Use pay phone to contact Australian Secret Intelligence Service recruitment

https://www.asis.gov.au/About-Us/Contact-us.html

by friism • 11 years ago

85 50 11 years ago

asis.gov.au

alfiedotwtf4• 11 years ago

The problem is that you're also probably viewing that page using your home or mobile internet connection.

presidentender• 11 years ago

HN just provided a bunch of noise to cloud those page views. It's not much, but it's something.

click170• 11 years ago

What a genius ploy by friism hehe.

Phase 1 - Post ASIS Foriegn Intel page to HN, creating noise

Phase 2 - Apply for ASIS Foreign Intel

Phase 3 - Profit

Too bad it only work about once a year.

fffrad• 11 years ago

I don't understand why they ask to use a payphone on a government website.

What is the benefit of using a payphone in this case?

skidoo2• 11 years ago

What if there's some weird loophole among the Five Eyes participants that ignores payphones in favor of other landlines and cells?

alfiedotwtf4• 11 years ago

I'd assume it's all slurped up. The difference is that there is zero idenification of the caller when using a payphone.

x5n1• 11 years ago

So if you get recruited, their surveillance partners like the five eyes don't know you are a spy. They are obviously sharing your call history with everyone, including people they might want to spy on some day.

It might just be to create a sense of allure. Taken from the movies. Like you are a spy now, dog.

It might be to keep other people around you from accidentally finding out you are a spy.

ubernostrum• 11 years ago

The benefit is they immediately hang up, then call you back on your mobile. The first interview question is "how did we do that?"

orliesaurus• 11 years ago

lmao thanks for this !!

homunculus• 11 years ago

I'd be really impressed if, while not carrying a mobile, they call the guy next to me, on his, and ask to speak with me.

readme• 11 years ago

You left GPS on and they had the GPS coordinates of the payphone on file.

alfiedotwtf4• 11 years ago

Data retention and XKeyScores. Anyone with access can then see who works or wants to work for ASIS. Data retenton laws and information sharing can cut both ways.

8_hours_ago• 11 years ago

I'm guessing because they want the identities of their recruits to be secret, or at least difficult for other intelligence agencies to determine. Calling from a cell phone makes a very clear link to a specific person, while a pay phone would require other methods of intelligence gathering to unmask the identities of potential new spies. It is probably easy for a nation state level adversary to hack, or otherwise obtain phone records (especially if the call is somehow routed through the US).

jimrandomh• 11 years ago

They don't want other countries' spy agencies to know who they're recruiting.

HillRat• 11 years ago

There's even odds it's a response to the Gemalto hack; all three major AUS MNOs use Gemalto SIM cards, and at the time only NSA and GCHQ were specifically called out as being involved, not ASD. Canberra might be feeling a bit left out there. Alternatively, they might be afraid that PLA's Third Department have also compromised Gemalto or other upstream hardware providers, since Australia and China are in each other's region of interest.

eck• 11 years ago

An alternative theory to "don't want other 4/5 eyes knowing" is they want to filter out people who don't take OpSec rules seriously.

TACIXAT• 11 years ago

That was my understanding, they know it is possible for a foreign government to tap the phone lines and they don't want a foreign government being able to target candidates for hire.

jarofgreen• 11 years ago

they want to filter out people who don't take OpSec rules seriously

I personally think it's a little bit this.

I know someone who applied to be an intelligence analyst agent in the UK. First stage was a multiple choice exam in a London hotel, where they had to turn up and say they were there for "KRNP Recruiting" or something. Now the hotel staff must have known something was going on, and it wouldn't be to hard to find this out ... but I reckon it filtered out both ppl who didn't take it seriously and also people who enjoyed that kind of subterfuge a little to much :-)

(honestly can't remember exact letters now)

jfoster• 11 years ago

Would payphones be more secure than private phones? Payphones are few & far between in Sydney, so third parties who want to listen don't need to bug too many of them.

stordoff• 11 years ago

Using a personal phone to contact the security services provides a direct link between that person and the security services to anyone who can access phone records. Using a payphone (probably) at the very least increasing the cost of establishing such a link (to identify the individual, you need listen to the call, which is more work and may be obscured by any OPSEC requirements that can be established over the phone, or have access to some other records [phone location records if the person is carrying a mobile phone at the same time, or CCTV footage from the area]).

tomjen32• 11 years ago

Actually you just need to stay nearby - the phones are used to rarely that anybody who uses one is probably a spy.

Andaith• 11 years ago

Also, a new phone with sim card is only about $30 in a petrol station. You would be better off going to a random petrol station, buying a new phone/sim, and disposing of it after the call. Preferably by removing the battery, then taking it to some other remote place and destroying it, then take it home and dump it in your neighbours trash. Depends how paranoid you are, but if you're becoming a spy...

empressplay• 11 years ago

In Australia you need to provide ID to buy a sim card / new phone.

smegel• 11 years ago

LOL, ASIO/ASD must be snooping to see which grads are being pinched by ASIS. I didn't know the job market was that hot!

aussieguy1232• 11 years ago

Their recruiting for foreign agents. Which means what the agent could be doing might be illegal in their home county. That's why they don't want applicants to use their home or mobile phone.

aussieguy1232• 11 years ago

It would be quite simple for a foreign govt to order their local teclo to hand over a list of all phone numbers that have called the secret agent recruitment hotline

vacri• 11 years ago

It's clearly a technical screening challenge - first the applicant must find a public payphone in Australia... and it must also be in working order.

Untit1ed• 11 years ago

Candidates must be able to withstand the smell of urine for a number of minutes...

t_fatus• 11 years ago

And avoid the cops who will definitely see them as weirdo crack-adicts calling their dealer from a phone booth

benzofuran• 11 years ago

Pay phones are still semi-common in Australia - at least in Western Australia - there's usually one within a few blocks of anywhere in Perth and most other cities.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

There is a payphone within view of my job and until a year or two ago there were one close to my apartment. They are rare, but not as rare as you might think.

ytdht• 11 years ago

luckily, there is almost no more pay-phones in USA....

anacrolix2• 11 years ago

There's like one per suburb/town in Australia. In rural areas, often there's just a payphone in the middle of nowhere. The only artificial light in miles.

igib• 11 years ago

Duh....of course you use a payphone to call ISIS......oh my apologies it says ASIS, sorry i do have a mild dyslexia

anacrolix2• 11 years ago

"Just pick up the phone, we know it's you and why you're calling."

th3iedkid• 11 years ago

>Unfortunately, for security reasons, if you make a mistake with your login details 3 times in a row, your account will be permanently deleted and you will need to create a new account via a new job application.

That's a first for me!

20kleagues• 11 years ago

I hope most people are shrewd enough to keep uncommon login details, or this could be used to delete a lot of accounts.

yitchelle• 11 years ago

In their page outlining their selection process, there is a statement of

"If you wish to include data in your application which is classified higher than 'IN-CONFIDENCE', please indicate in the 'Additional Comments' section of the application form that you have further classified information which you feel is relevant to the success of your application. Should ASIS determine it necessary to discuss this classified information with you, this will be done via secure means at a later stage."

This is what public payphone is for, in both directions.

It all feels very James Bond..

klausjensen• 11 years ago

Also note their physical address:

"If you wish to contact ASIS on another matter, please write to: Locked Bag 41, Kingston ACT 2604. Canberra, Australia"

fphhotchips• 11 years ago

Actually that's pretty benign. Locked bags over here are widely used by businesses and Government departments.

alexsb92• 11 years ago

Is that like a PO Box in the States?

Aoyagi• 11 years ago

Someone should call them using a pay phone to tell them how to form a plural of "FAQ".

Use pay phone to contact Australian Secret Intelligence Service recruitment

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