TurnRightThenLeft,

I appreciate your comments.

Yes certainly if ALL the likely US activities at Pine Gap were known it would be a more contentious piece of infrastructure. Freely available information about NSA activities in the US regarding American citizens (legally contentious) give an indication what the NSA may be capable of regarding Australian citizens (legal under US law). Its is very likely part of the NSA’s job.

I agree Pine Gap is an asset in our alliance with the US. One role is that its part of the spy satellite network that can track North Korea’s emergence into the nuclear club.

I also agree that the US “presence here compromises our own ability to make decisions solely in the Australian interest”. However if some countries assume we are an isolated country with more than our “fair share” of energy resources (uranium, coal, gas) the people paying for them may consider the option of taking them by force some time.

I think duplicating US protection would involve Australia developing or buying nuclear weapons and adopting a defence expenditure on the scale of Israel (officially 9% but probably more like 15% counting subsidized weapons industries and its almost admitted nuclear weapons arsenal).

Just agreeing with the yanks as a flex action appears to be politically easy. As you say the US will ultimately follow its national interests. If China pressed resource demands on Australia the US might have to choose.

What do you think we should do about military self-reliance?

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

The problem of capturing data from cyber-space is too much data, i.e, too chit-chat, like on this Forum, using keywords.

For installations like Pine Gap to work, the intelligence process needs to complemented by on the ground surveillance and mico-management, like in Singapore.

Artificial Intelligence based software parsing messages is only good, if the coder-decoder can't circumvent the system: And cirumvention should be easily achieved. Cost benefit would be low unless the process signalling a "red" light is concentrated on preassigned targets.

What is going on behind clsed doors is always hard to determine. Scientists (e.g., Fermi) trying to establish pattents for nuclear fission in the 1930s were obstructed into WII. When the US did in fact enter WWII, the government took sovereign control of all inventions. Scientists leaving Los Alamos were made to declare that had intevented nothing and nothing invented at Los Almos dependent upon pre-WW II inventions. The point is in the public domain we really have to see through smoke and mirrors, en to this day, on matters, such as Pine Gap and cyber monitors.

Where there is surveillance there will be counter-surveillance, if we are being spied on by electronic means. The actions of the (US?) spies are likely to be in check. In several areas of electronics Australia's capicities exceeds the US (known) abilities; e.g., radars and underwater warfare.

Last point, word-of-mouth transfer of messages has always been the best means to communicate truly top secret information.

Oliver

The picture you paint, and issues you highlight look basically correct to me.

Interception and sorting agencies, like the NSA, use vast computer networks to tap into large parts of the world’s telephone/internet system.

Re “ pre-assigned targets “ - algorithms are part of the computer programs essential for deciding what messages should be retained or discarded. Further sorting may only throw up a few messages/conversations from a whole city’s worth of traffic. If the messages are in a foreign language the NSA/US military intelligence has 1,000s of specialists to translate them.

I assume this process is highly secret here in Australia but academics and journalists in the US discuss material like this constantly (eg http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060125_comm_surveillance.pdf ). However, unlike the CIA which clears books “exposes” every few weeks before publication, the NSA does not semi officially endorse anything.

On “surveillance [and] counter-surveillance] I wish I was as confident as you. I imagine our own computers are designed and made in the USA (where else!). This carries with it ongoing vulnerabilities to software and hardware penetration. You may be right about radars and underwater warfare but I think US decryption capabilities would exceed our encryption abilities – consequently I’d say they can read any of our communications.

But not to worry, we’re buddies.

“Last point, word-of-mouth transfer of messages has always been the best means to communicate truly top secret information. “

That’s usually true. I won’t even speculate on exceptions.

I hope this little discussion, wholly based on open source research, is being read by those who believe their in the know.

Pete

plantagenet,

Thank you for your comments and reply.

I once worked for two years with IBM (Washington)on Artificial Intelligence [Bank Software]. Herein, I have a few insights on encyptions.

While technology transfer between Oz and the US was two way on the project, the bottom line is we, in Oz, are behind these guys. Hence, in the case of JV partners, a deeper sofware shell could exist for the technologically more developed. Or it could be in plan sight, but disguised, like Goldfinger's painted car with its gold chassis, used to smuggle gold.

We are used to thinking of bytes being made-up of characters of eight bits (e.g., ASCII). Nonetheless, other bit configurations are possible, and are occasionally used, even commercially.

Avoiding detection would not be hard for a sovereign government: Configure a special twelve bit protocol "scrambled" across two, "within and across", eight bit characters, using the base eight, on a MVS/XA system, which uses base 16. Gold under the paint!

Then, use a (part)decryption key, which is known only the decoder, which changes according to date and/or is add to the original message [Banks use this system with telegraphic funds transfer], before decryption can take place.

The sender's and receiver's decryption keys are combined, only then is the decryption known to be valid [not dysinfo.]. The previous process would be near impossible to break: Because, we don't have both keys, we don't know the systems configurations, we don't know the base. There might be septillion (or a big number) of combinations, even before one can isolate one message, which is, of course, in code.

[I did have a para. on how a less well funded party could subvert a sophisticated system, but decided to delete it, for obvious reasons.]

Point is, one could monitor individuals or groups or levels of traffic. Government sponsored activities would prove much harder. I think John could talk to Tony, with George listening and "understanding". Less well resourced parties, The People, would find it harder to achieve privacy.

I suspect one could encrypt phone lines but domestic phone taps would be comprised, and it would need to be decoded domestically, before international calls could be made, producing a soft spot.

Yes, we are buddies. ABCA countries, whom work under the auspices of materiel uniformity and engagement standardisation and common codes [avoid friendly fire]; supposedly don't spy on each other. Just the same, methinks, no ABCA country can assume perfect compliance of the other, and, some level of covert monitoring exists, even among buddies. Roughly analogous to the prisoner's dillema. We work in our own interest, because we don't "fully" trust the other pary(ies).

Oliver

Thanks for that. Its a clearer explanation of the difficulties of decrypting large organisation/government agency traffic than I've seen before.

One unproveable concern I have is that the NSA has the ability to intercept key messages when they are not encrypted, that is BEFORE our Government encrypts the messages and AFTER they are decrypted. This gets around the decryption obstacle that you refer to. Not going to go into the ways or countermeasures though.

While I suspect the US is ahead in this area other countries: Russia, China, Japan, France and the UK also have the experience, technology and motivation (most commonly to gain commercial information).

These countries all have their listening posts around the world but in places less well known than Pine Gap is to us.

I think the ability to tap into the international phone/internet system is probably of even greater value than traditional wireless listening posts like Pine Gap. For example calls between Canberra and Sydney may actually be routed (in whole or part) through LA, Tokyo or Hong Kong - wherever digital capacity is available and cheap at a given moment.

The whole interception concept is all pretty mind bending stuff but an interesting area to explore. With information openly available on the internet.

No longer do people (like Desmond Ball) need to go over to Washington and search through US hard copy to get a handle on things.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/