Australian Army and Police Say “No” to Israeli Tech.

Making Progress…

The gears are turning behind closed doors.

Two Articles.

From 2021
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-30/tension-israeli-company-lead-to-uncertainty-over-army-system/100105866

Tensions between Australia’s military and a controversial Israeli weapons manufacturer are threatening to topple a multi-billion-dollar IT system that allows Army commanders to control units in the field.

Defence is refusing to comment on the saga but several sources with knowledge of the dispute say the Army is now moving to scrap its Battle Management System (BMS) produced by Elbit Systems Australia.

The digital Israeli technology allows Army commanders to better coordinate various land assets during complex battlefield scenarios, where previously they had to rely on “analogue” methods such as maps and radios.

The United States military has for years taken special precautions while operating alongside Australian vehicles that are equipped with the Elbit BMS, because of security concerns about the Israeli technology.

Military figures have said simmering tensions between the Defence Department and Elbit Systems Australia have come to a head in recent weeks, with the Army now moving to stop using its existing deployed BMS.

One Army source, who spoke to the ABC on the condition of anonymity, described the standoff as a “complete shambles”.

“People are getting the shits with Elbit exploiting their monopoly to impose huge premiums,” the officer said.

“And there are definite concerns that the Israelis are backdooring the system for information”.

The ABC understands Elbit employs 190 staff in Australia, but Defence is now looking to use an American company which is yet to properly establish itself in Australia.

A week ago, the ABC sent detailed questions about the contractual dispute to the Defence Department, but it is yet to respond.

The ABC has also contacted the federal government for comment, but a response has not been received.

A spokesperson for Elbit Systems Australia told the ABC “we will not be commenting at this stage”.

Second Article From 2015

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/afp-walk-away-from-israeli-crimefighting-software-deal-20150819-gj2c7i.html

The Australian Federal Police dumped a $145 million plan to fight crime using software developed in the Middle Eastern flashpoints of Gaza and the West Bank after an intervention by Finance Department boss Jane Halton.
The increasingly powerful Finance secretary wrote to AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin in January after her department’s Major Project’s Review team completed an appraisal of the police force’s plans to buy the Israeli-made policing software.
Finance and the federal police are keeping the contents of the letter and the review a secret, but Ms Halton’s intervention marked the beginning of the end of the AFP’s deal with Elbit Systems.
It is unclear how much of the tens of millions of dollars spent on the contract can be retrieved and what the federal police will do about a replacement for the current obsolete system.
The AFP will not say how much money has been spent to date.
The move is a rare example of a federal government agency moving to cut its losses when a procurement project gets into difficulty.
Documents obtained by industry news site under freedom of information laws show Finance’s major projects assessment team reviewed the deal in October 2014.
In January, Ms Halton wrote to the commissioner and although neither government agency will disclose the contents of the review or the letter, the top police officer soon tried to renegotiate the deal with Elbit.
But a new agreement could not be reached, the AFP has confirmed.
“Despite the best efforts of both parties, it became increasingly clear that there would be significant challenges in meeting project objectives in terms of functionality, time for delivery and cost,” a spokeswoman said.
The deal’s collapse leaves the national force stuck with the nearly 20-year-old Police Real-time Online Management Information System (PROMIS).
PROMIS has been a central feature of policing in Canberra since 1997 and a generation of officers have had a love-hate relationship with the system, which the force’s top brass describe as “clunky”.
The system records crime and incidents while holding investigative and operational information. It has also seen service with the Australian Crime Commission and the Northern Territory Police Force.
However, several subsidiary systems had been brought in to supplement PROMIS, which was developed in-house. It was identified as a weakness as long ago as 2008.
The new system, SPECTRUM, was supposed to be in place by 2017.
Despite the setback, the force insists it can have a replacement in service by 2019.
“Significant work done to date will be invaluable in informing the AFP’s future approach to the development of a replacement system,” the spokeswoman said.
“The AFP is committed to replacing our current operational systems.
“Our focus is now on seeking options for a replacement as a matter of priority.”
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About the Author: Johnny Paratrooper

Born and Raised in Baltimore City, Maryland. History Degree. 8 Years Airborne Infantry and Scouts Platoon. Iraq Veteran. 4-5 Years as a doorman, bar back, and bouncer in Baltimore. Worked in Construction, Heavy Equipment Demolition, Corporate Security, Sales, Forest Service contractor, and the Hospitality Industry. Raised Catholic. Hobbies are race cars and sport bikes. Side projects are HAM radio credentials and long range shooting. MY EMAIL IS [email protected]. Founder of Green Dragon Academy https://www.patreon.com/GreenDragonAcademy

7 Comments

  1. James Carpenter aka "Felix" May 10, 2021 at 18:15

    From the desk of a Curmudgeon:
    The latest and greatest does not guarantee living happily ever after in the same fields as Unicorns.
    Analog is slower, has multiples of limitations compared to “digital”.
    And yet…
    There is a reason the Russians still produce vacuum tubes.
    Given extortionist “premiums” for Israeli digital, the Aussies have a case for rethinking their relationship with Elbit .
    Complex is not “usually” robust.
    Robust is a quality all it’s own.

    • Johnny Paratrooper May 11, 2021 at 18:56

      Why they can’t go back to good old Intel Couriers and RX collection is beyond me…

  2. Freya Valentina May 10, 2021 at 18:47

    I can’t believe legacy media reported this. It must mean there’s pushback and the military finally knows our “greatest ally” is not.

    • Johnny Paratrooper May 11, 2021 at 18:55

      Our boy Brendon O’Connell is in contact with top men. And moves are being made. Israel is a Soviet State allied with China and Russia. They were never, and have never been, allies with the West at the top levels. Not to say their aren’t good people in Israel, but the West is so propagandized it’s hard to wake people up to hard facts.
      What we need are some arrests and some Chinese naval vessels at the bottom of the ocean.
      Have you see all the Data centers and IT facilities all over Europe and Asia burning down? I mean like whole commercial buildings completely in flames? How does that even happen? Halon showers and Fire Sprinkler systems are incredible.

  3. kelly May 10, 2021 at 21:33

    A major US objection to China’s lead role in fielding 5G networks has been that major Chinese companies like Huawei or Juniper cannot operate independently of the CCP and therefore telcom equipment produced by these companies may (likely would, I expect) contain back doors for Chinese intelligence. Yet there are many known examples of American commercially produced equipment containing similar back doors or surreptitious means of tracking, whether introduced via voluntary cooperation with the feds, legal or other coercion, or secret introduction by insiders or NSA Tailored Access Operations. Some examples are printers (prints coded pattern identiying printer), companies like AT&T whose networks and databases have been joined at the hip with the military and federal government for well over half a century, fed-approved encryption algorithms like AES (suggested as likely by some experts but I don’t know this for a fact), or even every Intel microprocessor (suggested by some experts). I expect this list barely scratches the surface.
    So with that long-winded introduction, how much less likely is an American BMS produced for Australia to contain backdoors for US intelligence versus the Elbit Systems BMS? Possibly this is more a question of whose policy and culture is more aligned with Australia’s if we accept that any country with the technological means and opportunity would insert backdoors in such technology.
    An interesting aside pointing out Israel’s powerhouse status in signals intelligence is that Narus (currently owned by Boeing), a company that produced very high speed packet inspection and interception equipment that was installed at AT&T facilities (see ‘Room 641A’ on wikipedia) for NSA, was founded in Israel. (Meanwhile, as the foreign tentacles worm ever deeper into our corrupted government, the FBI suppresses the legitimate political aspirations of our own people!)

    • Johnny Paratrooper May 11, 2021 at 18:51

      You should read the Mueller report. Because it’s full of Israeli’s, tech, spies, and gossip. The FBI is a bunch of liars, but that doesn’t mean official reports are completely bogus.
      The CCP and any corporation in China are the same thing. They have political officers who make the calls. Everyone else is management.
      Intel is an Israeli company. And their last processor flopped because it was so backdoored no-one wanted to buy it. I believe it was called the “Snapdragon”. But I don’t recall at the moment.

    • kelly May 12, 2021 at 21:31

      Correction: Juniper is an American company. Huawei (Chinese) is about twice as large as Cisco Systems (American) in terms of employees and revenue, while Juniper is only about 1/10 the size of Cisco. I’m racking my brain trying to think of the other large Chinese networking company (ZTE maybe?) but am coming up short.

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