Serious scroobal: Assteamed Ministar contradict you on limiting govt access to Web

In the past few days you've aired your strong opinions here on this forum.

Your esteemed Ministar for Communications and Info has announced that many foreign governments are interested in Sinkieland's project and might follow in her footsteps.

Read The Straits Times' report here: http://www.asianews.network/content/buzz-over-delinking-singapore-govt-pcs-web-19463 "Buzz over delinking Singapore govt PCs from Web"

What say you?

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

In the past few days you've aired your strong opinions here on this forum.

Your esteemed Ministar for Communications and Info has announced that many foreign governments are interested in Sinkieland's project and might follow in her footsteps.

Read The Straits Times' report here: http://www.asianews.network/content/buzz-over-delinking-singapore-govt-pcs-web-19463 "Buzz over delinking Singapore govt PCs from Web"

What say you?

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Aiyoh, you believe everything the PAP says?

Watch for ballooning of IT expenditure because of this pig-brain plan.

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

... Ministar for Communications and Info has announced that many foreign governments are interested in Sinkieland's project and might follow in her footsteps ...

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sinkielan gahmen has plenty of skolars, n exceptional no horse run breed ... 4eign gahmens ofcos has much 2 learn from sinkielan brilliant skolars ...

ofcos, tiz oso n 1s in 50 years event ...

He actually contradicted his IDA CEO who claimed that others had already done it but could not provide any examples. His CSA chief in his first press interview claimed "billions' of attack and now for some magical reason presumably as result of PM stating that it has not be explained well is now claiming that 16 cases of breaching the firewall. What is also interesting is the new claim that MTI system was separated in 2010. I think we are looking at semantics in play.

GE - General Electric, one of the oldest listed companies in the World and certainly one of the most respected has all its employees in a single email system and they have access to the Internet. The guy builds the engine for the Apache, to the guy works for GE Capital are all in the same system. They handle many highly classified work for various government including top secret engineering works around the World.

The growing suspicion is that someone at the top of the house was personally negligent resulting in a serious breech and to portray that it can happen to anyone has now pushed for this solution as the "get out jail " card.

Air gap system are nothing new. It has been part of the security and risk based approach and used in the military, nuclear plants, water chlorination systems for reservoirs etc Even some cars that use computers do not allow remote diagnostic to avoid stray and rogue signals fiddling them. But separating the entire system shows with inability to handle or running someone's personal agenda.

Yaccob is also an idiot. Obviously this is big news around the world and he and the others are going to field a lot of queries from their counterparts. People naturally are going to be courteous and diplomatic even though they might think it is poor solution. They obviously going to blow warn air up his arse rather than ask him if Singapore cannot handle their security.

If Singapore decides as a policy that anyone ill above the age of 75 cannot be allowed to be resuscitated by any medical doctor to save on limited resources, Gan Kim Yong will also be fielding calls from his counterparts from across the World. The majority will be polite and want to know how they are going to implement the policy.

scroobal said:

He actually contradicted his IDA CEO who claimed that others had already done it but could not provide any examples. His CSA chief in his first press interview claimed "billions' of attack and now for some magical reason presumably as result of PM stating that it has not be explained well is now claiming that 16 cases of breaching the firewall. What is also interesting is the new claim that MTI system was separated in 2010. I think we are looking at semantics in play.

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The "billions" of attacks is actually not a far fetched claim.

Even the server that this forum runs on is constantly being probed by rogue bots for vulnerabilities. I get anywhere between 10 to hundreds daily. The main source is China and Russia based on the IPs but they could well be launched from somewhere else.

If the bot finds a vulnerable server it usually does nothing more than add it to the server pool that can be used later on for any number of purposes the most common being spam or ddos attacks.

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

In the past few days you've aired your strong opinions here on this forum.

Your esteemed Ministar for Communications and Info has announced that many foreign governments are interested in Sinkieland's project and might follow in her footsteps.

What say you?

Click to expand...

List of countries wanting to learn from Singapore's project
(1) China CCP
(2) Fatty Kim-N. Korea
(3) Hun Sen- Cambodia
(4) Ruling party of Laos
(5) Many African countries-----
(6) Some Latin America countries like Cuba----
plus many more

I can understand "millions' but not "billions" If this was properly done, the Govt would have stated that 16 managed to breech the firewalls but many others were stopped. Conversant with bots and even C2s. The challenge that the govt has is not exactly in the IT space but in the social engineering space The perpetrators need civil servants to actually cross the bridge or jump the gap. I think the Govt have given up on the social engineering site and thus the clear separation.

When I found out that they used Singtel to buy Trustwave and gone into partnership fireeye I knew they must have serious challenges. And you know this govt, they will not admit any negligence or incompetent on their part and so they have come up with something drastic and Yaccob is spinning as a Singapore initiative that will benefit the world.

Leongsam said:

The "billions" of attacks is actually not a far fetched claim.

Even the server that this forum runs on is constantly being probed by rogue bots for vulnerabilities. I get anywhere between 10 to hundreds daily. The main source is China and Russia based on the IPs but they could well be launched from somewhere else.

If the bot finds a vulnerable server it usually does nothing more than add it to the server pool that can be used later on for any number of purposes the most common being spam or ddos attacks.

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Leongsam said:

The "billions" of attacks is actually not a far fetched claim.

Even the server that this forum runs on is constantly being probed by rogue bots for vulnerabilities. I get anywhere between 10 to hundreds daily. The main source is China and Russia based on the IPs but they could well be launched from somewhere else.

If the bot finds a vulnerable server it usually does nothing more than add it to the server pool that can be used later on for any number of purposes the most common being spam or ddos attacks.

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Are you trying to deliberately miss the point? DDOS attacks are common nowadays, as are insidious methods like DNS poisoning, and that was not what was originally alluded to. These attacks are routinely diffused by any good security system as you are well aware from your experience running this website. The IDA and Yaacob were being misleading and playing with semantics. First they said they were worried about users downloading malware, and then they said billions of attacks, and then changed the tune to "has been compromised before". There is the impression they are running around like headless chickens who are not willing to come clean and running around trying to cover their asses.

Thick Face Black Heart said:

Are you trying to deliberately miss the point? DDOS attacks are common nowadays, as are insidious methods like DNS poisoning, and that was not what was originally alluded to. These attacks are routinely diffused by any good security system as you are well aware from your experience running this website. The IDA and Yaacob were being misleading and playing with semantics. First they said they were worried about users downloading malware, and then they said billions of attacks, and then changed the tune to "has been compromised before". There is the impression they are running around like headless chickens who are not willing to come clean and running around trying to cover their asses.

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None of the ministers has actually run a server so they make comments based upon the briefings they receive from those in the know.

When you don't actually know your subject matter well the message comes across in a rather convoluted manner.

Most of the members here don't know what they're talking about either but that does not stop them from shooting their mouths off and spewing garbage on a daily basis.

Leongsam said:

None of the ministers has actually run a server so they make comments based upon the briefings they receive from those in the know.

When you don't actually know your subject matter well the message comes across in a rather convoluted manner.

Most of the members here don't know what they're talking about either but that does not stop them from shooting their mouths off and spewing garbage on a daily basis.

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The usual motivation is to lambast MIW as though they are dumb and dumber. That is typical of the folks in this dumbass forum which is nothing new by now.

On hacking, it is a serious affair and most time, it is coming from ex-communist countries with good certainty they have backing from their governments. You are right about it. They are the best of the best. Only thing I am surprised that they are interested in this dumb forum eh.

You need the average user, typically ignorant to get some of the internet security compromised. Even the firewall or the best security installed has its limitations if an idiot is using it - I shouldn't be saying this either.

The best solution is to totally cut off access to internet.

If the problem came from the East, IDA would have wasted no time in spending millions if not billions of our money beefing up security with all sorts of fancy toys.

The radical steps taken suggest that the problem does not come from the East but instead comes from the West. It is probably an old friend with a peeping tom fetish and the most advanced technology in the world to secretly spy on what you are doing.

Was speaking to an ex-colleagues who would be familiar of this space. She said that it is actually unprecedented and we are the first country to cut the entire civil service network in this manner. Others have parts which they deemed sensitive that are cut off but not completely as proposed by Singapore. She also said that the Govt thru its contacts have been floating this idea to other countries in an informal manners for sometime but no takers and decided they would not wait.

She also said she probably expects the authorities to start preparing for alternate threat scenarios to emerge such as Civil Servants doing more of their preparatory work on this own devices when they are at home or away from the office which is typically not secured to the extent that company or an institution device accessing the network it. The natural tendency is carry on the work in that device while in the office.

Interestingly she said it could also be easier for our intelligence people to start monitoring personal devices that are logged on to BYOD networks in Government officers for staff personal use. She is sure that it would be obvious to those in security and intelligence to have noticed this opportunities and wondered if it was part of the plan.

She also expects other countries to warn their government staff not to interact with Singaporean counterparts thru private emails or various apps such as iMessage, whatapp as their exchange will be monitored.

The bigger danger is China begins converting their citizens and ex-citizens working in Singapore to work for them similar to the US when they found it a challenge to penetrate US sensitive networks.

Whatever it is it will interesting to see what happens in the next few months to years on such things as who else will follow Singapore's footsteps, and if new vectors start to spring up.

It's actually a ruse to create more jobs. Also who stand to gain from this ? Civil servants will surf more on their mobile phones which means more data plan. Then SingTel will launch a special plan for civil servants.

you mean they have another $2 setup by ex colleagues gg to supply new PC to these mystery?

scroobal said:

Was speaking to an ex-colleagues who would be familiar of this space. She said that it is actually unprecedented and we are the first country to cut the entire civil service network in this manner.......

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A little bird from the West told me the Sinkapore project will become the butt of jokes of the world. The etat d'affaires when it is fully implemented will be worse than the existing status quo.

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

A little bird from the West told me the Sinkapore project will become the butt of jokes of the world. The etat d'affaires when it is fully implemented will be worse than the existing status quo.

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sg is not the first ever nor will it be the last. the u.s. have been keeping certain elements of their strategic nuclear forces away from any web connections for over 60 years. file transfers are still done with 5-inch floppy drives. the ssbm forces have closed satellite connections to ground stations, and this network is never connected to the internet. don't fall for tpx stories here on sbf.

It may not be a savvy solution but it does provide an answer. What the other government will probably surmise is that it is the usual way the Singapore Government have handled thorny issues - blunt and with a sledge hammer.

NaturalAristocratNoHeart said:

A little bird from the West told me the Sinkapore project will become the butt of jokes of the world. The etat d'affaires when it is fully implemented will be worse than the existing status quo.

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