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Singaporean minister touts internet 'kill switch' that finds kids reading net nasties and cuts 'em off ASAP


The_King

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A Minister in the Singapore government has suggested the creation of an internet kill switch that would prevent minors from reading questionable material online – perhaps using ratings of content created in real time by crowdsourced contributors.

"The post-COVID world will bring new challenges globally, including to us in the security arena," said Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at a Tuesday ceremony to award the city-state's 2021 Defense Technology Prize.

"For operations, the SAF (Singapore Armed Force) has to expand its capabilities in the digital domain. Whether for administrative or operational purposes, I think that we will need to leverage technology to the maximum," he declared.

Among his ideas for better use of tech were self-cleaning buildings, the ability to handle classified work nearer to home, and improved remote teaching.

 

The broad-ranging speech also included some ideas on how to deal with misinformation distributed online.

"We need a tool to grade any piece of information on the net in real time," he opined. "It could be crowdsourced like Wikipedia, for its accuracy."

His next idea was "real-time guidance for minors who are very impressionable as they surf the net."

The Minister envisioned "a warning alarm or kill switch" that would be invoked when minors are detected reading dodgy content.

"So you read about the recent example. Someone radicalised on the net, bought weapons on the net, all by himself," the Minister explained. "If you have a tool where you have a ‘blinking light' that this is in-force and if he is searching for a tool for weapons on the net, a kill switch."

 

 

The Minister rated the chances of such a kill switch being built as low.

"But of course, commercial companies are struggling with it and part of the sensationalism and echo chambers drive profits and they have to make that decision between profit and social responsibility," he lamented.

He's also not keen on requirements for repeated authentication – like basically everybody else.

"I wish my devices and screens do not black out so often and I have to repeat giving my password. They should be able to recognise me instantly or weed out imposters," he said.

The Minister's suggestions were not policy prescriptions. He described them as "we need and if onlys" – the kind of maybe-impractical idea that sparks innovation.

Singapore has, however, taken recent steps that address some of the issues addressed in the speech. Earlier this month parliament passed the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act 2021 (FICA). The Act gives the Minister for Home Affairs the authority to investigate individuals suspected of being foreign agents engaged in "hostile information campaigns".

Through FICA, third parties like online platforms, ISPs and websites may be compelled to block certain accounts or content in Singapore if they express political positions felt to represent opposition to the nation's policies. The law also allows the government to name people as "Politically Significant Persons" if they conduct activities felt to have a political purpose. Being named as such a person brings with it obligations to disclose any donations received or eligibility for migration to another country.

Critics of the law have claimed the language used in FICA is too broad and lacks judicial oversight. However, it does not feature a kill switch.

 

 

https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/27/ng_eng_hen_speech/

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2 hours ago, The_King said:

prevent minors from reading questionable material online

Who determine what is questionable material? PAP? no thanks. 

 

Moreover why ask an old fark who dun even know WTF is the modern technology? if you ask someone from govtech, maybe i can believe than an old guy 1 leg in coffin liao.

 

its just like asking  Mark Zuckerberg how to cook bak chor mee. KNN

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11 hours ago, Coffee_O said:

Who determine what is questionable material? PAP? no thanks. 

 

Moreover why ask an old fark who dun even know WTF is the modern technology? if you ask someone from govtech, maybe i can believe than an old guy 1 leg in coffin liao.

 

its just like asking  Mark Zuckerberg how to cook bak chor mee. KNN

 

this considered as questionable materials, kym????

 

nb, limpeh think this site will make it on the internet kill switch.

 

wahahahahaha

 

On 9/7/2021 at 7:04 PM, socrates469bc said:

 

185 cases unlinked????

 

zheng hu really think i jin kumgong, is it?????

 

just ask which public places the 185 went over the past 7 days and then traced out the common ones will know liao.

 

unless all take bas, so impossible to trace.

 

wahahahahaha

 

On 9/12/2021 at 10:54 AM, Satki said:

if this time no wave 3 I will be surprised

 

and if it does

 

 

 

hitting 100,000 is easy

 

and hitting 500,000 is doable with the beh kan team in charge

 

cos by the time they react, it will be really endemic

 

endemic means regularly found among particular people

 

 

 

and these people are the fully vaxxed since the vax rate is 81% and climbing

 

listen to my idol Eric Clapton on vaccination. he is fully vaxxed but what lead him to it is interesting

 

https://youtu.be/EO80NBSJGC0

 

 

 

 

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damn Sept 12 i thought it was a stretch to hit 100,000. and here today we are inching towards 200,000

 

i guess my 500,000 is not so far fetched after all. anyone still rooting for Ah Ong's and his beh kan team.

 

I think they are ENGINEERING TOWARDS VTL AND BLOOMBERG

 

BUT COVID IS NOT PLAYING TO THEIR SCRIPT. HENCE THE NEED TO FOOL THE PEOPLE BY USING UNVAX AS THE STRAW MAN ARGUMENT

 

I think the PAP is playing mind games with the ruled. Ansd many does not see it but instead praising them. Damn and the oppos are in cahoots. this is 1984e at its finest

 

 

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12 hours ago, Londonchocolateroll said:

I believe in education and not suppression. This kill switch idea will just incite more curiosity or worst still a rebellious nature and they will just find other ways to access the content

 

Ya... It bring the question of who will determine wat is good and wat is bad... Wat if someone has agenda and abuse it....?

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BTW for those who don't know, SG gov censors internet through ISP DNS. You can use a proper public DNS like 1111 to bypass https://1.1.1.1/help. This also helps you prevent certain outage when m1/sinktel/etc's dns server goes down.

You don't need vpn to bypass but vpn is good for other things.

Edited by Standing Birdy
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