blog Remember how international media outlets The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica revealed last week that the US National Security Agency had developed the ability to break some commonly used forms of Internet encryption? Scary, huh? Well, what you may not have realised is that Australia’s own intelligence agencies reportedly have access to the technology. The Sydney Morning Herald reports (we recommend you click here for the full article):
“An undated ”briefing sheet” on the program, provided to British analysts when they are cleared for access to Bullrun, was published on Friday in The New York Times and The Guardian newspapers. It states that the Australian Signals Directorate – until recently called the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) – was expected to be granted access.”
To underestimate the situation greatly, this news is extremely concerning. One can only hope that Greens Senator and Communications Spokesperson Scott Ludlam — whose bid to be re-elected as a Senator for Western Australia has still yet to be confirmed — will be re-elected, because there is nobody else within Australia’s Federal Parliament who has shown any interest in keeping our own cadre of intelligence agencies accountable for their use of these significant powers.
Four corners had a good episode last night will hopefully wake up the australian conciousness on the issue of online security and privacy. Oversight is my main issue with modern privacy; who is watching what these govermental departements are doing? I believe that the fact they have pushed the boundaries on this issue so far without too much noise (or that noise being filtered out), means that high level monitoring of communications is all but certain in the future.
“because there is nobody else within Australia’s Federal Parliament who has shown any interest in keeping our own cadre of intelligence agencies accountable for their use of these significant powers”
That might be a bit harsh, there are a number of other Greens senators who presumably might take an interest in this… its not all just “save the Leadbeater’s possum!” and “no to CSG!” for them you know :-)
Also the new Liberal Democrat senator has a ‘libertarian’ stance which presumably is anti-surveillance?
Interestingly enough, ASIO is recruiting quite heavily via the careers arm of popular Q&A site for developers, Stack Overflow.
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/employer/ASIO
This one looks particularly interesting…
“Assistant Director Telecommunications Interception”
http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/39330/assistant-director-telecommunications-interception-asio?a=LXWU0SDS&searchTerm=ASIO
(concerns about oversight and intrusion aside, it would be quite interesting to work for ASIO’s IT I think. But alas, #1 the money looks crap, and #2 its in Canberra :-)
They are heavy recruiters of graduates too – I was approached upon completion of my undergrad degree and was informed they have annual intake quotas Like most multinationals and large corporates, only ASIO often have higher intake numbers apparently.
One would hazard a guess that ASIO, ASIS, the ‘signals’ crew and their like would be the only real employment growth centres for the next three years…
… oh, and News Corporation, Foxtel and Sky News, the twisted golem will demand succour and circuses for his minions after they provided the fair and balanced free advertising for its coalition acolytes…
I sent an email to that clown Paul Murray or whatever his name is after he and some other News flunkies had been prattling on about how Labor spent so much money from their leftist cadres like the unions, suggesting he look at the front pages of the Telegraph and the Courier Mail and their content that the coalition didn’t have to pay a cent for…
… still waiting on a reply…
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