Lets see, which are the ISPs through which we are all connected to?
And there you have it.

Another excellent quote by TOC ! Well done.

I read the article from CNA and have the following comment:

While Dr Milagros Rivera, member, Advisory Council said they hoped REACH website gets many people to post comments, few did, Vivian said :

“The reason we did that was to send the message that your words have an impact; if need be, we can identify you, and if we have to, we will be prepared to prosecute you.”

I think there is no contradiction, do you ???

Well, so long we don’t slander ppl,make personal attacks,we will be safe. There’s no law on banning responsible,free speech.

What are the clear markers if any?

More legal terrorism from Vivian Balakrishnan?

If wearing kangroo t-shirt in the court house can send you to jail, don’t see what the PAP don’t dare to do. Accept that you are very much living in a dark country, this is the fact. Gentlemen is only skin deep to these people.

What is there for them to lose!? Many, let start with their high scale pay first. In Singapore, you pay tax for government to slap you on the face. Who say china is communist? Singapore learnt very much from the past communist style.

Nobody wants to play according to the rules of engagement set by the PAP and its lackey. It is as simple as that. Clamping down on free speech and free media on the pretext of liberalisation is just what PAP is capable of. Things like reform, progressive thinking, and civil engagement are what PAP is incapable of.

and if need be, more ministers will receive cocktails if they don’t learn to keep their mouths shut?

“We expected people to give feedback. Nobody did. I think seven people posted comments on the AIMS website.”

With experts (the master of impossibilities) like this on their side. Who really needs enemies.

Will making elitist remarks in cyberspace while being connected to the ruling party count? If it is, pls pass me a torch and bring justice to all.

Freedom of speech will lead to prosecution, what a number one country in the world. Whatever Pap does is correct, we have to kowtaw to these “white’ people, but actually they look white, it is impure.

So this is what we pay them millions for, to threaten us just because they cannot tahan what we have to say.

Who wants to give feedback to these elites if their attitude is like this? Maybe they should target those who voice out in the kopitiams and hawker centres too. IN FACT WHY NOT JUST TURN US INTO THE NEXT NORTH KOREA?

Small children who get their feelings hurt talk like this. This is an open threat to the public. Hope someone reminds him that he is a public servant.

Those are only some instances of them being petty and going after little bloggers. Of course they are not anonymous, they chose not to. Most of us here don’t bother to remain anonymous at all.
Ask Mr Vivian if he/they have nabbed that guy who ran away after stealing tens of thousands from the internet bank account of some locals a couple of years back.

For a man who once treated the blind, he is truly blinded to the existing reality of a citizenry awaken from it’s slumber by the very acts which he is exhibiting now!

Dear Vivian

Your thinking of PAP absolute power is a illusion. Continue to piss the people off especially the young one. Your power will be taken by the people one day. If PAP lose it power, you know jolly well, the people and opposition parties is gonna run down on you from head to toe.

I am telling you, this is the reality!

But good for him to remind us that posting anonymous is not really anonymous. You can be traced if you are posting in Singapore. .also from overseas. By now the Govt should have a fairly good impression where the dissents are probably in which part of the districts in Singapore. Maybe even the profile of bloggers. If you blog responsibly there is nothing to fear. So think twice before you post…

Btw, don’t underestimate the young generation, they are nothing like the old generation that easily believe every shit fed into their mouth.

Thanks to PAP who had shown them the reality that this country will not take care of them and they are very much alone, they will very much will return the favour to PAP one day.

What you don’t really understand is that your stone thrown at the people can only target on a group of people. But when people start to throw stones at you. It is you alone and no one else! Most likely, they never miss with that much of stones. If you have not learn from history well. You think PAP is special? Time wear off everything, can you stand the test of time in this case?!

Mrthinktalk.

Are you a parrot? Because it seems to me you like repeat what people said (in this case Pro PAP group). You do not seem to have a mind of your own, and just simply come out with comments waiting for people to shoot you.

Maybe add abit sadist, provoke people to verbally abuse you.

6) Cold Store Operation 2009 on February 22nd, 2009 2.00 am
If wearing kangroo t-shirt in the court house can send you to jail, don’t see what the PAP don’t dare to do.

========-==—————————
in my humble opinion,
wearing a t-shirt that somehow shows a kangaroo may not be illegal.
Don’t take my word for it. Get legal advice beforehand.

i think the illegality comes in when one wears a t-shirt with a kangaroo clad in judge gown and maybe inside a court room.

Case in point, many people go australia buy kangaroo t-shirt, are they disallowed to do so? no right?

So i believe many things need to be clarified. Beauty and Ugly is just separated by a thin line. Moreover, beauty is a perception and different people perceive things differently.

again, don’t just take my word for it. Find it out yourself. That is the only way.

Viv,

if the govt doesnt want to hear any critism, why dont just ban all internet access in Singapore?

If you are lonely, how about getting some real person in real life to talk to? I am sure you will not have problem to get real people to bash you, do you? Or maybe you have already did that and feel it is safer to put a nick here to comment?

If you are so into what Vivian said, how about stripping off your nick and put your real name to comment here. I mean, don’t waste PAP time to check on your IP to know who you are in order to award you to be the best boots polisher. Am I right?

mrthinktalk (#16),

There are things like anonymous proxies and many IP hiding technologies available to mask the origin. Of course it is possible for the government to prosecute but the question remains whether it would be economic to do so.

It is clear Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and fellow lackeys at MICA are pursuing the “kill one scare hundred” strategy. They focus their efforts on the people who are careless, vocal and do not have the legal/financial capacity to defend themselves in court to scare the rest of the population into submission.

Yet their strategy would be useless as long as there are thousands and thousands of anonymous posters continue to criticise the government. The point here is don’t be such an idiot and fall into their traps.

The PAP Government is sore. Despite have 66.6% of the electorate voting for them in the last GE, they find hardly of any their supporters/voters are defending their policies on cyberspace. It is worrying as it indicates that people give their votes to PAP over resignation than rather an active belief in PAP’s ability.

if people honestly have bad comments to post, should they be made (eg. by law) to refrain from doing so? why not ban such all criticism and surely there will be no more bad comments allowed on the net and everything will be alright and the prince and concubines live happily ever after?

LOL, I have no doubt that if government want to check or trace who we are they do have this ability. It is a open secret, all network provider in Singapore is from you know who.

But I am sure there is technology that also can mask people traces. If the PAP start make a example out of some one tomorrow. All you will see is that the next day, all people will mask their IP.

In Chinese there is a saying. 上有政策，下有对策. Meaning, there is always a counter reaction. Harder you push, the harder it will react. In physic it is call resultant force from the opposite direction.

technically speaking, masking is done AFTER login to isp.
get the drift?

To make it clearer, masking is based on assumption that ISP is not part of the equation. Its to fool website webmasters.

now, am i right or am i right? technies like to comment?

Best to focus on ideas, suggestions and thoughts rather attacking your fellow
netcitizens who posted opposing views.
smallvice585 has good points about technology for IP masking (cannot say that Cold Store is up to the mark in his comments yet) I am sure technology will improve to facilitate anonymous posting but there will also be technologies for unmasking. For that matter if it is a world-wide problem the Govts of the world led probably by US and China will have a co-operative effort to identify netcitizens. You may have to get an ID as a netcitizen of a group of countries. It is going to happen..especially when the likes of devices such as IPhones proliferate making easy for citizens to make comments. If not manage and control properly, internet may topple government i think.

Internet topple government? LOL… You might as well say mobile phones will topple governments too. The problem here is the government’s failure to resolve dissent and engage citizens constructively. This is the root cause of the issue, not the internet, iPhone, etc.

I hate his attitude. But in all reality you cannot completely hide… not if you are using Singapore ISPs. Nothing banning anonymous proxies etc here but unless you use multiple proxies from foreign countries and they CAN withstand lawsuits from the Singapore government to demand information, you won’t be completely safe… and on top of that, the more worrying thing is a. the corruption of the courts (they may be perfectly willing to take insufficient, inconclusive evidence to sentence you) and b. the subservient nature of local companies to the government. Remember the ODEX thing? Remember *how easily they handed over records* even when the case wasn’t solid? Think they can say anything if the white men come a-knocking?

Post from America or better still Russia etc where you try finding who caused problems, everyone will just shrug at you and nothing happens.

Hi all,

May I take this opportunity to seek TOC’s clarification.

Do you record IP addresses of forummers when they submit Comments?

If the authorities were to request for you to reveal a particular ISP, would you do so?

How about contributors when they email suggestions to you? Would you safeguard their privacy?

Thanks.

Big Show,

No, we do not record the IP addresses of forummers, although the addresses are available to us when forummers post comments. It is the same for all blogs, if I am not wrong.

“If the authorities were to request for you to reveal a particular ISP, would you do so?”

It depends on the nature of the request and what was posted by the forummer.

“How about contributors when they email suggestions to you? Would you safeguard their privacy?”

All emails to TOC are kept private and confidential.

For the record, for the two years we’ve been around, we’ve received countless comments posted on TOC and countless emails as well. All have been treated with the strictest confidence and none have had any problems with us.

Yes, as far as I am concerned, I take Vivian’s words at face value, legal tender (only absent is ‘in God we trust’). If one is really to believe Singapore is similar to Animal Farm, then dont kid yourself please.
Just to add, I have this strange feeling, that Singapore is the probably the largest customer of Cray Supercomputers.

i don’t really understand. look, for the government to identify the owner of a blog, they need to submit legal requests for the IP from the web servers which host the blog right? many of such web servers are overseas, which makes it more difficult right, since the owners of such servers are not subject to the legal jurisdiction of singapore. only when the IP is gotten can the owner be traced. am i right about this?

how is it possible for the ISPs to trace where the IP is coming from, when they don’t even know the IP address of the blog owner or commenter?

any techies here, please advise.

Although they make the policies, we ………….. come on , fill in the blanks (keep to yourselves). ;)

Its not so much the problem is with them , its really us…… (too cheem? ;) )

It is the same technique that when you google search, google will know you are from Singapore . Also when you vote a software can check your IP address and made sure you only vote once (TKL knows about this)Before long it is possible to send you the name of nearest shop that you can buy your product. Posting under anonymity is like a fun thing and the basic principle is wrong. One should be responsible for one’s comments. It is best not to defame, not to pass derogatory remarks and cast aspersions. Stay and focus on debating dissent in viewpoints ..instead of defaming a person. ..dont give any good reason for the authority to “catch” you.
Local laws and international laws are still at infant stage. It is still not clear whether intermediaries like blog owners can be held accountable for individual post.
i think be a responsibile netcitizen is the best behaviour using the Net. .

one thing for sure, they can know who visits this blog, i think only.

“Anonymity in cyberspace is an illusion… if need be, we can identify you, and if we have to, we will be prepared to prosecute you.”

What this clown talking about when he don’t even prosecute those who lost billions of taxmoney that unaccounted for ? Opp… even those who responsible for lost billions become anonymity from the public.

Yes, it is illusion, so is the ruling party.

So what if they know?

I follow my conscience, not theirs.

I think all netizens here have nothing to fear. Dr Balakrishnan’s warning is only directed at those who intend to defame people, create mischief and cause social disorder. It is his responsibility to ensure that freedom of speech in the internet does not compromise our nation’s security and social integrity. So, we should not blame him for what he said.

In fact, responsible netizens like us should be thankful for his warning which will only have a chilling effect on the undesirable people. This will leave the rest of us to have more fruitful discussions.

Anonymity among ourselves is still useful as we can be more truthful in what we say.

34) me on February 22nd, 2009 8.10 pm

……how is it possible for the ISPs to trace where the IP is coming from, when they don’t even know the IP address of the blog owner or commenter? …….

Well, any website’s ip can be found instantly by anyone maybe upto the proxy if that is used. So, maybe u are right. I think it depends if the website info is kept here or elsewhere. Jurisdiction and all.

good comment.

If you want to play absolutely safe to preserve your anonymity, you need to bypass any of the Singapore ISPs. The best way to do this is to send the message from another country, or if you are in Singapore, to get your overseas friend to send the message as your proxy.

Mr.V B has forgotten that he was once just like any ordinary singaporean. Earning an honest living helping people with eye problems.

In such a short time he has been brainwashed and all of a sudden he thinks he knows all sees all and speaks all. All of sudden he speaks as if he has been in pap all his life, I used to admire his humbleness now he is becoming more and more cocky!

I truly feel sad and sorry for him. He seems to have lost all reality and closeness with the people who once thought , here was a man we the people can relate to. That thought seems to have disappeared into oblivion!

36) mrthinktalk on February 22nd, 2009 9.49 pm
……………Posting under anonymity is like a fun thing and the basic principle is wrong. One should be responsible for one’s comments. It is best not to defame, not to pass derogatory remarks and cast aspersions. Stay and focus on debating dissent in viewpoints ..instead of defaming a person. ..dont give any good reason for the authority to “catch” you…………………

But what is considered derogatory, aspersion, defame?
What about other things you may have left out?
What are the markers?
Who sets them? and there is another question i don feel comfortable asking here.

Its not as simple as u may like to believe.
But I agree with you in principal ;)
but then u may be ahead of your time.
In the west, people also use nicks instead of real names.

When using the real face, virtually all went into bootlicking/fear mode,
just visit to see what I mean.
http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=21930037394

Seriously, are those people who praise LKY still living in the past, and still believing that past success will help to carry Singapore forward ?

Some of comment from facebook…

“Strangely, some people in the west who haven’t ever stepped into Singapore think all Singaporeans are living in oppression under a PAP dictator. I wondered what kind of news they get back there?

Make no mistake, as much as our govt is not perfect (nobody is), Singaporeans are enjoying a high standard of living and we are as free as anybody in the world can boost about. We can get rich by our own efforts, we are not afraid of walking alone at night, our children has quality education, our people have roofs over their heads and we have medical care for all levels…. and no, nobody ever got dragged to concentration camps!!

As free as countries like US claimed to be, many of their children were victims of school shootings (because they allowed guns), their leaders was ridiculed or distorted in media to sell more newspapers (they call it freedom of speech), their taxpayors were paying the bills of their politicians and they are now the greatest debtor country in the world!!”

Detect any familar pattern ? Complacency, status quo, apathetic, optimistic, positive, to the point of overlooking the negative aspect of governance that leads to Singapore’s destruction ?

Are they living in make-believe world ?

Vivian’s position as an elite is a illusion,
we know he is put on the “wayang kulit ” stage to entertain,
and we know who is pulling his strings.

It is important to note that men who wish to control or regulate cyberspace,
are in fact men who fear the truth.

There is no reason to fear the truth IF S’pore is indeed governed
with integrity, transparency, accountability, sense of fairplay, and
the 82 PAP MPs are first and foremost loyal to the people of S’pore.

Dear Daniel,

Have you not noticed that there are total of 465 comments? Just look at the number of people “View” and “Comment” in TOC, you will see the reality.

And do you know that out of these 465 comments, some of the commentators had went MIA (No more link to their profile)? Referring to your observation, all the perfect praises to this old man.

1, If TOC can moderate, what make you think this Dirty Old Man (DOM) cannot do that?

2. How much negative remarks had been removed, will you know the figure? 10 times or even 100 times of 465?

3. Do you really believe there will be not even a single negative remark for a person? Can’t be what….

Whether these 465 people are living in their dream or make believe, the truth will always be the truth. Trust me, you don’t have to tell them how silly they are, they will realise one day and I bet it hurt even more than people telling them.

Cheers

Consider this; even if they linked your IP to you, they still need to prove the computer was being used by you first (just like when you have a amputated finger, they need to take the “finger” and your person DNA match to establish it is your finger in court, however obvious it is) .

Like one of the above comment. Unless the administrator disclosed your IP to them, there is simply on way for them to trace you just by one simple click.

Even if they use “Reverse Engineering” by tracing the local ISP (Internet Service Provider from Starhub, Singtel, M1 or Pacnet), it would be like searching for a needle in the sea. They first has to identify all the ISP’s IP(s) that visit (example) TOC (imagine how many of them).

Then further obsolete batches and batches of IP(s) that fit the profile (such as differentiate between people who just browsed thru TOC without staying long and those that all hang around in TOC). Then again, it only can prove this IP visited TOC often. We still have beyond reasonable doubt to prove who is the exact person that commented on one particular topic and which particular comment.

It is like number combination lock code, the more digits you have, the more combination we are talking about.

However, if the website is host by local server, I do believe they have the direct jurisdiction to force entry even if the administrator disagree to disclosure. But if you go to PAP blog to scold FamiLEE, just wait for the police to come and visit you. In this case, they will know your IP and from your IP track you to whatever country you are or better still Singapore. That’s all.

That’s the reason why Pornography can never be eliminated even though Singapore Government did tried in the past where some of the Porno site will indicate that it has been blocked by local ISP. Do you see them now? No, I think they learn thru the hard way and wasted a lot of resources doing that till they gave up.

With so many people accusing of famiLEE this and that, you think if they can do it, they will not do it NOW? For a moment, you really think PAP is that compassionate?

1. Many of the blogger though so far never fame PAP, your comments or rather the whole TOC is actually pushing in the direction not in favour of PAP (Give me a good reason why the PAP don’t want to put you down if they can?).

2. Freedom of speech from PAP? Do you know that in the past when PAP wanted to purge the Communist, Chinese are not allow to speak mandarin? If you do, you will be locked up deem as a communist. So, most Chinese only speak their own dialect. Only until when communist gone and PAP notice that many group of dialect clan had become a social problem, Mandarin was being introduce to the PUBLIC using 丽迪夫声 to set the mindset of the Chinese again.

3. Media had always been used in the past as a tool to shape the behavior of the people to their liking (one of the LKY rally speech admit that), there is nothing new and neither it is a new trick.

4. You think PAP is not worry? They have no control at all when come to Internet. No control over the mind of the people. If this is not enough to make them worry, I don’t know what will?

5. Just look at Malaysia last election, I don’t believe if Singapore Government has the ability to trace a person in the internet, the Malaysia Government can’t. In the end, what is the outcome?

The only thing that is PAUSING the PAP for a election NOW is the FEAR of the INTERNET POWER. Until they can figure out a way to curb the influences and measure the extends of the damage caused by the internet, they are simply at the mercy of the internet to decide on which date to have the election (The way I look at it, they want it this year, just couldn’t make up their mind when?).

PAP FEAR internet? You must be kidding me (some might say).

Look at recent posting by TOC on the “France Cooking Class”, “Burnt MP”, “Student bus fare” etc etc. See how fast the nation media react? The minister even have to explain in the Parliament for the cyberspace’s out burst. What makes you think Ho Ching step down is not due to the consistence highlight in the internet?

For all that had mentioned. I hereby ask again, what makes you think they will not make a example out of someone if they really can? Sure that is the best way to make people afraid and stop TOC or similar sites for awhile and let their own media do the rest and get on with their election?

Fear of the internet? So they drag this idiot boy out to threaten Singaporeans?
Wake up Dr Vivian…you cannot control the information with the internet now. What an amateur. He should stick to looking at ‘eyeball’s.

[...] latest one was that anonymity on the Internet is a farce.  They will hunt us down and we should know it.  It is a veiled threat for the Internet community [...]

if you keep quoting the govt out of context and criticizing for the sake of criticizing, you will lose credibility and support. No, I am not pro govt. I am neutral. But I am sick and tired of listening to people whining. It is easy to criticize. But do you have a solution?

50) Ks on February 23rd, 2009 8.48 am

if you keep quoting the govt out of context and criticizing for the sake of criticizing,..

You are welcome to point out what is taken out of context.

First, you have to ask yourselves if the criticism is valid, second why the government is not able to do better and come up with better solution. Sometimes, it is simply that the government officials are not working hard enough or don’t think out of the box.

People will be happy to provide alternative solutions if the government is willing to provide details on how they come up with certain decision. Let us look at two examples:

1. Lift upgrading – Mr Chiam See Tong said he could do lift upgrading cheaper than HDB, it was rejected in Parliament as not possible. But later HDB came up with cheaper solution. PAP was not listening and opposed Mr Chiam for the sake of opposition.

2. Screen doors on MRT platform – PAP ministers rejected the idea some years back when the public and then NCMP Mr Steve Chia proposed it or to say they will do it recently after several incidents involved people killed.

I was referring to the issue at hand.. the quote from Dr Balakrishnan. It was made to sound as though he would prosecute everyone who criticizes the government using the internet, no? In fact, only the people who make malicious remarks will be prosecuted. Any examples of people actually being caught who shouldn’t be? Feel free to let me know. :)

54) Ks on February 23rd, 2009 9.44 am
…… the quote from Dr Balakrishnan. It was made to sound as though he would prosecute everyone who criticizes the government using the internet, no?

There is no way to take his words out of context because the words is quoted from a news report and the link to that news report is provided. Readers can read that report to determine the context of his words and make their judgment.

Ks,

As sarek_home said, the quote comes with a link to the report. Also, newspapers (including the govt-run Straits Times) uses such quotes all the time. Are they too taking the words out of context?

The fact that these quotes are posted under “Quote” says that it is a quote from an article or report or utterance. It is not meant to be a detailed or full quote from them. I think everybody knows that.

As such, there is no question about context.

from the comments above, it appears as though people are upset about the quote because it represents a repression of free speech, however from Dr Balakrishnan’s speech, people were only prosecuted because of comments that denigrated a certain religion. That is why I say it is important to not just quote a certain phrase.

How about let put it this way, would people be upset if they knew people were prosecuted because they posted racist etc comments online? I wouldn’t. Because this is defamation. It is different from free speech. Even if you were in the US, the land of freedom, you can be sued for defamation for doing this.

And that is all that I have to say. If I have said anything wrong, I apologize. But otherwise, I think this website needs to rethink some of its posts.

To Ks, #57:
Please say so if I have taken you out of context, dont bring in US and compare.

RED-man,
“Consider this; even if they linked your IP to you, they still need to prove the computer was being used by you first (just like when you have a amputated finger, they need to take the “finger” and your person DNA match to establish it is your finger in court, however obvious it is) .”

You forget about our world-famous kangaroo court. If the godfather says you are guilty even if you are not, the kangaroo will happily slap you with concocted guilt, factual guilt or not factual. It doesn’t matter if the IP belongs to you or not. The kangaroo is running the show. One big happy family running Singapore Inc.

Our court is not known as kangaroo court for nothing.

“Even if you were in the US, the land of freedom, you can be sued for defamation for doing this.”

What kind of defamation suits in the USA are you talking about.

Stop kidding us lah. Over here, what kind of defamation suits ring loud and clear for you to really take notice and remember for a long long time. Tell me leh as even for this kind, I have short memory leh.

Yes I think just ban the internet and all the PAP problems will be solved. As long as you stay away from coffee shops then you will not hear bad comments.

As long as legislature for racist blogging is not being abused by authorities to persecute political blogging, it would appear to a progressive step. Yet this is a very good tactical step to clamp down on all blogging. Using the moral high ground to clamp down on the blogging platform, and then kill off all debate, including political and policy debates. Dr Vivian Balakrishnan must have read Sun Tze’s Art of War. The way around problems caused by authorities is to ignore the authorities.

Hi KS,

You have said anything wrong, and there is no need to apologize. We are all here to share views and different views help to provoke thinking.

For example, your observation of:

“it appears as though people are upset about the quote because it represents a repression of free speech, however from Dr Balakrishnan’s speech, people were only prosecuted because of comments that denigrated a certain religion.”

is a reasonable point.

After thinking about it, I think some of the comments come from a broader context beyond Dr Balakrishnan’s speech. People are reacting the long history of PAP actions like JBJ bankruptcy, TODAY’s ending Mr Brown column, and jailing people wearing kangaroo T-shirt when they view his speech.

This is one context you can consider when you read those comments again.

Regards.