have become a corrupt country focused on wealth and materialism.
Companies that develop our defense technology are bought by Chinese/Russian/Israeli front companies and our intellectual property is gone.
18
@Donald Yes, that fully explains the OPM hack in 2015, right! I, retired navy, my wife, and 25 milllion tohers were exposed in that hack. But don't blame that president or his government then because that would not fit the today's narrative.
I am a little surprised China (or others) would do something so juvenile. I understand there is immediate access, but that access to those individuals is cloaked behind the anonymity of the internet. It just doesn't seem like "operatives" going this route are making much of a effort.
4
People who matter are not on LinkedIn, company policy. Linkedin is the Facebook for the professional community, you need to be a bit suspect of people who have way too many contacts.
3
@the downward spiral.
Oh, so very wrong! It's the little things added up that matter.
@the downward spiral.
"People who matter are not on LinkedIn, company policy."
What an absurd generalization. I regularly interact with high level company executives from a wide range of industries on LinkedIn.
6
And no-one else is doing this?
of course they are
16
Please tell us more.
1
The scheme almost worked on Amazon; until they realized all the assets where made in China.
8
@Yukon
It's like "pick me, pick me" hand waving in the air on Linkedin.
Linked-in is a spam site. But I was able to get myself off their mailing list.
1
For one thing, it can be a scam as it can be from other countries, for the other, LinkedIn allows cross-nation recruitment. Why things normal between other countries and America becomes something collusive with China?
3
I'm slightly amazed that this is news. I use LinkedIn routinely for passive intelligence purposes (i.e. and e.g., I'm not trying to recruit anybody, just want to find out areas of experience, where they've worked, clearance level, etc.), and it's extremely useful for that.
No surprise at all that others with more active interests would use it for targeting. As the youngsters would say, "Well, duh."
43
Like many scientists and academics, I receive a ton of SPAM asking me to give talks and attend conferences in China. Sometimes these are just scams to part you from your money or boost the incomes of the sponsoring organizations but this article makes me wonder too if intelligence groups are behind some of these e-mails. (I wouldn't know as I don't answer e-mails from orgs I have never heard or or who don't have an established reputation.) My area of research is hardly classified but I do wonder if those in more sensitive areas of research are getting SPAM from these operatives.
33
Yes, the more modern day version of the Nigerian scam, the relative that died which you did not know about and left you millions, and can collect by reaching out to someone in Nigeria! As the old adage goes, if its to good to be true, then it probably isn't! No substitute for a little common sense.
5
I, too, receive emails inviting me to Chinese conferences on non-classified subjects, and will now wonder if these might serve as a conduit to Chinese intelligence agencies.
1
I used to work for USA DoD. The Chinese have my investigation files from that massive OPM hack, due to the negligence of the USA. I had a top secret security clearance, it's in the files. They, the Chinese, haven't tried to recruit me. I deleted my Linkedin account because it is quite obviously a prime resource for people who want to collect intelligence information on people. Anyone who has a sensitive job in government should be forbidden by regulation from having such an account or profile. It's the height of negligence and stupidity. Maybe the Danish Foreign Ministry official is being recruited because he isn't very bright.
Really! There is a sucker born every minute. Aren't these people just begging to be exploited? The Americans do the same thing. Look at how the military recruits high school kids. That's not a hair brained conspiracy theory, irrational tangent of logic. It's in the public record. The military uses teen's social media posts and accounts to target and recruit people, teenagers. The military aren't very scrupulous about it either. That's in the public record too.
51
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
agreed!
2
As a technical recruiter working in the Black arena, I've viewed some of the resumes on linkedin and thought/knew they contained too much information. Some had so much information and job position,location etc. etc. that I passed them on to security and then shredded the resume.
What I believe, in some case, is an attempt to impress combined with a total lack of supervision given to what is being written on resumes (not laundered properly) for both contractors and retiring government employees but to clarify not all people are "guilty of this" but enough to make my head swim. I don't use LINKEDIN.
In other cases, it's just plain downright muddle brained ego not giving a hoot as to what is stated.
We know what XYZ might mean, you don't have to ay what you did, where you did it and any of that. MY god, it's a wonder some haven't been kidnapped.
That might sound like hyperbole but I'm not kidding.
To shoot my argument in the foot, I also consider some of this a possibility of intentional disinformation...but not all.
23
Misinformation? Are you suggesting that foreign Governments may create “target rich” Linked In profiles just to see who comes a knocking?
Where is Alec Leamas (Spy who came in from the cold) when we needed him?
Surprised but not stunned. Our vision when we were building LInkedIn were so high-minded and idealistic alongwith the rest of Silicon Valley.
The past few years have been humbling. Russian use of social media to accomplish what they did, then Brexit, and now the drip-drip (pun maybe not intended) of what China has been using them for have made us want to run to Esalen Institute and such meditation retreats. Significant amount of soul-searching and realizing that when you create such powerful tools, it can be put to far different uses than what you had imagined whilst building it.
It’s the story of Technology from the early days. Spear, guns, nuclear weapons, and stunningly, now, social media.
We need to rethink so much of our idealism here in Silicon Valley. Build and then they will come, we thought. And they did.
79
If you are indeed among the "we" who helped build LinkedIn, know that I've never thought highly of that spamming marketing site, much less once bosses started all but demanding that people be used by it[sic]. It's earned every fine and jail sentence for UBE it gets.
Still, it's even more disgusting to see it used by tyrants to build spy networks—insult added to injury for people who just want to use the internet in peace and still have SOME form of privacy.
17
There is no privacy anywhere anymore. Just hope you live in a country that protects you from bad actors instead of one that is the bad actor.
Move fast and break things while doing no harm.
Then the smell of money arrived.
2
Fake accounts on LinkedIn aren't necessary for real Chinese companies to recruit consultants with expertise & contacts: that's what LinkedIn is *for*.
5
Who is surprised? China replaced Confucianism with Maoism and then replaced Maoism with materialism. Morality is not made by bank accounts alone.
58
@O'Brien While it's in our interest to protect American information from Chinese intelligence services, let's not pretend that the West is somehow on a moral high ground in that we don't partake in spying activities ourselves.
Hypocrisy is never a good look.
14
Now I feel stupid. Having had a Top Secret and worked for DoD and now in Cybersecurity you would think I should have not let my ego (I make lots of money) and comfort with IT cause me to drop my guard. A long time ago I was on a ship with John Walker’s son and found out he gave those of us with TS up to the Russians. Now, I could have given myself up to the Chinese. And there is a picture of me floating around holding up a copy of Red Star Linux (North Korea) while in the former East Germany. Guess I am not good at this. Lesson Learned ...
@O'Brien
Read SUN ZI. It's all there.