Launching Silent Courier: MI6 Goes WikiLeaks
There is night and day between an entity such as WikiLeaks, a daring publisher of classified government documents extraordinaire, and the dour, secretive intelligence service of any country. But it seems that, just as the owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk, some of them are learning a few lessons. For one thing, the British foreign intelligence service, M16, has decided to take to the World Wide Web, especially its dark version, to lure recruits and secrets. How close, then, to the practices of Julian Assange and the publishing organisation that made him infamous and the subject of much abomination in intelligence circles.
The intended platform is to have the name Silent Courier. “As the world changes and threats multiply, we must stay ahead of our adversaries,”stated Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. “Our intelligence agencies work tirelessly to keep British people safe, and this cutting-edge technology will help M16 recruit new agents, including in Russia and beyond.” Given the extensive historical record of deep penetration of the British intelligence services by Russians, this is bound to have induced a bored yawn.
The official announcement came from Sir Richard Moore, the outgoing M16 chief who decided to use Istanbul as the place to make it. “Today, we’re asking those with sensitive information on global instability, international terrorism, or hostile state activity to contact MI6 securely online.” With paternal assurance, he promised that, “Our virtual door is open to you.”
The recruitment approach is not dissimilar to the campaigns used by the US Central Intelligence Agency. In 2022 and 2023, the organisation employed such platforms as Telegram, Facebook, X (previously X) and Instagram to net potential recruits from Russia. Instructions were also released on how to contact the agency on the dark web. The CIA, being convinced of the efficacy of these moves, released a video last year on Telegram titled “Why I contacted the CIA: the motherland” urging Russians to target Russia’s real enemies: the country’s leadership. “Our leaders sell out the country,” moralises the fictional officer of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, “for palaces and yachts while our soldiers chew rotten potatoes and fire ancient weapons.”
An uncharitable reading of such moves suggest that the US spy outfit, being incapable of building human networks with human agents in Russia, requires the services of social media to secure contacts. While we are not sure about the extent of how successful these moves have been, the standard of efficacy, if we are to believe a CIA spokesperson, is taken to be the number of viewings of the various posts. Troubling, if true.
This month, a partnership with Google Cloud between the UK and US was minted, an agreement that again shows the insatiable appetite on the part of governments to secure the services of Big Tech. “The partnership,”states the September 12 press release from the Ministry of Defence, “means that the latest technology developed by Google Cloud, including AI, data analytics, and cyber security, will be used by defence intelligence and national security specialists to share secure information between our partners and outcompete our adversaries.”
These agencies, it would seem, have been seduced by the very world hated by government bureaucrats and the secrecy mongers: the use of the dark web, the incitement to steal information, and using an encrypted platform that echoes the WikiLeaks model for securing information from leakers and whistleblowers.
For some, the world of clandestine meetings and the exchange of envelopes has become a bit fusty and mothballed, though there is something more profound about those personal ties in the recruitment process. The use of technology, however, has become irresistible, even a fetish, and agencies have come to realise that secure platforms enabling foreign agents or those in foreign employ to communicate classified material is a worthwhile endeavour.
The MI6 platform makes use of the Tor network, a facility that, while strong, is not impervious. The agency advises that potential contacts resort to VPNs to access the platform, supplying a dedicated email address for communications. Also encouraged is the use of private browsing with devices equipped with updated security and eschewing the use of credit cards.
The dark web, while attractive, is not an impenetrable jungle. The resourceful and persistent will find a way. Beijing’s Ministry of State Security has, for instance, previously succeeded in penetrating encrypted CIA platforms with spectacular success. Between 2010 and 2012, according to the New York Times, some 20 CIA informants were either killed or imprisoned by the Chinese authorities. The theories offered are conventional: traditional, old-school exposure of the sources by virtue of a well-placed mole within the American agency, or the ability of the country’s cyber platoons to break the channels of secure communication. And never, of course, rule out simple negligence.
M16, in going WikiLeaks, has acknowledged, at the very least, the value of having avenues of disclosure that do cast light on rough, inscrutable terrain drawn from sources of value. The legacy of WikiLeaks speaks to exposing the secretive information that should be known to the public, exposing those venal types in power to withering scrutiny. MI6 intends to perform the same function, with one crucial difference: those secrets will be intended for minimal circulation among the anointed elite in order to advance the agenda of His Majesty’s Government. That, at least, is the intention.
After Five Decades, It Comes to This: The PNG-Australia Pukpuk Treaty
It’s clearer than ever: the Albanese government is continuing its efforts to shut out China in wooing and seducing island states across vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Bilateral security treaties are being pursued as a matter of urgency. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has, for instance, stated that he is open to closer defence ties with Fiji, which “could range from increased interoperability, the sort of training that we are seeing with the Pacific Policing Initiative, being expanded to increased engagement between our defence forces”.
The template, however, would seem to be the Pukpuk Treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea (pukpuk being the pidgin word for “crocodile”). It was reported on September 15 that the PNG cabinet had, despite a few procedural hiccups, approved the pact, with a PNG cabinet submission observing that the treaty is intended “to prepare our militaries to be battle-ready and for a very bad day”. With exaggeration, the document also envisages a treaty with the bite of a crocodile in linking the militaries of the two countries.
While the contents of the treaty have yet to be published – the Albanese government is showing itself increasingly secretive – the Australian national broadcaster has seen a copy. There are also clues about what is expected. PNG Defence Minister Billy Joseph has said that a provision much like Article 4 in NATO’s founding treaty, obliging member states to consult when any one feels a threat to their territorial integrity, political independence or security, is in the offing. The existing 1977 Status of Forces framework will be modernised to include a mutual defence obligation, a hefty expenditure on weapons and equipment for PNG while permitting unimpeded access of Australian Defence Forces to facilities in PNG. PNG nationals will also be able to be recruited into the ADF, as will Australians wishing to be recruited into the PNG Defence Forces.
Despite celebrating five decades of independence, PNG has decided to throw a good bit of it away by surrendering the complete autonomy of its armed forces to Australian influence and control. Such arrangements are always advertised as ostensible exercises of “interoperability”, consultation and equality, with various domestic processes needing to be observed. In truth, this gives Canberra greater say over what Port Moresby will do with its armed forces and, by implication, its foreign policy.
Such greater say also risks involving Australia in a range of security concerns. Don Rothwell, an international law authority based at the Australian National University, sees the prospect of Canberra being snagged in PNG-Indonesia border issues arising from West Papua, and dirtying itself with “an active independence movement in Bougainville, which raises issues of PNG’s ‘political independence or security’.”
With the attraction of a pathway to Australian citizenship and the prospect of equal rates of pay as earned by members of the ADF, there is a genuine chance that PNG will see its own forces depleted while swelling the ranks of the ADF. In terms of planning, this looks like a fantastic instance of self-harm and diminishment.
International relations commentary rarely does a good line in ironic reflection. A piece in The Conversation by Ian Kemish does not disappoint, flecked with platitudes on “deep roots in shared history”, Australia being the “most trusted partner” to PNG, and sentimental guff about “partnership and equality”. Port Moresby had evidently felt that the relationship with Canberra was “unique – the only one that combines proximity, capability and an enduring sense of shared history.” Michael Shoebridge of the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank, described the pact as “a pretty big step”, with PNG saying “‘Yes we agree, you actually are our security partner of choice, and we mean it enough to put it into a treaty’.”
Australian self-interest, ever jittery about China’s regional influence, shines so brightly in these arrangements as to make such remarks feeble. Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, often circuitous and waffly at press conferences, was candid in admitting that “PNG is obviously on our northern flank. It really matters that we have the very best relationship we have with PNG in a security sense. And I’m really excited about the fact that this agreement is going to give expression to that.”
The need to keep PNG close to Australia’s military interests is also of ongoing interest to such anti-China hawks as the sacked and disgraced former secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo. For some reason, press outlets think his predictable views matter. To The Australian Financial Review, he explained rather banally that “PNG would be in peril were it to be attacked by a foreign power.” He advised that Australia “for the first time in our bilateral relationship, commit to coming to PNG’s assistance in the event of it being attacked by a foreign power.” Any agreement that did not codify such an undertaking “would be, while useful, not reflective of our deep strategic interdependence.”
With each utterance on sovereignty from Canberra, officials in Port Moresby would do well to consider the implications of the pact. PNG may have existed as a nominally independent state for fifty years, but that independence is set to come to an end.
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