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The nation's top spy chief agrees that foreign powers are active at a broader level across Australia's online space.

ASIO chief Mike Burgess identified China as the nation's top hacking threat, with its understanding of the domestic telecommunications network now so sophisticated, it could "turn them off, should they need to".

"They are working actively to understand our systems," ASIO chief Mike Burgess told the Mitchell Unlimited podcast.

"I believe in some cases they could do it today," he said.

Mr Burgess urged calm among Australians, as it was unlikely our communications systems would be turned off unless we were at war.

But he warned people should not have highly sensitive conversations in their cars or near their phones, given foreign governments' ability to listen in.

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[–] 3 points 3 weeks ago*

Fuck China, US, South Korea and our own companies that spy on us everywhere we go and everything we do. It is mostly an education thing - people don't understand what the fuck they are doing and buying. They don't understand how much of their life sits on someone else's computer where it can be used for practically anything. Blaming it all on China without explaining the real risks is a misdirection. It does nothing to protect people from all the other abuses, some of which our intelligence community will be complicit in supporting.

It isn't in our sovereign interests for so much of our data and services to be controlled by big companies, often foreign, but it generally isn't in our individual interests either.

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