Slashdot Mirror
Singapore To Cut Off Public Servants From the Internet (theguardian.com)
Singapore is planning to cut off web access for public servants as a defence against potential cyber attack, Reuters reports. The local government's move has already been criticized by many, who say that it marks a retreat for a technologically advanced city-state that has trademarked the term "smart nation". From an article on The Guardian: Some security experts say the policy, due to be in place by May, risks damaging productivity among civil servants and those working at more than four dozen statutory boards, and cutting them off from the people they serve. It may only raise slightly the defensive walls against cyber attack, they say. Ben Desjardins, director of security solutions at network security firm Radware, called it "one of the more extreme measures I can recall by a large public organisation to combat cyber security risks." Stephen Dane, a Hong Kong-based managing director at networking company Cisco Systems, said it was "a most unusual situation" and Ramki Thurimella, chair of the computer science department at the University of Denver, called it both "unprecedented" and "a little excessive".
Air gap.
A little would be requiring them to go through a firewall that only allowed connections to and from govt websites.
Cutting them off from the internet entirely is very excessive.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The local government's move has already been criticized by many, who say that it marks a retreat for a technologically advanced city-state that has trademarked the term "smart nation".
I would say that it's the non-technological equivalent of putting a universal firewall around that network, which contains everything to an intranet. By doing this, Singapore is definitely proving itself worthy of that trademark!
... productivity of Singaporean Civil Servants skyrockets.
This, off course, will in no way cause people to find uncontrolled ways of getting what they want.
A job I once worked at where no internet access was allowed comes to mind. People ended up illegally hooking all sorts of stuff to pc's and in the network just to get on the internet causing an uncontrollable mess instead of a somewhat controlled situation as could be had using proxies and such.
So Singapore is admitting that their government IT departments and workers are too stupid to use and maintain a secure network?
That's probably true (just like everywhere else), but I'm surprised Singapore is willing to admit it.
"[...] risks damaging productivity among civil servants". Someone doesn't understand how much time civil servants can waste on the internet.
People do all sorts of things at the workplace to get fired for doing.
I mean, if you're going to break the rules, have sex with co-workers or steal equipment and materials or do something fun.
This was reported in Slashdot on June 8. I seem to recall it was a defensive measure that it had to do with strategic alliances between Singapore and the west, combined with the proximity to China. I'm 100% behind it, although I can't imagine how it will work in the today's world.. From June 8:
/. on Singapore. Its a dozen or so down, including links.
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.
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I mean, if you're going to break the rules, have sex with co-workers
What is wrong with that? What kind of sorry place disallow sex? Sure, if it is on company time, they will withold pay for slacking off - so limit it to the lunch break . . .
If my government decided to put all of its employees on a separate, air-gapped network for doing government business, that would seem like a step in the right direction to me.
Where I work we have whitelisted sites. That means just access to some sites we need to do our job. And no, you do not need Google to do your job in 99% of the cases.
We also have PCs that have connection to the Internet in case there is that 1% where you need to look something up. These are on a separate network with a separate Internet connection.
We also have PCs for Internet use in the area where we eat that are free to use and on that same separate connection.
White listings are done on a group basis. e.g. the IT department will have different accounts as HR or accounting.
They are pretty easy with giving access. A request is handled with in a few hours and in the mean time there are still other PCs available.
Obviously not everybody can ask a white listing and not all will be accepted.
Yes, even the CEO has 2 PCs in his office. One for Internet and one secure. In General there is an Internet PC for every 10-20 people. Some teams are smaller and have one. Some are bigger and have more than one as needed. As we are in Europe, we have open space and no cubicles.
The ones in between the offices are used for work, the ones where we eat are used during breaks to check personal emails and to post to /.
And here come the reactions why it would not be a good idea for some people to do it, even if it works.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...and lock them in for their own safety while the bad guys roam free. Sounds like a plan
Singapore To Cut Off Public Servants From the Internet
Cool, thanks.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
+ Cut's the attack surface from 'anywhere' down significantly.
+ Likely to increase productivity at least slightly in most departments.
+ Allows IT to focus more on securing their internal networks
+ Where actually needed (investigative agencies) separate segregated systems could be setup for monitored (proxied) access to web.
I had to call an office one day.
Me: Yes. Norman Sexhauer, please
Receptionist: Sorry, we don't have anyone here by that name.
Me: Sorry. Ned. Ned Sexhauer, please.
Receptionist: Sorry, we don't have anyone here by that name, either.
Me: Nick? Nick Sexhauer?
Receptionist: Nope.
Me: Listen. Do you have a Sexhauer there?
Receptionist: Sex hour? We don't even get coffee breaks!
This is an inaccurate summary. They're not completely cutting off internet access for civil servants. Computers with access to government data are going to be airgapped and separate workstations used to access the internet. The USA should do this too.
If it was my government I'd recommend they remove the air entirely.
Why the fuck does anybody even need more than email to do their daily job.
I'd personally bet that most people spend their time on fucking slashdot instead of doing internet research (which most people don't even need to do).
I think Oracle finally shuttered the Sun Ray line a few years back, but there are plenty of 'dumb terminal' computers available today. I am willing to wager there is a far larger market for centralized computer resources accessible only via dumb terminals than most people realize, and the only thing holding them back is the inferior technical designs of most 'dumb terminals', many of which are simply purpose built PCs with proprietary software making them useless except with their default software.
A generic rdp/vnc/x terminal is certainly possible with today's technology, but the hardware platforms need to be migrated to gigabit ethernet minimum and 10G ethernet standard/premium with encryption coprocessor modules (ideally on replacable daughtercards!) to see them start working. You can even use VirtualGL with X/VNC to get remote hardware accelerated graphics, minimizing the workload necessary on the servers if you trust your physical/network security enough.
How many so-called experts are on state sponsored intelligence payrolls.
See, without the internet people wouldn't be able to use google translate to make excellent contributions to Slashdot! This is truly a disaster for the internet.