Singapore To Cut Off Internet Access For Government Workers From 2017 (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Government workers in Singapore will return to a 1990s-level of net connectivity from May of 2017, as the domestic government has decided to block internet access on all of its 100,000 office computers. The decision has been made in the interests of national security, although the Draconian policy will still permit workers to forward work mails to private email addresses as necessary. Workers' own devices will be allowed to connect to the internet normally by special terminals being provided in early trials, while intra-departmental connectivity will presumably be maintained via VPN tunneling. The move comes in the direct wake of a visit to Singapore from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter late last week, promoting stronger security ties with Singapore in the face of the rise of China in the region.BBC News has more details.

Comments

Good start

[T.E.D.]

You know what would be even more secure? No printers or photocopiers. If someone wants to write a document, they have to do it longhand. If someone wants a copy, they have to copy it longhand as well. That will really slow down the leakage of information!

Of course a truly secure society would get rid of writing altogether. Important secrets will be passed down using special people with trained memory (often called "bards"). They use song and rhyme to help with the large amounts of memorization required. Ever heard of anyone running off with the vital military secrets of an Amazonian or Pigmy tribe? No? That's why.

Efficient dissemination of information is for suckers.

Re:Good start

[Anonymous Coward]

The "old engineers" use pen and paper like that because they work faster than any computer-based document or diagramming tool can handle.

It's not a problem with learning the new tools. The problem is that once they've learned the new tools, the new tools are still way fucking slower than a pen and paper.

Maybe you don't understand this, but when a true master is in the zone and cranking out top-notch work, this master can't be burdened with shitty software that doesn't work fast enough just to save a few sheets of paper.

When an experienced engineer like that costs $300/hr, it's better for him or her to be producing $10,000/hr of value using a pen and paper than it is producing just $3,000/hr of value using some shitty software. And it makes perfect sense to have the $25/hr inexperienced engineer, who'd be producing way less value than $7,000/hr, input the hand-written notes instead.

It's simple economics, and experienced engineers actually tend to understand economics and optimization far better than most managers do.

If these experienced engineers want to use pen and paper, it's because that's the optimal way of dealing with the problem. The software you're proposing is suboptimal.

Re:Productivity not Security

[Bing Tsher E]

We could hope this would spur a global reassessment of the use cases for Internet Access at the workplace. Most workplaces would function well with a whitelist of the small handful of websites a worker needs to be able to navigate to remain a productive worker.

You're at WORK.

So no os updates?

[Joe_Dragon]

So no os updates? so if some can get into the network then it will be very easy to hack the systems then?

Re:Thumb drives

[ITRambo]

Possibly the best attack vector remains in place then. Great idea.