On Nov 20, 2017, Dickson Yeo, who was studying for a PhD at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, posted on his Facebook page: “Spooky people are trying to add me on LinkedIn.” Elaborating, the Singaporean wrote that a “satanic archaeologist who curates 13th century artefacts from cult groups” was trying to add him as a contact. “I know I’m alternative in views. But I’m not exactly casting spells or drinking blood now, am I?” he wrote. Yeo wasn’t. But the spy, who was arrested in America two years ago and admitted that he had been recruited by China’s intelligence services in 2015, had in fact been lurking on LinkedIn every day, trying to add targets. He trawled the professional networking site for contacts whom he – at the behest of his handlers from the People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security – could mine for classified information. And it felt almost like an addiction, he told United States law enforcement officers of the site and its relentless algorithm. No casting of spells – at least not in the mediaeval sense – or drinking of blood appears to have been involved in how Yeo got recruited, and…
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Mind the spooks lurking online
