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Australia and NSA Gain Comprehensive Access To Indonesian Phone System
An anonymous reader writes "Newly disclosed documents from former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden reveal that in Australia with the NSA has gained comprehensive access to Indonesian's national communications systems. They tapped into Indosat, Indonesia's domestic satellite telecommunications provider including data on Indonesian officials in various government ministries and obtained 1.8 million encrypted master keys, used to protect private communications, from Indonesia's Telkomsel cell phone network. Australia has been recently criticized for tapping the phone of the Indonesian President's wife and for the Royal Australian Navy accidental incursions into Indonesian territorial waters."
Everyone does it... the main difference is they were caught.
I'm reminded of the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", particularly since Indonesia has been brought up. Listening in on dialogues relating to trade disputes has capitalism written all over it. What's the bet that the US administration has less control over its intelligence machinations than the capitalists (wanted to say oligarchy...)?
I was wondering when we would start seeing more coverage of the NSA here.
I didn't mind the odd general discussion on how they compromised Google etc but an awful lot of money has now just gone down the tube for no useful purpose except perhaps to satisfy a Gen-Y's sudden burst of conscience.
Seriously. These are spy organizations. And here they are - spying. On foreign countries, no less. What were they thinking?
The Snowden leaks started out with things the public actually needed to know. The NSA spying on Americans is a gross overstep of the organization's charter. Spying on friendly nation's leaders is an embarrassment. This, however, seems to me like them doing their job.
At first, I thought that labeling Snowden as a spy was an overreaction. The US government trying to silence a whistle blower. However, were I a juror in a trial in which he released just this document, I'd convict.
Anyone who disagrees is kindly requested to answer two simple questions:
1. What should the NSA do?
2. Assuming this is not this, how can a country maintain military intelligence without doing this?
Shachar
Phone tapping national leaders 'normal', says former Indonesian spy chief
Indonesia's former top spy master has accused his own President of exaggerating the problem of phone tapping, saying attempts by intelligence agencies to snoop on national leaders were "normal".
And former spy agency chief Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono has also punctured claims by his Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa that Indonesia would never tap the phones of Australian politicians, insisting it was a routine part of "black intelligence". .....
Mr Hendropriyono, the head of Badan Intelijen Negara (BIN) until 2004, has been thrust into the Australian political debate because of a TV interview he gave in 2004, in which he admitted to bugging Australian politicians. .....
In an interview with Fairfax Media, the former Indonesian army general has now amplified his 2004 comments, saying of Australia's attempts to listen to the conversations of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the first lady and their confidantes: "For intelligence, it's normal."
He added that Indonesia not only had the capacity to tap the phones of Australians, but that intelligence agencies also had a responsibility to try it, "friend or foe". .....
Asked if Indonesia could listen to Mr Abbott's phone, he said: "We have the ability to tap and to counter-tap". However, he also suggested that Australian counterintelligence would prevent this happening.
Mr Hendropriyono said human intelligence — what he called "white intelligence" — was standard practice in embassies worldwide, but that phone tapping was "the most reliable" way to confirm information gathered.
"Tapping and counter-tapping is quite common in the intelligence life, because it is one of their primary jobs," he said. .....
"Intelligence is judged like in sport, two boxers fighting in the ring. They punch and they counter-punch... They attack and they defend themselves, but it is in the ring — the ring of intelligence. If the officials, in this case politicians, interfere in the case, that is wrong. That is very wrong."
Now that it is in the political arena, the politicians have overreacted, he said. ....
"I hope that both our leaders, SBY as well as Tony Abbott should not be too emotional... Please do not deteriorate [the relationship] because of a very small thing. This is a very technical thing."
Yes another US ally screwed by a Snowden leak. Can we assume at this point that we'll be hearing nothing about China, Russia, or Iran? Remember how Snowden claimed that he was an expert about Chinese activities and taught classes on them? I wonder what happened to that material?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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I'm Australian and the last thing we need right now is to piss off the Indonesians further. I kinda wish these documents were kept under wraps forever to be honest. Besides, isn't that what intelligence services are supposed to do? Spy on foreign countries, particularly those who are of immediate interest (which in Australia's case is definitely Indonesia)? So the NSA helped in tapping Indonesia's phones, so what? Better than tapping our own citizens phones, right?
If you really have a problem with this, you're basically admitting that you don't like how countries spy on each other. But it's a necessary part of running a country, no matter how dirty the concept sounds. It's life... and leaks like this just introduce politics that we simply don't need. Should've kept it buried as it does NOTHING to help anyone. Some secrets should stay hidden.
(posting anon due to employer)
If it isn't yet considered an act of war, it's soon going to be. Wait for it. Shit's about to get interesting.
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Yep, just launched: http://pipedot.org/story/2014-...
Indonesia's phone system is fairly meh in the first place. This isn't something terribly difficult to achieve.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It really depends where the telco loops are, taps and it all is been 100% split down to Australia and its NSA shared sites vs some best effort within Asia that gets 'most'.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Why not spy on your own citizens? Why not on "friendlies"? Who made up the line? Who decides these things? In the US it is supposed to be We The People. Yeah, right.
Spying is evil. Perhaps a necessary evil. However, giving a monopoly on spying to the government, especially with runaway "secrecy" and classification of everything under the sun is absurd.
If spying is OK for some, then it has to be OK for all. If the NSA can spy, so can corporations, so can news agencies, so can reporters, so can individuals, so can Snowden. So there is no crime here, just the NSA was not as good at spying (or counter-spying) as ONE PERSON!
If only certain special, super-secret orgs can have the permission to spy, then I want them to be purer than the virgin. We already see from revelations that they are nowhere close (like NSA operative spying on love interests.) I want them to be smarter than the average spy. Whoops, one Snowden shows the NSA are basically incompetent, corrupt buffoons. You want these people (only) spying for the whole country? Why?
I want to know everything government and country does. Might have to settle for 99.99%. Otherwise democracy is inoperative.
Except right now we only know 75%, or 50%, or maybe 25%. We don't know how much we don't know. In this state there is no democracy. Domestic enemies become more dangerous than foreign. Fish rots from the head.
No matter how you slice it, Snowden is a hero, whether he planned to be one or is just a craven and corrupt attention seeker.
There's some pretty good books available about similar things, and worse, in those places. It went as far as a journalist that had been a vocal critic of Putin being murdered on Putin's birthday, and it being very obvious that it was intended to be a present.
So in other words just take it as read that we know that bad things happen in other places.
GTFO.
Folks seem to be missing the point that this involved tapping an American law firm, apparently in order to gain an edge during trade negotiations? (And similar stuff happening during recent climate negotiations?)
That kinda muddies the water I think; people spying on other people for national security is one thing, but when it spills over into the commercial world and UN politics then it's no longer security, but obtaining an advantage by underhand means.
Also, I'm curious - doesn't US law say something about not spying on americans? And aren't even lawyers technically citizens?
I guess as an aussie if the US wants to outsource that sort of thing to us I don't have a huge problem with it, but I would have thought more US folks would be upset... :-)
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.
I bet they got comprehensive access to beta and ran away screaming!
The USA/CAN/AUS/NZ/UK spying on each other's citizens for their Freedom Buddies is a mutual deal. Australia and buddies spying on a different sort of ally probably isn't a mutual benefit. The question becomes: Should those countries use their Sig-int advantage to conduct essentially cyber warfare against peaceful countries and less valuable allies? This answer is less clear because all countries conduct spying activities.
... cook the american and world people as frogs..... how woudl you ease them into accepting being spied on?
Enter SNOW DEN... the pot being slowly heated
How to know this is simple. It cannot be illegal (as has been claimed of what snow den did) to inform the people of the very acts the Declaration of Independence is against --- "...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...."
So it only goes to show what a shill Snow den really is.
Those who think otherwise have been Snowed N.