Singaporean minister touts internet 'kill switch' that finds kids reading net nasties and cuts 'em off ASAP A Minister in the Singapore government has suggested the creation of an internet kill switch that would prevent minors from reading questionable material online – perhaps using ratings of content created in real time by crowdsourced contributors. "The post-COVID world will bring new challenges globally, including to us in the …
Crowd sourced = inaccurate and easily gamed for short periods of time by malicious actors. Wikipedia is a great demonstration of this and gets away with it only because the core wikipedians are not from the crowd and because its accuracy in the long run is what matters.
Crowd source and real time are NOT happy bedfellows!
He's quite correct: it could be crowdsourced. It wouldn't work and would be even worse than the alternative, probably, but it is at least a possibility.
Wikipedia's great, but not every article has correct and up-to-date information all the time. He should know that, but based on the various other things he's talking about, I'm guessing he has more expertise in authoritarianism than in how the internet works even from a user perspective.
I take it you've seen the movie "Idiocracy" ??
I do not advocate gummint control, more like NOT control. It's just that people need to stop acting like IDIOTIC GENIUSES when it comes to maintaining a population on the planet. Smart people need to HAVE MORE KIDS. And gummints need to STOP INTIMIDATING AND INTERFERING with parents.
I'd do it except that GUMMINT has made it NOT WORTH IT to me... so the next generation will SUFFER WITHOUT MY GENETIC MATERIAL.
(spank your kids, let them do dangerous things as long as they know and understand the risk, and they become more resilient and independent. that's a GOOD thing, I say)
Apparently so. Those who wish to gain power seem to spend their lives devoted to it, to the extent that they never get a decent grounding in any particular speciality.
Of course, those who spend their lives specialising in something seem to have no desire to rule.
Paraphrasing Douglas Adams then, who do you get to rule, when those who want to are unsuitable to do so, and those who are capable of doing so don't want to rule?
"A Minister in the Singapore government has suggested the creation of an internet kill switch that would prevent minors from reading questionable material online"
Well, here's one that I think not too many people would disagree with. A switch that detects traffic headed off to a Zuck-controlled domain, slams open, breaking the circuit and setting off a thermite charge that reduces the switch to slag so that the circuit can never, ever be closed again.
There's even a precedent; the company did something like that to itself the other day, didn't it? And wasn't that a refreshing spell...
Pull weeds, don't trim them ... although removing their seed-heads (flowers) before they mature can go a long way towards long-term weed control. And of course mowing before flowering, and then applying the proper dose of glyphosate, is a good start.
Pruning does not keep plants small, unless you are doing it constantly or very, very incorrectly ... except in some cases, like bonsai, which takes more skill than the average home gardener is willing to acquire.
"The post-COVID world will bring new challenges globally, including to us in the security arena," said Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen
Translating from political securocratese:
"Our intelligence services have been wanting this for a while, and Covid is a convenient excuse to crowbar it onto the agenda..."
"The Minister rated the chances of such a kill switch being built as low."
Unlike ministers elsewhere who are convinced that saying they want it is all that's needed to bring it into existence.
Perhaps he had to put somebody's wish list into the speech to keep them happy whilst personally being realistic.
Time doesn’t come into it at all
When you're a fool, you're a fool
Whether twenty, or a grandad
When you're a fool, you're a fool
No more arguments between you
Ageing fools or fools just starting
Little fools who came with the last shower
Old fools of yesteryear’s snows.
Our company, like numerous others, acknowledge that all communications content in Singapore are heavily monitored and censored. It is not, under any interpretation of the meaning, a "free" country. It is easily equal to China in this regard. InterNet services to commercial enterprises are only audited intermittently. Singapore also has detention without trial for up to two years. No court warrants are required to make phone taps and data interception, either.
To circumvent these restrictions, we usually resort to encrypted communications for both data and voice. We also travel there with cellular equipment designated safe to use in China. Often these are "burner phones" which are equipped with external encryption devices.
Satellite communications are the most secure. It should be remembered that under a program called TEMPORA, two major fiber optic cables are the SEA-ME-WE-3 and SEA-ME-WE-4 at their Naval base in Tuas, on the Western side of Singapore. The old Kranji SIGINT listening post was closed in 1974.
Should the Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen achieve his dream, the effects could be significant.
""We need a tool to grade any piece of information on the net in real time," he opined. "It could be crowdsourced like Wikipedia, for its accuracy.""
The translation software must have completely screwed the pooch on that sentence. There's no way anyone who's read more than 2 Wikipedia articles would ever say such a thing.
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