TR EMERITUS

ST Opinion Editor Chua Mui Hoong I am a bit perplexed by Opinion editor Chua Mui Hoong's view that the Workers' Party (WP) should come up with a response to the Government's plan to revamp public bus services ("Time for the Workers' Party to grow up"; last Sunday). The Government, with its civil service and ready access to relevant information, must have researched the issue well. Unless one is intimately connected with our public transport system, one cannot readily foresee the expected effects of the planned changes, and it seems prudent to hold back on expressing an opinion. The role of an opposition party is not to oppose for the sake of opposing, but to watch out for any wayward policies a government may embark on. It may also prevent tyranny of the majority, which is not an entirely abstract concept. No government is perfect and infallible; honest mistakes are unavoidable. That is why a one-party system is not ideal. Democracy, however, does not always work because politicians often have their own self-interests at heart. For an election system to be meaningful, there has to be a well-educated and concerned populace. The United States prides itself on its democratic system, but only about 55 per cent of its voting-age population exercise their voting rights. India, the world's largest democracy, is still mired in its caste system; and we have the messy political situation in Thailand today. In our parliamentary system, the members may argue and disagree, but they are all expected to work for the greater good of the nation. Let us hope our Parliament continues to work this way. Ong Siew Chey * Letter first appeared in ST Forum (8 Jun).  Read More →

You know respect for the prime minister has hit an all time low when, despite blustering and making ugly faces in parliament to insist that a spade should be called a spade, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) is ignoring him and refusing to own up to a breach in security. Faces at Crimson Logic turned red when they first discovered that SingPass account holders found password reset notification letters in the mail even though they had made no such requests. Account holders whose personal data, such as contact information, employer details and remuneration records, were in the custody of Crimson Logic, the appointed operator of the SingPass single-factor authentication system for all government e-services in Singapore. IDA investigated, and discovered 1,560 user profiles were illegally accessed. At least 419 fell for the ruse, and their passwords were reset. Affected SingPass users had their account profiles modified and linked to a small pool of Singapore-registered mobile numbers - IDA refused to tell how many. The mobile number can be used in a two-factor authentication procedure. When the victim changes his or her password, this number will serve to "verify" the request. This is obviously too technical for IDA, "We continue to explore the use of two-factor authentication for e-government transactions, particularly those involving sensitive data..."  Nothing much has changed at IDA, ever since the very first chief executive famously said that although she knows zilch about technology, she can always hire someone who does. The Managing Director for IDA, Ms Jacqueline Poh, is treating the incident as "a shot across the bow" and advised all individuals to "examine themselves" and take personal responsibility for their own cyber security, to borrow the phraseology used by one Arthur Fong about foreign intrusion. IDA has filed a police report, and since they are insisting that the SingPass system has not been compromised or breached, IDA must be saying the stolen addresses and IDs were looted from virtual personal premises. And not filched from the highly secured and firewalled database of the Crimson Logic operator. Go figure. Tattler * The writer blogs at singaporedesk.blogspot.com.  Read More →

The initial invitaton Hri Kumar Nair promised to host an ‘honest’ dialouge session open to all where ‘hard’ questions would be dealt with. But all that changed when Kenneth Jeyaretnam and Roy Ngerng signed up. So much for constructive politics eh? I first saw the event which was hosted entitled “CPF – An Honest Conversation: Public Dialogue with Thomson-Toa Payoh Residents” and I encouraged people with viable alternatives and suggestions for CPF to attend it. I called the event the closest thing we could get to having an “Open Discussion with the PM on CPF” which Roy called for. You can read my first blogpost here. Soon after, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Roy Ngerng, myself and a few other supporters registered by accepting the online invitation which Hri Kumar Nair said was valid. Kenneth's registration that was removed. Comments mentioning Roy deleted Many people doubted that they would allow Kenneth and Roy to participate in the dialouge, but they still did indicate their attendance. Usually dialogues in the past such as “Singapore Conversation” or “Talking Point” have all been strategically filled with pro-PAP individuals so as to avoid hard questions or rebuttals. In Singapore, we have no press freedom, thus it is only through dialogues like this that we have a chance to question the People in Power. During the live televised debate of the Elected Presidency in 1988 where JBJ and Chiam See Tong questioned Lee Hsien Loong and Goh Chok Tong, the opposition MPs made the PAP MPs fumble and stutter. 1 After that debate, we didn’t have live televised debates on TV for a long time. And as expected, Hri Kumar Nair has walked down the same path. This was what he did. 1) He edited the privacy settings of the event page so that no one could see who was attending, might be going or were invited. 2) He deleted all posts from Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Roy Ngerng and other opposition supporters from the event page. But to keep it from looking too ‘clean.’ He allowed the posts of Abdul Malik, a supporter of the PAP to stay. What the page looks like now Why remove Kenneth’s posts? It didn’t have any expletives and Kenneth said he was looking forward to an interesting debate. Aren’t Kenneth and Roy Singaporean citizens who have CPF too? And some netizens have said that Kenneth and Roy couldn’t attend as they were not residents of Thomson or Toa Payoh. This is a misconception. If you see the picture above, Abdul asks if residents from other parts of Singapore could join in, and Hri Kumar said that they could. We don’t have transparency, freedom of information and press freedom. And now we have to face another ‘honest’ conversation where we will see a room filled with moderates or pro-PAP supporters. This is nothing but Propaganda. So much for robust debates, hard questions and constructive politics. Looks like they’re not going to change their ways. But as I said in my speech last weekend, the secret of change is not fighting the old but building the new. So let's build the new. NSP has got the ball rolling with their first dialouge on the 4th of June and now let us all attend the forum organized by SPP on the 21st of June. And this time, even the most die-hard PAP supporters are invited, as long as you do have the intention of having an intelligent discussion. It would be a good chance to learn more, suggest alternatives and raise solutions too. All you’ve got to do is register here. Let us build a new and free Singapore. They won’t let us into their forum? We create our own. See you on the 21st of June! Ariffin Sha * I'm Ariffin Sha, 17. I enjoy being outdoors and engaging in debates. I'm an avid reader of Law, Politics and Philosophy. I started this blog to encourage people to think critically.  Read More →