Govt Establishes Espionage Task Force

ANT, Agus Yozami, Yanuar Pribadhie
 
The espionage scandal by foreign countries in Indonesia has returned as one of the hottest issues of the past few days. After the alleged Australian spying on several prominent Indonesian officials, including the President, it is now revealed that the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) has been conducting similar activities.
 
This information was leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former contractor at the NSA, who disseminated the information to the New York Times. The “Grey Lady”—nickname for the New York Times—then published the story publicly on 15 February 2014.
 
In response to this spying scandal involving foreign government institutions, the Government formed a task force on 19 February in coordination with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kemenkominfo).
 
The task force, which was officially formed after the enactment of the Menkominfo Decree, will be manned by officials from Kemenkominfo, the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Agency (BRTI), information technology experts/academics, and the police force.
 
“We agreed to establish a task force on this matter. Their working term is 2 months after the date of execution of the Ministerial Decree,” said Gatot S Dewa Broto, Head of the Information Center and Public Relations of the Ministry, on Tuesday.
 
The task force will be responsible for examining the results of self-assessment conducted by Indonesian telecommunications operators. The self-assessment was ordered by the Government to investigate possible wiretapping between 26-28 November last year. Operators have already submitted their self-assessment to the Ministry.
 
The task force will also examine the business processes and procedures of each telecommunications operator to find out on whether or not they conducted any illegal activities.
 
As a starting point, Freddy Tulung, Director General of Public Information and Communication at the Ministry says that Kemenkominfo will investigate Telkomsel—arguably the biggest mobile operator in Indonesia.
 
This investigation is Kemenkominfo’s response to the report submitted by Telkomsel last week. Within that report, Telkomsel requested Kemenkominfo to bring the problem on alleged Telkomsel involvement in the espionage scandal before the International Telecommunication Union—an agency under the United Nations responsible for telecommunication affairs.
 
Freddy stated that Menkominfo has made it clear that if Telkomsel is proven to be involved in the espionage scandal, the Government will force Telkomsel to close its business.
 
Sarwoto Atmosutarno, a telecommunications expert, recommended the idea of conducting a forensic audit on Telkomsel and other suspected operators in order to reveal whether or not they were involved in the espionage scandal. Sarwoto said that information regarding 1,8 million main encryption keys used by Telkomsel should be the starting point for the forensic audit.
 
“A forensic audit is important to figure out whether there was deliberate involvement or not, why the secure system can be broken. The audit will also prevent evidence being eliminated by the foreign parties,” said Sarwoto.
 
(hot/kc)