"In our latest article, Roy discusses the issue of mass surveillance in Singapore and whether Singaporeans should be concerned. "The Guardian had reported yesterday that, “A top secret (American) National Security Agency (NSA) program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.” The Guardian also reported that, “The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the Internet.” What is of importance is that in a map which stated that the XKeyscore is located at “approximately 150 sites” and “over 700 servers”, does Singapore appear to be one of the locations? Separately, on 13 March 2013, Citizen Lab had released a report that identified Singapore as one of the 25 countries which uses the FinSpy spying software. However, on 15 March, Yahoo! Singapore reported that the “Singapore’s government has denied using spy software” and that, “a Ministry of Home Affairs spokesperson told Yahoo! Singapore on Saturday that it does not use it or any such spyware”. Thereafter, in a further report on 1 May, Citizen Lab identified that there were two “FinSpy Command and Control servers” in Singapore. These developments are worrying because the question is, is the Singapore government spying on Singaporeans, and if so, what would the Singapore government be spying on? It was reported that the “the XKeyscore system allows analysts to monitor a virtually unlimited array of other internet activities, including those within social media”. FinSpy would also be able to “grab images off computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes”."
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:07:48 +0000