Snowden leaks: Five Eyes alliance, Australian involvement detailed

A MASSIVE cache of leaked documents has revealed what the next major war will look like - and the big role Australia will play in it.

26/03/1954. Mushroom cloud rising from detonation of 11-megaton nuclear device bomb 'Romeo' over Bikini Atoll in Marshall Isl...

THE Australian government is employing specialist surveillance officers to ready ourselves for the next generation of warfare, which will be fought with computers rather than guns.

Working with the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand as part of the not-so-secret ‘Five Eyes’, the group has even bugged UN leaders Kofi Annan and weapons inspector Hans Blix.

New leaks published by Spiegel, using information leaked from Edward Snowden, show how wars will be fought in cyberspace.

Edward Snowden’s latest leak has shown Australia’s involvement in a sophisticated spy network. Picture: The Guardian via Getty Images

And we’re not talking about a few stolen files or leaked movies, it will be the full take down of power plants, phone networks and transport systems.

Five Eyes was originally an alliance between the US and the UK at the end of WW2 — an agreement to share intelligence.

Australia, Canada and New Zealand joined the alliance in 1955, and since then intelligence data and facilities (such as Pine Gap in central Australia) have been shared between the nations.

In the 1970s the group was involved in the CIAs orchestration to overthrow Chile’s President Salvador Allende — something documents show Australia was heavily involved in.

Since the September 11 attacks the capabilities of Five Eyes have been significantly increased, with the group spying on everyone from world leaders, to students on their Facebook accounts.

A spokesperson from ASIO told news.com.au that the alliance was crucial in providing protection to Australia.

“Responding effectively to the transnational nature of security threats demands international cooperation between security and intelligence agencies,” they said.

Adding, “Effective liaison relationships with international partners have proved to be vital in protecting Australia from the threat posed by foreign fighters returning from conflicts in the Middle East.”

“Phase 0”

From the eyes of the military, mass digital surveillance of the internet is just “phase 0”. This mass surveillance includes anything from private Facebook messages, to internet browsing history and even what has been purchased online. The surveillance will apparently be used to detect vulnerabilities in enemy computer systems, to then infiltrate and gain permanent access.

Once that is done, words like “dominate”, “control” and “destroy” get thrown around to describe what Five Eyes will do after a successful phase 0.

Michael S. Rogers is the NSA Chief who overlooks all that the Five Eyes does.

“The next major conflict will start in cyberspace”

One of the leaked NSA presentations claims that our next major war will be fought digitally. Because of that, the US government is arming itself for network warfare. Almost every part of modern life is vulnerable — from hospitals needing power to the computerised cars we all drive. The leaked documents eloquently word it as “the ability to control/destroy critical systems and networks at will through pre-positioned accesses (laid in Phase 0).”

The documents show there is little differentiation between targets and civilians, with any internet user a possible victim. It’s through certain viruses that are injected in everyday internet tools like Facebook chat that the group can intercept content on your computer and take complete control of it.

Your data isn’t safe, as much as companies like Apple and Facebook try to keep it that way.

Let’s not forget what the US was able to do with Israel back in 2010 when it caused physical damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities by deploying a virus that destroyed much of the country’s ability to enrich uranium. That was 2010, now the NSA and Five Eyes are even deadlier.

And they will use their tools against anyone who isn’t a part of the Five Eyes alliance.

“I drink your milkshake”

One of the major revelations in the new documents is the Five Eyes’ ability to exploit the methods used by its enemies, to “steal their tools, tradecraft, targets, and take.”

This is what the NSA calls “fourth party collection”, and is something that appears so successful that agents of the NSA and England’s GCHQ security agency have a whole set of jokes written about it, including a reference to Daniel Day-Lewis’s infamous “I drink your milkshake” speech in There Will Be Blood.

Attorney-General George Brandis says that metadata can’t be used to track personally identifiable data. His UK colleagues have shown differently.

One GCHQ presentation on fourth party collection reveals how the UK used a tool called “BADASS” to steal personal information sent between users’ devices, mobile networks and analytic firms. That’s the same metadata which George Brandis says does not contain personally identifiable information.

The GCHQ then go on and joke about their tools, including one slide that boasts “We know how bad you are at Angry Birds.”

As it stands now, any country who isn’t a part of the Five Eyes can be a target, even those that have traditionally been allies. In a new age of digital warfare, it appears that the Five Eyes won’t be taking a risk with anyone.