Australia spooks emerge from shadows with tweets, China warning

Burgess said ASD was coming "out of the shadows" and stridently defended a government decision to bar Chinese telecoms firms from operating Australia's new 5G network.

Australia's highly secretive signals intelligence agency – tasked with eavesdropping and decrypting adversaries' communications – has made a tongue-in-cheek Twitter debut, while issuing a serious warning of security risks from Chinese technology.

The Australian Signals Directorate, a sister agency to Britain's GCHQ or America's NSA, took to the social network as part of what it said was a new, more public-facing communications strategy. "Hi internet, ASD here. Long time listener, first time caller," @ASDGovAu tweeted for the first time.