China’s reputation for cyber-espionage has cost the country’s largest network equipment manufacturer a shot at billions of dollars in infrastructure sales to Australia. The Australian government has moved to block Huawei from bidding on Australia’s approximately $36 billion-dollar National Broadband Network project.
The decision by Australia’s attorney general, reported March 26, was based on concerns raised by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization over the number of cyberattacks coming out of China, and that the company’s equipment would provide the Chinese government backdoors into the network.
“The National Broadband Network is the largest nation-building project in Australian history,” a spokesperson for Australian Attorney General Nicola Roxon said in a statement, “and it will become the backbone of Australia’s information infrastructure. As such, and as a strategic and significant government investment, we have a responsibility to do our utmost to protect its integrity and that of the information carried on it.”
The Australian government has cause for concern. In 2011, the computers of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and then-Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd were reportedly hacked by Chinese intelligence agents. And the US defense and intelligence community have continued to warn about China’s involvement in industrial espionage.
Huawei has been alleged to have benefitted from that espionage in past: Cisco accused the company of stealing technology from Cisco, but dropped its legal claims in 2004 after Huawei stopped producing a contested product. And the US Department of Defense expressed concerns about Huawei in a 2011 report to Congress (PDF) on Chinese military and security issues, because of the company’s close ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
Those connections haven’t stopped Huawei from selling network gear elsewhere. The company has won a number of large network infrastructure supply contracts in Europe, including equipment for the deployment of LTE wireless in the UK. And Huawei has been hoping to replicate that success in Australia by bringing in local political muscle: the board of the company’s Australian subsidiary is stacked with former government officials, and chaired by the former commander of the Australian Navy, retired Rear Admiral General John Lord. The company also sponsored trips to China for members of the leadership of Australia’s Liberal Party. In fact, it was believed that Huawei was the internal favorite after the technical team for the NBN visited the company’s headquarters in Shenzen in 2010.
So the announcement has come as something of a shock to the company’s Australian executives. “This sort of whole concept of Huawei being involved in cyber warfare, presumably that would just be based on the fact that the company comes from China and everybody in China is—who’s involved with information technology is involved in cyber warfare,” said Alexander Downer, an independent director of Huawei Australia and a former Australian foreign affairs minister, told reporters for an Australian TV network. “This is just completely absurd.”
Chris Soghoian thinks the law would be difficult to operate effectively without the co-operation of the United States which is the home to many of the social media and email companies which would be the target of surveillance: “Because Google has an office in the UK, the British government can bully Google.
“However, consumers are increasingly using services which are based outside the UK (often American companies) that have no UK presence. As such, without the assistance of the US government, this proposed wiretapping law is simply not going to be effective.
“We Americans seem to believe in a double standard – our government wants unfettered access to the private data of everyone else in the world, but at the same time, we’ll scream bloody murder if any foreign government gets access to the data of US citizens or our government.
“And to be honest, as long as everyone in the world relies on services provided by American internet companies, this double standard will continue.”
Cost
And Professor Peter Sommer from the London School of Economics told Channel 4 News he thinks the proposals do not appear too different from those presented by the last Labour government which were abandoned after intense opposition.
He says there could be a problem defining what is “content” and what is “communication”. Broadly, the information after the back slash of ‘http:/’ counts as content, with all that precedes classed as “communication”.
“This content / communication issue means that for example, an internet service provider would have to write filtering code for each webmail page – eg hotmail – so that only the communication rather than the content is visible. I think this would prove to be quite expensive to do.”
He also thinks the plans appear to be an expensive move which web users could quite easily circumvent: “There are at least four ways you can do that: 1. You can buy a SIM for your tablet or phone, using cash and then use your phone on that which would not be traceable to you. 2. You could use an internet cafe – even if they take your name there, what level of accuracy can you expect from a place where they charge 50p / hour? 3. You could use an unsecured wi-fi connection 4. Increasingly websites are using encryption by default – ‘https’ – they then have the same high level of encryption you get on e-commerce and bank sites.
“There are rumours this protocol can be cracked now but it would still be costly to do.”
Until the plans are published, no-one can say what will be their impact but the responses to the initial idea will no doubt help shape whatever eventually appears when the queen speaks next month.
The visitors from Wellington are adamant it was the former at their final training session on Friday, suspecting a Glory spy of filming their penalty practice.
Phoenix strength and conditioning coach Lee Taylor – who goes by the nickname ‘Pitbull’ – approached a man on a bank reclining directly behind the goal being used for a penalty taking session at the University of Western Australia’s playing fields.
Accused by Taylor of using his phone to film their penalty session, the suspect claimed he was in fact filming an athletics training routine that was being run concurrently.
The Phoenix, who started mixing up the direction of their penalty shots, were not convinced.
“A little bit cheeky, apparently he’s got a camera and he’s filming our penalties so we might have to switch our penalty takers,” said Phoenix captain Andrew Durante.
“But finals football, these things come into it and there’s all kinds of little shenanigans going on. We’re as prepared as we can be.”
Quipped coach Ricki Herbert: “What a great story it will be if we win on penalties.”
The third-ranked Glory host the fourth-ranked Phoenix in the A-League minor semifinal at nib Stadium on Saturday night, with the winner advancing to a preliminary final against either Central Coast or Brisbane.
As a sudden-death game, the result will be settled from the penalty spot should the scores be locked at the end of regulation and then extra time.
The Phoenix beat Perth on penalties in an elimination final in Wellington two years ago.
Greens leader Bob Brown is outraged at reports that ASIO is spying on mining protesters and says such action is a misuse of the spy agency’s resources.
The revelations were reported in Fairfax newspapers this morning and are based on a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism that was reportedly rejected because it involved “an intelligence agency document”.
Senator Brown says Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson should release the documents in question.
“So the public can see just how much he is complicit in having ASIO spy instead of on people threatening this country, on people who have a right to democratically express their opinion,” he said.
Senator Brown says spying on protesters is not on.
“It’s totally outrageous, what’s more that the Minister, Martin Ferguson – a Labor minister at that – is complicit in having ASIO spy on farmers, eco-tourism venturers, wine-growers, the people who are really wanting to protect their lands from this rapid expansion of the fossil fuel industries in farm lands and community precincts around Australia – it is just not on,” he said.
The Fairfax report raises concerns from security officials that anti-coal activists pose a greater threat to energy security than terrorists.
Athol Yates from the Australian Homeland Security Research Centre says that is not the case.
“The simple answer to that is absolutely not unless they are engaged in very destructive behaviour,” he said.
“In the case of most coal protests, it is much more about raising a political awareness of the issue and the costs that are incurred by their behaviour really relate to the delay in coal production or coal transport.”
‘Not much impact’
But he says depending on the way the activities of environmental activists are defined, surveillance by ASIO may be justified.
“If they are classed as a terrorist risk, then it is justified. The question is on what basis is that assessment made?” he said.
“If there is concern that they are going to be involved in physical destruction or inflicting physical harm upon people, then they would be totally justified in surveilling them.”
Cam Walker from environment group Friends of the Earth was involved in an occupation of the coal conveyor belts at Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley in 2009.
He says he is not surprised by the news that ASIO is involved in the surveillance of activists.
But he says protesters have never had much of an impact on energy production.
“There has never been any significant impact on energy supply. There is no essential services argument here. This is really about silencing dissent,” he said.
“The primary focus of direct action has been against the state government, it has been against infrastructure but has not intended to shut down the systems.
“It has been intended to apply political and public pressure so I think the essential services that is shutting down the grid argument is an entire furphy that has been run by people with their own political agenda.”
Mr Ferguson was not available for comment this morning.
ASIO says it cannot confirm whether it has conducted surveillance of anti-coal protesters, but it says it does not target particular groups or individuals unless there is a security-related reason to do so.
The plan, the official said, was developed in response to a classified study completed last year by the director of national intelligence that concluded that the military’s espionage efforts needed to be more focused on major targets beyond the tactical considerations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new service will seek to “make sure officers are in the right locations to pursue those requirements,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the “realignment” of the military’s classified human espionage efforts.
The official declined to provide details on where such shifts might occur, but the nation’s most pressing intelligence priorities in recent years have included counterÂterrorism, nonproliferation and ascendant powers such as China.
Creation of the new service also coincides with the appointment of a number of senior officials at the Pentagon who have extensive backgrounds in intelligence and firm opinions on where the military’s spying programs — often seen as lackluster by CIA insiders — have gone wrong.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who signed off on the newly created service last week, served as CIA director at a time when the agency relied extensively on military hardware, including armed drones, in its fight against al-Qaeda.
Michael Vickers, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and the main force behind the changes, is best known as one of the architects of the CIA’s program to arm Islamist militants to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s. He is also a former member of U.S. Special Operations forces.
The realignment is expected to affect several hundred military operatives who already work in spying assignments abroad, mostly as case officers for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which serves as the Pentagon’s main source of human intelligence and analysis.
The official said the new service is expected to grow “from several hundred to several more hundred” operatives in the coming years. Despite the potentially provocative name for the new service, the official played down concerns that the Pentagon was seeking to usurp the role of the CIA or its National Clandestine Service.
This “does not involve new manpower . . . does not involve new authorities,” the official said. Instead, the official said, the DIA is shifting its emphasis “as we look to come out of war zones and anticipate the requirements over the next several years.”
Congressional officials said they were seeking more details about the plan.
