Menu Close

Articles on Spying

Displaying 81 - 94 of 94 articles

Timor Leste claims that a treaty with Australia on regulating the exploitation of petroleum and similar resources in the Timor Sea is now invalid. EPA/Antonio Dasiparu

Explainer: Australia and Timor Leste in The Hague

Several issues of international law arise from Timor Leste’s dispute with Australia over the negotiations of a 2006 treaty regulating the exploitation of petroleum and similar resources in the Timor Sea…
Tony Abbott needs to learn a thing or two about Indonesian culture if he’s to have a successful working relationship with his Indonesian counterpart. EPA/Made Nagi

Saving face: lessons for Abbott on working with Indonesia

There’s a widespread perception in Australia that Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reaction to Australia’s phone tapping is all about playing domestic politics in Yudhoyono’s home country…
Should Tony Abbott follow Barack Obama’s example and apologise personally to Indonesia leaders over the spying scandal, as Obama did to Angela Merkel? EPA/Andrew Harrer

Spying scandal: Obama, Abbott and why sorry is the hardest word to say

The contrast between Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s self-defeating response to spying allegations with Indonesia and US president Barack Obama’s reaction to smooth its similar row with Germany…
It is sensible to keep an eye on our friends in order to manage risk. Image from shutterstock.com

I spy, you spy, we all spy – but is it legal?

The specifics of whose phone was tapped and when may be new to Indonesia but the fact that Australia monitored its close friend’s activities will not be a surprise. Governments have been watching each…
The Indonesian president, and his government, have experienced a serious loss of face at a time when they least wanted it. EPA/Abror Rizki

Diplomatic crisis: can the PM mend our relationship with Indonesia?

When The Guardian Australia and the ABC broke the news that Australian intelligence agencies had been monitoring the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and leading Cabinet…
For the Australian Signals Directorate – as with all organisations in the spying business – the secret of success is in keeping your success secret. AAP/Lukas Coch

Protecting secrets: inside Australia’s mysterious spy agency

Much like in the movie Casablanca, there is much huffing and shaking of heads about activities of the nation’s electronic spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), after allegations emerged…
Indonesia foreign minister Marty Natalegawa has criticised Australia over allegations of spying, but will it actually adversely reflect our relationship? EPA/Bagus Indahono

Spying ‘scandal’: another challenge to the Australia-Indonesia relationship?

For anyone interested in Australia-Indonesia relations, nothing so characterises the phenomenon as a car on a roller-coaster. Any rise is followed inevitably by a fall. The ride is never boring, and in…
Australia has now been caught up in the web of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks about spying. How might it affect relations with countries in our region? EPA/Ole Spata

Spies like us: Australia, America and the Asia-Pacific

Who would have thought it? Governments, it seems, have been spying on each other. As revelations go, this may be slightly less surprising than the news that the British tabloids are entirely without scruples…
With more internet users going dark, will tech companies follow them? Owen's/Flickr

US tech companies could go ‘dark’ to regain trust

With each new revelation of the scope of the American National Security Agency’s spying, perceptions of the importance of privacy are hardening around the world. Systematic monitoring of the world’s communications…
Australia’s intelligence agencies have allegedly set up listening posts in the Asia-Pacific to ‘spy’ on our nearest neighbours. But isn’t that what spy agencies are meant to do? Takver

Calm down, Australian intelligence forces are just doing their job

Revelations about Australia’s alleged spy network in Asia and listening posts in our embassies across the Pacific might be diplomatically awkward. But it doesn’t mean intelligence agencies have “gone rogue…
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is in the spotlight again. jontintinjordan/Flickr

Australia’s biggest ‘China threat’ is not Huawei, but itself

In a move that has drawn criticism from Chinese authorities, the Abbott government is upholding a ban on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from tendering for the National Broadband Network, after…
Universities just got a little more chilling … emdot

Spying on academics will not help fight terrorism

Universities in this country are under increased pressure to share information about the activities of students and staff whether for immigration purposes, in relation to activism on campus or even in…
Faced with the latest recruitment challenge, would Sean Connery have cracked it? x-ray delta one

Hiring James Bond 00.7 … ‘illegal’ hackers need not apply

It’s unlikely James Bond would have been recruited this way. The perks of this job do not include driving an Aston Martin, sipping martinis in exotic locations or saving the UK by shooting the cat-stroking…
R2D2 could be listening to conversations and logging keystrokes, with high-level backing. practical owl

Ein spy: is the German government using a trojan to watch its citizens?

On October 8, Berlin’s hacking collective the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) announced it had analysed a piece of software it believed had been written by the German Government. Once installed on a computer…

Top contributors

More