A Chinese national studying in Canada allegedly crossed over into the United States earlier this year to take photos of facilities near the Chicago airport at the direction of a suspected Chinese government official, according to newly filed court records. The Chinese official repeatedly told the student to destroy the SIM cards they used to communicate and stick to a Huawei phone.
The records provide insight into how Chinese state actors continue to use students to essentially crowd source imagery of sensitive U.S. locations or military aircraft, and how those students are told to remain undetected.
Seamus Hughes of Court Watch first identified and posted the records on Wednesday.
Weiheng Zeng is an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and has crossed into the U.S. around two dozen times since 2022, according to an affidavit from an FBI Special Agent.
In April, an unknown person was seen inside the FedEx employee parking lot at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, the document continues. This person looked like they were taking photos of aircraft or other parts of the airport. They climbed onto a forklift to take photos in the direction of the aircraft, and tried to get into a FedEx truck, according to photos included in the document. Authorities later figured out this was Zeng based on the dark blue Chrysler Town & Country vehicle that left the area and that he was connected to
When Zeng tried to enter the U.S. again last Sunday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) interviewed him repeatedly. At first, Zeng said he planned to travel with his sister and a classmate. CBP agents then reviewed his phone and found multiple photos of aircraft, the document says. Zeng told the agents “he takes pictures of model aircraft being tracked for a flight radar website,” it adds. At one point he said he takes the photos as his hobby. Agents also found photos of Zeng and others in tactical clothing holding rifle-styled firearms. Zeng said this was an airsoft gun.
Images: screenshots from the court record.
Zeng changed his story repeatedly, before revealing taking the photos was more than a hobby. Instead, he knows someone referred to in the court record as his “Chinese Contact.” This contact assigned Zeng specific planes and their tail numbers to photograph, and then paid Zeng $20 to $30 per picture. Zeng said this Chinese Contact sent him SIM cards to communicate, and then told him to destroy the cards, their chats, and delete the photos he took. Later Zeng said the contact told him to use his Huawei phone to communicate, and never take that phone into the U.S.
Zeng claimed the Chinese Contact approached him through “an aviation spotter website” around a year and a half ago, the document continues. Zeng said he believed this person was connected to the Chinese Communist Party, and later told the FBI the person sent a photo of an official looking badge. The language the contact used “was very organized and managed, not language typically used between friends,” the document adds. When the FBI later looked into this site, the agency found it appeared to not exist, according to the court record.
One of the photographed planes was an American United aircraft which had “a unique, temporary paint job, of which photographs were highly desired,” according to Zeng. The contact wanted Zeng to go to places in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles to take photographs of specific locations around airports, the document says. Zeng said he denied these requests and accepted two tasks over 18 months. One of those was to get the photos of the interior of the FedEx facility at O’Hare International Airport. In all, he made $500, the document says.
“ZENG stated ‘Chinese Contact’ was not satisfied with the photographs and the photographs were fine, but not what were ‘expected’,” the document adds.
Leden van Ongehoord Nederland (ON!) hebben een sommatie gestuurd naar het bestuur, de ledenraad en de raad van toezicht van de omroep wegens het in hun ogen gevoerde wanbeleid. Ook hebben de leden minister Rianne Letschert van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap verzocht om in te grijpen. Dat meldt Gerard van Erp, die namens de kritische leden van Ongehoord Nederland het aanspreekpunt is.
"Eigenlijk is er sprake van wanbestuur", aldus Van Erp. "De weerstand onder de leden neemt toe. Ruim 34.000 leden worden benadeeld door slechts een handjevol mensen die doen waar ze zin in hebben. Door de handelswijze van een paar personen wordt de omroep om zeep geholpen." In de brief, die in handen is van het ANP en door ruim zestig leden is ondertekend, worden voorbeelden van wanbestuur aangekaart. Zo is de ledenraad al meer dan anderhalf jaar onderbezet en zijn er geen ledenvergaderingen of jaarvergaderingen. Vijf van de statutair vereiste twaalf zetels zijn bezet. Ook worden vacatures niet volgens de statuten van ON! aangekondigd.
Daarnaast beschuldigen de kritische leden van ON! de ledenraad van financieel wanbeleid. Zo hebben ze de jaarrekening 2025 vastgesteld en decharge verleend voor het gevoerde beleid. Door decharge te verlenen, keurt de organisatie het werk goed en kan het bestuur achteraf niet meer aansprakelijk worden gesteld. "Dit terwijl er in dit boekjaar torenhoge kosten zijn gemaakt voor onnodige juridische procedures, hetgeen ten koste ging van de doelstellingen van ON! en dat is het verzorgen van programma's met een ander geluid", staat er in de brief.
Volgens de leden zijn er "ernstige en structurele tekortkomingen in het bestuur en toezicht van ON! en brengen ze het voortbestaan van de omroep in gevaar". Ze eisen daarom vervanging van het huidige bestuur en de raad van toezicht. Met de sommatie willen de leden naar eigen zeggen ON! weer bestuurbaar maken. Als hier geen gehoor aan wordt gegeven, zullen de kritische leden naar de rechter stappen.
SAN FRANCISCO (ANP) - OpenAI heeft woensdag een rapport naar buiten gebracht waarin het stap voor stap beschrijft hoe AI-modellen van het bedrijf vorige maand tijdens een test wisten in te breken bij een ander AI-bedrijf, Hugging Face. Daarin toont het bedrijf zich schuldbewust over het incident. Ook vertelt OpenAI over de inspanningen die het doet om zulke incidenten in de toekomst te voorkomen.
"We hadden eerder kunnen ingrijpen op de onbedoelde hack", aldus het bedrijf in het rapport. OpenAI wist eind mei al dat AI-modellen die het testte een kwetsbaarheid in software misbruikten om toegang te krijgen tot het internet. "Achteraf bezien hadden sommige vroege signalen die in dit rapport worden genoemd, een eerdere reactie kunnen uitlokken", aldus OpenAI.
De maker van ChatGPT meldde in juli dat zijn geavanceerde modellen voor kunstmatige intelligentie tijdens veiligheidstests op hol sloegen. De AI-systemen hadden op eigen initiatief ingebroken bij Hugging Face, een populair platform voor programmeurs.
For Xanthe Burdett, the boundary between humans and nature is thin, malleable, and always in flux. The Devon-born, London-based artist works largely in a palette of greens, layering leaves and vines atop faint figurative silhouettes. Invoking mythology and ancient cosmologies, her paintings suggest that people and plants are not only interconnected but also intrinsically one.
Beginning with a sketch, Burdett employs the Renaissance-era cartoon method of transferring her drawings to canvas, which involves layering a substance like charcoal between the preparatory composition and the substrate and tracing the initial linework. After, the artist adds various greenery until she’s reached a lush density.
Burdett considers superimposition to be a way of “reimagining the body as a site of ecological and mythic transformation,” she says. “In an age defined by environmental catastrophe—wildfires, biodiversity loss, and climate anxiety—the work functions both as a refuge and as a space for imagining alternative ways of being with the more-than-human world.”
Presented as “host and terrain,” Burdett’s figures encompass a sense of growth and regeneration as “flesh gives way to nettles, brambles, and tender green shoots,” she adds. Many also invoke mythic deities, including Venus, the Roman god of beauty and fertility, and Janus, the god of transitions and beginnings.
This fall, the artist will be in residence at Soho Revue working on a collection exploring the Greek tale of Daphne, who morphed into a laurel tree, as a way to conceptualize transformation amid climate catastrophe.. Keep up with that new series on Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Lush Foliage Permeates Xanthe Burdett’s Delicate Portraiture appeared first on Colossal.
The settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who oversaw the trial that began on August 18. Gonzalez Rogers still oversees thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts, and state and local governments accusing social media companies of harming children. Meta itself still faces thousands of lawsuits by individuals, school districts and municipalities. The next trials are slated for October in Los Angeles.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.