Singapore Computer Crime Laws OK Preemptive Arrest

^^MAg^^ points to this Reuters story on CNN which begins "Ultra-strict Singapore has passed some of the world's toughest laws against computer hackers and virus writers, allowing police to arrest suspects before they strike, official documents show."

Comments

Sounds like American rhetoric

[j-turkey]

"Instead of a backpack of explosives, a terrorist can create just as much devastation by sending a carefully engineered packet of data into the computer systems which control the network for essential services, for example the power stations"

I've heard the same rhetoric from US legislators (something along the lines of using a mouse as a weapon). This is complete bullshit. If anyone should be penalized in a case like this, it's the guy who hooked the power station's computer system (or that of any other essential service) into the public Internet in such a way that a few packets could be as devistating as a bomb which will end lives (these services, IIRC, are not hooked into the public Internet). What the fuck are these people thinking? Just capitalizing (by passing hardcore laws) on peoples' fears, I assume.

Nothing like this has ever been done before anyway. They're pre-emptively making laws for crimes which have never been committed. This is the exact same thing that the US government did after September, 2001 (except a little more Draconian). I fail to understand the logic. It's not even a deterrent. Terrorists don't give a shit about penalties (IMO) -- they're terrorists! Most of the ones I've read about are happy to end their lives for their cause.

It doesn't make any sense to me on any level.

--Turkey

Re:Sounds like American rhetoric

[pueywei]

It will be effective for this sort of "hacking":
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfrie ndly/0,4139, 37256-1065283140,00.html?

The New Paper - 04 Oct 2003 - E-MAIL BOMBER - By Andre Yeo

China-born PSLE student sends 161,064 messages to teacher

IF you have a Yahoo! e-mail account, you probably see a list of 25 messages when you open your inbox.

Now imagine logging in one day - and finding that your inbox has 6,443 such pages. Each page with 25 messages.

That's what happened to a teacher, whose account was flooded with more than 161,000 e-mail messages.

The culprit: A bored schoolboy who hacked into an online portal.

The police said he is the only juvenile to be arrested for hacking this year.

The 15-year-old, a Chinese national, will be taking his PSLE next week. He and his school cannot be named as he is a juvenile.

According to court documents, the boy was an account holder of MoreAtOnce.com, an online service portal.

His principal told The New Paper that it is a subject-based learning portal where her students and teachers are provided e-mail accounts.

Teachers can set quizzes on subjects like English, Maths, Science and Chinese on the portal and students can access it to do these assignments.

Homework is also submitted online, and students can e-mail one another and teachers too.

During the March holidays, the boy felt bored at home.
His principal said his mother was a study mama working as an enrichment tutor and had left her only child at home. She said the boy's father is in China.
Study mamas come from China with their children to enrol them in schools here.
With nothing to do at home, the boy accessed the site and tested it for weaknesses.
He managed to open the school's address book and copied the e-mail addresses of all the teachers.
He then managed to get the teachers' passwords to the portal.
With their usernames and passwords, he was able to access other portals.
He also hacked into the accounts of several students.
Then on May 25, he flooded the e-mail account of one of his teachers with 161,064 messages. It is not known why he did it.
On Jun 23, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department's Technology Crime Investigation Branch raided his flat and seized his computer and computer peripherals.
His principal said the boy was a good student.

She said: 'He doesn't know the implications of what he was doing. It's cybercrime and it's something new to us.'

She added that he had to see a counsellor because of the offences and is still studying at the school.
Despite his brush with the law, she was confident he would do well in his exams.
She said: 'He is a bright kid and should be able to get a number of A-stars for the PSLE.'
And as to where he learnt his hacking skills, she said: 'He learnt all that from the Internet. Our school doesn't teach them that.'

According to MoreAtOnce Pte Ltd's website, its business partners include the Ministry of Education, the National Heritage Board and the Singapore Zoological Gardens.
The company declined to comment.

35 charges in court

THE boy faced 35 charges under the Computer Misuse Act, mostly involving the MoreAtOnce web portal.
Nine charges were proceeded with while the remaining 26 were taken into consideration.
He was found guilty and his case was adjourned to Nov 11.

A police spokesman said that from 2000 to 2002, only one juvenile was arrested for hacking. He was a 15-year-old Indonesian boy who had hacked into a server belonging to Data Storage Institute and was fined $15,000 by the juvenile court.
The spokesman added that except for yesterday's case, no other juvenile was arrested for computer hacking this year.

There has also been a drop in the number of reported computer hacking cases, from 15 in 2001 to eight in 2002.
The youngest hacker caught so far was a 15-year-old teen who was arrested with several others in 1999 for ha

Wrong.

[The Cydonian]

I seem to be posting this on /. each time there's a story on .sg; guess you guys never tire of telling this over and over again, so allow me to karma-whore a bit and explain why this perception is wrong.

You see, chewing gum per se is not illegal, but the sale of chewing gum is. That's an important distinction; it means you can, for instance, legally import how much ever chewing gum you want into the island, only that you can't sell it. Been like that eversince chewing gum was legislated, mostly as a way of preventing adolescents from sticking left-over gum between the sliding doors of Singapore's ultra-efficient metro system, the MRT (and hence jamming them, causing systemwide disruptions).

Btw, even that fig-leaf is now mostly gone. The recent Singapore US Free Trade Agreement stipulates legal sales of chewing gum that can be used for "medicinal" purposes through registered/licenced apothecaries. So don't be surprised if you see chewing gum (although perhaps not bubble gum, if you get what I mean) being sold in a pharmacy on Orchard Road or something.

(The locals that I know call this the "Wrigley Amendment" for some reason. Wonder why, hmmm.)