Top-secret documents reveal Australia targeting

Indonesia, South Pacific mobile phone networks

Sydney Morning Herald
Date March 6, 2015
Data revelations: A leaked report confirms Australia's deep interest in Indonesia's
largest mobile phone network, Telkomsel.
Data revelations: A leaked report confirms Australia's deep interest in Indonesia's
largest mobile phone network, Telkomsel. Photo: Rob Homer
Edward Snowden leak: Australia spied on Indonesian phones and data
Who is monitoring the covert operations of global spy agencies?
Australian spies are targeting Indonesia's largest mobile phone network as well as
the telecommunications systems of Australia's small Pacific Island neighbours,
according to documents obtained from the former US intelligence contractor Edward
Snowden.
According to leaked documents published in New Zealand on Thursday, the
Australia's top-secret electronic espionage agency, the Australian Signals
Directorate, has been working intimately with its NZ counterpart, the Government
Communications Security Bureau to obtain comprehensive access to
telecommunication networks across Indonesia and the South Pacific.
Document obtained from whistleblower: Former intelligence contractor Edward
Snowden.
Document obtained from whistleblower: Former intelligence contractor Edward
Snowden. Photo: Reuters
The documents show that the ASD and GCSB spy intensively on small and
vulnerable Pacific island countries, harvesting communications from Fiji, Papua New
Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, New Caledonia,
Tonga and French Polynesia.
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The Australian and NZ spies are targeting Indonesia's largest mobile phone network
as well as the telecommunications systems of Australia's small Pacific Island
neighbours, according to documents obtained from the former US intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden. The Australian and NZ signals intelligence agencies
intercept satellite communications and under-sea telecommunications cables, and
share the "full take" of telephone calls, emails, social media messages and
associated metadata with each other as well as their "5-eyes" partners, the US
National Security Agency and the British Government Security Communications
Headquarters.
A leaked top-secret NZ report confirms the ASD's deep interest in Indonesia's largest
mobile phone network, Telkomsel, which serves more than 122 million subscribers.

Top-secret documents reveal Australia targeting

Indonesia, South Pacific mobile phone networks
A NZ intelligence officer working on exchange in Canberra in 2009 was placed in
ASD's "network infrastructure analysis section" where he was given "specific
tasks regarding Indonesian cellular telecommunications provider Telkomsel"
including "investigating Call Data records being sent over FTP" [file transfer protocol
- a standard network protocol used to transfer files from computer host to another],
and researching Telkomsel's voice compression gateways used to support
transmission of long-distance international and domestic telephone traffic.
Another 2012 US NSA document published last year revealed that the ASD stole
nearly 1.8 million encrypted master keys, which are used to protect private
communications, from the Telkomsel network, and developed a way to decrypt
almost all of them. The ASD has also accessed bulk call data from Indosat,
Indonesia's domestic satellite telecommunications provider, including data on
Indonesian officials in various government ministries.
The top-secret NZ documents also reveals details of co-operation between Australia
and NZ to access to the South Pacific mobile phone networks, including in the
Solomon Islands, where the two countries intelligence agencies "worked closely
to retain situational awareness as the Solomon Telekom network has expanded and
evolved".
The ASD and GCSB personnel intercepted mobile phone calls from a signals
intelligence collection facility near Honiara, codenamed CAPRICA and probably
located at Camp RAMSI, the headquarters of the Regional Assistance Mission to the
Solomon Islands. With a view to expanding coverage of Solomon Telekom's
network, the ASD and GSCB also conducted a radio frequency survey, codenamed
PREBOIL, at the Australian Federal Police facility at the Guadalcanal Beach Resort
near Henderson Airport, some 16 kilometres from Honiara.
Fiji is another Australian intelligence priority revealed in the leaked documents, with
the GCSB reporting that it had assisted the ASD's military support unit to conduct a
"target systems analysis" on the command, control and communications of the Fiji
government, military and police.
The study highlighted the importance of mobile phone networks for intelligence
collection because such networks were the Fiji military's "tactical" preference ahead
of radio networks and a "poorly maintained and very limited [military] computer
network."
The Australian government has repeatedly refused to comment on specific
disclosures from the papers leaked by Edward Snowden. However last year Prime
Minister Tony Abbott insisted that Australia would not use intelligence "to the
detriment of other countries".