[Scan-DC] Spooks hiding in plain sight

[Alan Henney]

Remember back in the mid-1980's, the Washington Post featured an article with photos of the Russian embassy here in D.C. and its antenna farm?  The Post had interviewed experts to help identify the antennas.

Has anybody checked the Russian embassy rooftop recently?  What embassies here in Washington, D.C. have notable antenna farms?

I can only think of one other, the Embassy of the Czech Republic.  Take a look on Google Street View (3975 Spring of Freedom St NW, Washington, DC 20008).  What kind of HF antenna is that?

Alan



The Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia)

November 23, 2013 Saturday 
GoldCoast Edition

Spooks hiding in plain sight

BYLINE: IAN McPHEDRAN national defence writer

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 42

LENGTH: 636 words

Their clandestine activities may be directly in the spotlight, but Australian spies have been listening in on our neighbours for decades.

Modern spooks have two main methods of tapping the mobile phones of people of interest in cities such as Jakarta. The first option is to install a physical bugging device in the actual handset, to forward calls to a third number - but this requires access to the handset.

For high-security targets, Australian agents use electronic scanners and very powerful computers to monitor phone numbers of interest via microwave towers (small metal towers that look like venetian blinds) located on top of buildings across Jakarta and all modern cities. 

The latter was employed to tap the phones of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and key ministers.

Getting hold of a handset is a tricky business so the preferred method for the spooks employed by the Australian Signals Directorate (formerly Defence Signals Directorate) is to monitor microwave phone towers located on top of most buildings in Jakarta and -indeed any other major city.

The material, known at this point as "first echelon", is captured by computers located in secure rooms at the Australian Embassy where information is filtered before it is forwarded by secure means to super computers located at ASD headquarters. They are located inside the maximum security building 'M', protected by high voltage electric fences, at Defence's Russell Office complex in Canberra. Here it is processed and analysed as "second echelon" product.

In cities such as Jakarta, enterprising business people now offer a mobile bugging service where for a fee between $300-1000 they will arrange to "borrow" a mobile phone, insert a bugging device and then return it to a relieved owner. Whenever the phone rings or is used to access a network the call is diverted to another handset or recording device.

There is a thriving business in phone tapping for private or industrialor state espionage reasons in cities such as Jakarta, Singapore and Bangkok. Industrial espionage is widespread in cities around the world including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

Compared to the operations of ASD and its powerful scanners, super computers and army of analysts these operations are small beer.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott was quick to point out in the wake of the phone tapping scandal that every country spied and he was right.

However, Indonesia has nowhere near the capacity for espionage that Australia and our close "five eyes" allies - the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand - possess.

After the 2002 Bali bombings the DSD, Australian Federal Police and Telstra went to Indonesia and showed Indonesian intelligence agencies how to tap into the networks of the terrorist group Jemaah I-slamiah.

Unlike Australia, much of Indonesia's electronic surveillance capacity is directed at internal problems such as the insurgencies in Aceh and West Papua.

According to one of Australia's leading experts on electronic spying, Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University, there is really no point in conducting such intercept operations unless a country has the whole picture. That is satellite communications, cable communications and radio communications.

"Microwave mobile phone calls are very hit and miss," he said. Australia owns the big picture thanks to an expensive and extensive network of listening posts in Jakarta, Bangkok and Port Moresby and powerful satellite ground stations at HMAS Harman in Canberra, Shoal Bay near Darwin, Morundah near Wagga in NSW, Cabarlah near Toowoomba in Qld and Geraldton in WA.Unfortunately Australian taxpayers have no way of knowing how much is spent on these facilities or even how many staff are employed by the top-secret ASD. The numbers used to appear in the Defence annual report.