Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Bad Publicity

The Singapore connection highlighted in red
Singapore is being flagged in international headlines for all the wrong reasons. The money trail for US$700 million that went missing traces a treacherous route from the Singapore branch of Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank to Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s AmIslamic Bank account. Acquired by Abu Dhabi's state-owned investment firm Aabar in April 2009, Falcon's boast is that security and discretion are their highest priorities in the best of Swiss private banking tradition. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.

Another shady operation with a branch office in Singapore is the Italian Company “Hacking Team”. Their backdoor intrusion weapon of choice "Remote Control System" (other names are  “Crisis” and “DaVinci”) is described in a company promotional literature as:
“A stealth, spyware-based system for attacking, infecting and monitoring computers and smartphones. Full intelligence on target users even for encrypted communications (Skype, PGP, secure web mail, etc.)"

Marketed as a restricted client base tool for law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies, Bloomberg first flagged it in 2012 as another example of commercial network intrusion tools being used against dissidents in countries with poor human rights records. Pro-democracy activist in Dubai Ahmed Mansoor's laptop was penetrated by spyware so powerful it can turn on webcams and microphones and grab documents off hard drives. He also suffered two physical beatings by thugs during his campaign for citizens’ civil rights in the Persian Gulf federation of the United Arab Emirates.

Guess what? Screen shots of leaked documents posted by CSO Online shows that Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has an active maintenance contract with Hacking Team. The good news is that the notorious security firm has been hacked. It isn't known who embarassed Hacking Team, but the attackers have published a Torrent file with 400GB of internal documents, source code, and email communications to the public at large, including the note that demonstrates IDA is capable of nefarious designs against Singaporeans. Yaacob Ibrahim would be so proud.
Even Russia has had enough of dirty tricks

17 comments:

  1. The island wide train breakdown is the bad publicity of the day. When CEO salary went from 500k to 2.5m within 3 years, that is a 400% multifold jump. Now, why is that not a screaming HL where performance legitimacy is questioned?

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    1. That does not look peanuts to me.
      Did someone send him a sword..just in case er..For his own good mah..

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    2. UNESCO heritage site award given to wrong party leh.

      Delete
  2. Peasants have no right to question aristocrats. Not until they get rid of them at the GE.

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    Replies
    1. since when do monarchs need to stand for election? u ok or not?

      Delete
  3. Those with something to hide better panic. Until recently Najib's money trail would have been considered quite "safe". Seems nothing is safe anymore, cannot be too long before wikileaks or the likes tell us more about the missing hundred billions...

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  4. Singapore boast so much about openess and corruption free. Look carefully and you see bugs running freely on the streets.

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  5. Jialat, oldies funeral money up in smoke also? What if some people asked for tens of billions to remain silent? Either way oldies are trapped between arseleestocracy and monleeytocracy ...... cham! Very cham! Quah Cha Poon up in smoke ........

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  6. http://themiddleground.sg/2015/06/27/looking-electronic-eyes-tampines/

    Did anyone read TMG report on the surveillance which nicely and partially captured the real 1984 that is already playing out in large scale here? Even a small downtown station platform alone will have 18 watchful cctv. not only are we watched physically, but online now the so called smart nation will be the icing on the cake to capture citizens data fire state yet # plus the spy software, people must realize that every move, email, conversation down to your likings and next appointment can be made up and traced. Imagine what kind of power of land on horrible person's hand, they can blackmail is threaten you with ? I don't know if people know the seriousness of this crime in a paranoid govlosing fear losing powers mean?

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  7. Kind of weird...usually PAP gov't will not allow this to happen....somebody don't like najib so set him up....and also set up singapore too badly...zzz

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  8. Old man gone not very long only ....... The throne like on a rocking chair ....... Looks more and more precarious liao .....

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  9. Minister Yacob Ibrahim proud?

    He will know what to feel when their spies reveal to him the Percentage of dissenters against the Regime in Cyberspace.

    I believe he knows and think he will retire away from Sin

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  10. Its ok...

    they are all still in lah-lah land.
    They think they are safe with all the Acts, Codes, and best of all the compliant people on the bench.

    Ignore the masses at their peril.
    Give them chatek, haw flakes, paper balloon, erasers..
    Yeah, rite... it will make me happy?

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  11. Aristocrats my arse. More like Aristocrooks, natural some more because they were born into it. Hope Sarawak Report, Asia Sentinel, WSJ etc have got the dirt on Sin.

    "Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently and all for the same reason" ~José Maria de Eça de Queiroz

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    Replies
    1. hey don't pray pray, temasek 16% p.a return since inception is world record ok! better than warren buffett, ok!

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    2. If you buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway
      - that's all you have to pay

      You don't have to pay for Warren Buffet's investment expertise.
      Unlike Temasek.
      You have to pay for Ho Ching's investment expertise.
      And then pay for Ho Ching's Temasek prime office space.
      And the staff working in Temasek.
      And the Board of Directors of Temasek.

      It's a lot of high priced talent versus the free expertise of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.

      Delete