back to article Swipe left: Snoops use dating apps to hook sources, says Australian Five Eyes boss

Nations running online foreign influence campaigns have turned to dating apps to recruit people privy to sensitive information, according to the director general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the nation's security agency directed against external threats and a key partner in the Five Eyes …

  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    These people are also agents or proxies of the foreign government

    Whispers: (He’s talking about China)

    Shhhhhhhhh!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: These people are also agents or proxies of the foreign government

      Nah, he's making up an implausible b-plot to justify using the new hacking laws against foreign banks.

      Australia is obsessed with China, but not the other way around. Oz is a small market barely 10 million people, no great geopolitical influence, some resources, not key ones.

      They keep trying to portray themselves as the West's gateway to Asia, but they're not even in the same hemisphere. Nobody thinks.... well we'd like to do a trade deal with the USA, so lets contact Australia to get that going. Or thinks Australia has any influence on the rest of the world, "lets flip Europe to be pro-China, first step,... Australia!". Ridiculous.

      When politicians do this, they do it in plain sight. See Tucker Carlson's clear courting of Putin for Tucker's presidential run. The primary motivation there, is he wants the wackadoodle vote, and wants all the help Putin did for Trump in securing that wackdoodle vote. There's a few GOP members who likewise can see Trump is done, and Putin needs another vehicle and are courting that role and parotting Russian talking points to see what help they can get.

      France, Le Pen's party, promising a soft line if elected on a Ukraine invasion and receiving a 'loan' from a Russian bank that closed down the following year turing the loan into *free* money. Done in plain sight.

      Trump and his Russians paying 10x the value for condos, Trump and his email server contacting Alfabanks server thousands of times, Trump's wife and her worthless NFTs sold to herself via proxy/mock auction. Trump and Lev Parnas, Trump and the NRA/Maria Burtina. All done in plain sight right in front of you.

      Kirsten Sinema, and her GOP backer donations, the floating of a Fox News role as 'sock puppet Democrat spoke person' when she is kicked out. It's right there, her motivations clear as day.

      So many things done right in plain sight, not some shifty middle man, courting *potential* candidates, who *might* run for power, and *might* be open to being bought. Think of all the leakage that would cause as candidates are wrongly approached and tell all to news and police!

      They literally do it plainly and openly, and everyone can see it and yet somehow they don't want to look.

      I am taking the opportunity to point it out, so when Tucker announces his candidacy that won't suprise you, as he labels supporting Ukraine "woke thinking" you'll anticipate it and hear it, and realize the motivation there. When Sinema joins Fox News after losing an election, that penny will drop, you'll realize that her motivatrion now is her role in future and connect those dots.

      Nothing cloak and dagger, you can hear the treason in every uttering of "woke", Tucker says right now if you bother to listen.

      (The motivation of these guys should be clear to you, they want to hack foreign banks to make themselves the go-to for intelligence service on foreign banks. It's spook empire building, nothing more).

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Yes it's done in plain sight

        Trump was a fucking asshole for four years in front of every camera he could find. And he was more of an asshole when cameras weren't there.

        I agree with your point, Fox News is atrocious and should be banned and every so-called political figure that can't even read the Constitution should be jailed.

        But until the voting public wakes up and stops watching the playoffs, it's not gonna happen.

        1. YetAnotherJoeBlow

          Re: Yes it's done in plain sight

          Especially since the New York Times is such a stalwart of decency and democracy.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: These people are also agents or proxies of the foreign government

        Still pushing the failed Russiagate narrative? Really??

  2. Chris G

    " it's assumed that if you're in the shadows, you're shadowy."

    Says a man alluding to the sunlight with a shadowy speech.

  3. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Bear in mind this is the same agency which started the current American smear campaign aginast Huawei with no basis and a few maybes

    Also bear in mind that these tactics are just as easily pulled by "friendly" countries.

    Let's not forget that the CIA/MI6 orchestrated what was essentially a coup against the Gough-Whutlam Australian government in 1974 and Australian politics has been broken ever since

  4. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Puppeteer AIMasterClass

    That speech from the ASIO chief .... https://www.asio.gov.au/publications/speeches-and-statements/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2022.html ..... reveals a much greater understanding of the opportunities and difficulties which abound and constantly grow, and in many cases at an alarmingly disturbing rate, in the globally contested sensitive and transformative information/hearts and minds space than anything else which has ever been shared from the likes of US or UK counterparts.

    Bravo, Mike Burgess ..... Go to the top of the class with an excellent score of 11/10.

    :-) And it may be a fact that the simple act of replying to this post has one alerting ASIO to parties they should really be engaged with talking the same talk and walking similar walks, or at least be made aware of should they be suspected of exercising with competing puppets from somewhere else foreign and/or alien.

    In either case, is vital information and unknown intelligence liable to be present and therefore readily available.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Puppeteer AIMasterClass

      And ..... talking of such puppets/puppeteers as we are, here be news of a not so new one engaged to flex virtual muscle in a military space place ....... Billionaire tapped for Pentagon job

      He certainly has his work cut out to make any great success of the antiquated hierarchical machinery responsible for but not accountable to that organisation.

  5. David Shaw

    "Nations running online foreign influence campaigns"

    when I had a quick look once, I think I was able to add Ethiopia to that list of "Nations..."

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Puppeteer?.....I don't think so.....

    Remember Kim Philby? Or Burgess & Mclean? Or Anthony Blunt? Or Aldrich Ames?

    *

    In these cases, the damage was done because these individuals:

    a) Believed in a philosophy in direct contradiction to the mainstream beliefs of their own country

    b) Were part of the elite in their own country, and so were employed and moved in elite circles

    .....no puppeteer required......no social media....no WhatsApp available......no huge fund of sponsorship money required.....

    .....or is this just another "Big Lie".......intended to profit......guess......Mike Burgess?

    1. General Purpose

      Re: Puppeteer?.....I don't think so.....

      If you work in IT, you understand there's more than one kind of security vulnerability. I hope.

  7. Citizen of Nowhere

    it's assumed that if you're in the shadows, you're shadowy

    A very reasonable assumption. It's also safe to assume that there is quite a high probability that you are shady as well :-)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Puppeteer example

    He then outlined such a campaign that involved "a wealthy individual who maintained direct and deep connections with a foreign government and its intelligence agencies [and] did the bidding of offshore masters, knowingly and covertly seeking to advance the interests of the foreign power."

    This clearly describes Donald Trump before his run for president with his pursuit of Russian influence and favors starting with his holding his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. As he said in a 2015 interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show (conservative talk radio) Trump said that his repeated attempts to launch business deals with Russians resulted in contacts with "…the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I can't go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary."

    I will not speculate if or how that influence played out but it is clearly the kind of behavior Burgess describes (but would never admit to).

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