AUSTRALIANS living and working in Jakarta are being targeted by a mobile phone tapping scam with links to the Indonesian Government.
As the fallout from the Presidential phone tapping scandal continues, expatriate Australians are being bugged without their knowledge.
A thriving business has developed in the Indonesian capital offering the phone tapping service.
For between $300 and $1000 a mobile phone will appear to be "misplaced'' often overnight.
It will be taken apart and a device inserted that diverts all calls and information to a third phone or computer. The information can also be accessed by intelligence services.
The phone is then returned to the relieved owner who continues to use it unaware that it is being bugged.
"I have seen how it works and I know of at least one Australian whose phone is being tapped and he has no idea,'' a source in Jakarta told News Corp Australia.
"The normal charge is $1000 but I have been offered the service for $300.''
Local authorities and the large Australian Federal Police contingent in Jakarta are aware of the scam and the business model that includes pick-up and delivery but are powerless or, in the case of the Indonesian police, unwilling to stop it.
Security experts say Australians living and working in Jakararta are being targeted by a mobile phone tapping scam with links to the Indonesian Government. Picture: AFP/ Bay Ismoyo
Former operative with the government's overseas spy agency the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Warren Reed, said mobile phone tapping had been going on for years especially in the corporate world.
The Indonesia expert said he was not surprised that a mobile phone tapping business had developed there.
"The best advice is that if your phone goes missing and then shows up - throw it away and get a new one,'' Mr Reed said.
He said the Jakarta operation was typical of what was happening in many regional countries including Australia.
Singapore is regarded as the industrial espionage capital of Asia and many officials and business people will only travel there "clean'' and will not carry any phones or laptops to the island state.
"Of course Singapore is very close to Indonesia and is actually Indonesia's banker,'' Mr Reed said.
He said there were a lot of Chinese business people in Jakarta and they were always spying on each other.
"There are no morals in intelligence.''
Leading expert in electronic spying Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University does not use a mobile phone himself as he regards them as highly insecure.
Professor Ball said the device installed in a bugged phone meant that when a call was made and reached the microwave transponder it was diverted to a third device.
He said the method was difficult and cumbersome because the phone had to disappear for a time, but that was much easier in places like Jakarta.
Professor Ball also criticised the Australian Signals Directorate for tapping President Yudhoyono's phone for no reason.
"DSD is out of control. What is the point of listening to the president's phone?''
"This is not assisting national security at all and the scandal is all their own fault due to their stupid games,'' he said.
SOURCE:news
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