An Intel Blind Spot in Australia: Could an October-Type Event Occur?

March 17, 2025

Yep, another dinobaby original.

I read a “real” news article (I think) in the UK Telegraph. The story “How Chinese Warships Encircled Australia without Canberra Noticing” surprised me. The write up reports:

In a highly unusual move, three Chinese naval vessels dubbed Task Group 107 – including a Jiangkai-class frigate, a Renhai-class cruiser and a Fuchi-class replenishment vessel – were conducting exercises in Australia’s exclusive economic zone.

The date was February 21, 2025. The ships were 300 miles from Australia. What’s the big deal?

According to the write up:

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, downplayed the situation, while both the Australian Defence Force and the New Zealand Navy initially missed that the exercise was even happening.

Let me offer several observations based on what may a mostly accurate “real” news report:

Australia like Israel is well equipped with home grown and third-party intelware. If the write up’s content is accurate, none of these intelware systems provided signals about the operation before, during, and after the report of the live fire drill
As a member of Five Eyes, a group about which I know essentially nothing, Australia has access to assorted intelligence systems, including satellites. Obviously the data were incomplete, ignored, or not available to analysts or Preligens-type of systems. Note: Preligens is now owned by Safran
What remediating actions are underway in Australia? To be fair, the “real” news outfit probably did not ask this question, but it seems a reasonable one to address. Someone was responsible, so what’s the fix?

Net net: Countries with sophisticated intelligence systems are getting some indications that these systems may not live up to the marketing hyperbole nor the procurement officials’ expectations of these systems. Israel suffered in many ways because of its 9/11 in October. One hopes that Australia can take this allegedly true incident involving China to heart and make changes.

Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Government, intelware, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.