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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".
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!
How do I get into the Singapore tablet sales market, so I can sell to the civil service customer for goofing off?
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Never been known to fail..."
Singapore's government probably contracts out for that kind of work. There aren't many 'government programmers' actually needed for a city-state.
Why most places of employment feel the need for a PC sitting on every employee's desk is a mystery, and could be something done away with for many positions.
"[...] 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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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.
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It's not so much stupid - just very exhaustive to have another layer of technical bureaucracy overseeing the government network and ensuring that it's neither hacked from beyond, nor being used for illegitimate purposes from within
In our day, there were Fine Manuals to read...
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What else would you suppose they use? Email on a phone? That's fine for short messages, but who wants to be stuck writing documents of any length on a phone?
Email at the workplace doesn't require any sort of web access.
Other than purchasing agents, most regular employees don't need to buy from outside the organization.