Singaporean man charged after threatening to 'open fire' on LGBTs

SINGAPORE, Singapore - A man whose Facebook comment calling for violence against the local LGBT community went viral after a shooting at a popular gay club in Florida was charged in Singapore on Thursday.

Bryan Lim, 36, faces up to five years in jail and a fine if convicted of inciting violence through the Internet.

Lim had posted the comment on a Facebook group page set up to oppose Pink Dot, an annual gay rights rally in Singapore.

"Give me permission to open fire. I would like to see these £@€$^*s die for their causes," Lim wrote.

In the post, he identified himself as a father and a Singaporean citizen who had undergone mandatory military service and had sworn "to protect my nation".

The comment was posted on June 4 but only went viral after the June 12 shooting in Orlando, Florida which killed 49 people. Several Internet users made police reports against him.

Lim later apologised, claiming that his comment had been "taken out of context".

"I did not mean physical bullets nor physical death," he wrote. "I mean open fire in debate and remove them from Singapore domestic matters."

Lim's computers and phone have been seized by police and he will next appear in court in August.

Singapore, an ethnically diverse city-state, has tough laws against violence and hate speech.

On Tuesday, a website owner was jailed for eight months for publishing fabricated articles that stirred hatred against foreigners in Singapore.

But Singapore's leaders have had to maintain a difficult balance between increasingly vocal conservatives and gay rights supporters.

Earlier in June, the government warned foreign firms against sponsoring Pink Dot, while a local staging of Les Miserables was forced to cut a scene involving a kiss between two male actors because of public complaints.

Sex between men remains illegal in Singapore, a holdover from colonial rule that is not strictly enforced.

In an interview with journalists last year, Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said the country was not ready to legalise same-sex marriage, but added that the local gay community did not face harassment or discrimination.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Singapore hate blog vs Filipinos taken down by Google

SINGAPORE - Google has taken down a blog that listed ways to harass Singapore's Filipino population, drawing praise from Internet users appalled by growing racial tensions in the city-state.

Police said Thursday that they are investigating the anonymous "Blood Stained Singapore" blog, which suggested Singaporeans should refuse to be served by Filipinos in restaurants, or "accidentally" shove them in crowded places.

In a post titled "Filipino infestation in Singapore -- 5 point guide to showing displeasure without breaking the law", the blog also advised Singaporeans not to help Filipinos involved in traffic accidents.

The blog, which surfaced on Google's Blogger platform in May, was no longer available by late Thursday.

A Google spokeswoman said she could not comment on individual cases but confirmed that the US web giant removes material from Blogger that violates its policy on hate speech.

The Filipino community in Singapore is estimated at more than 170,000, many of them professionals seen by some Singaporeans as rivals for jobs -- a sharp change from a decade ago, when most Filipinos there worked as domestic helpers.

Singaporeans make up just over 60 percent of the 5.4 million population, with a low fertility rate forcing the government to rely heavily on guest workers.

The influx of foreign workers in general, many of them from China and India, has sparked a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.

The blog had triggered indignation among Filipinos at home and abroad, with some calling for counter-measures against Singaporeans.

The Philippine embassy has urged Singaporean authorities to take action against the blogger.

Google's decision to remove the blog drew mostly positive reactions from Singaporeans online, including the cabinet minister in charge of approving foreign worker permits.

"Vile and vicious blogs like this do not reflect who we are as a people," Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said in a Facebook post.

But others questioned whether the move stymied freedom of speech in Singapore.

"Hooray for a democratic country which forcefully shuts the mouths of her citizens!" wrote Titus Lin on the Facebook page of national broadcaster Channel NewsAsia.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

What's the Internet's worst password?

WASHINGTON -- The number sequence "123456" has overtaken "password" as the most common worst password among Internet users, an online security firm says.

Releasing its annual Worst Passwords list, SplashData said it was the first time "password" had lost its No. 1 position, changing places with its numerical rival.

In third place was "12345678," unchanged from 2012, while "qwerty" and "abc123" came in fourth and fifth -- and "iloveyou" climbed two spots to No. 9.

Swinging the results, SplashData said, was a major security breach involving Adobe software that laid bare the widespread use of weak passwords among users of such Adobe products as Photoshop.

"Seeing passwords like 'adobe123' and 'photoshop' on this list (for the first time) offers a good reminder not to base your password on the name of the website or application you are accessing," said SplashData chief executive Morgan Slain, whose company markets password management apps.

Like other password experts, SplashData encouraged Internet users to opt for "passphrases" -- a bunch of random words, numbers and characters, like "smiles_like_skip?" -- that are easy to remember, but harder for online scam artists to crack.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

What type of online user are you?

MANILA – There are five global personas when it comes to online behavior, according to a new study.

MasterCard recently released the results of the Digital Sharing and Trust Project, which showed that consumers usually replace their “real world identities” when they go online, taking on “digital personas.”

Each category, MasterCard said, is based on the kind and amount of information that a person is willing to share.

“Nearly 2.5 billion people around the globe use the Internet every day,” Theodore Iacobuzio, vice president of MasterCard’s Global Insights Group which produced the study, said in a statement.

“This research shows that regardless of who they are and where they live, they all share something in common when it comes to how they act and behave online – these five unique personality types. It also shows us that when consumers go online, characteristics such as age, gender or nationality become secondary and they instead assume a sense of what we refer to as ‘social citizenship.’”

The Digital Sharing and Trust Project included both qualitative and quantitative consumer research conducted from November 2012 to March 2013 in the United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, India, South America, United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Colombia.

It covered more than 9,000 digital consumers aged 16 to 65 who are engaged in some type of online activity at least once a week.

Here are the five types of online users, as mentioned in the study:

1. Open Sharers – This persona accounts for 20% of online consumers, and includes mostly males. They are said to be the “most highly digital” group of the five categories and tend to lead less risk-averse online activities. Half of them are online more than ten times a day and when they share their personal information, they expect deals, access and offers in return.

2. Simply Interactors – This persona accounts for 20% of online consumers. They include some of the most dedicated social networkers, but are not particularly tech-savvy consumers. When it comes to online shopping, 80% of them will research products online, but 63% still prefer to shop in person. Though they are aware of targeted marketing, they don’t see their data as valuable and thus don’t express significant concern about it.

3. Solely Shoppers – This persona accounts for 21% of online consumers, and is characterized by their reliance on the Internet for savvy shopping research and purchases. About 90% of them research products online before buying, while half of them use their mobile phones to check for best deals. They have low awareness of target marketing as only 37% know that social media sites use their personal data to inform ads.

4. Passive Users – This persona accounts for 20% of online consumers. They are not fully convinced of the Internet’s value and tend to spend the least amount of time online, whether for shopping or social networking. They are willing to trade their data for something in return.

5. Proactive Protectors – This persona accounts for 17% of online consumers. They are highly aware of targeted marketing, with 82% of them knowledgeable that marketers can target them based on their search and browsing history. They are unlikely to use social networks and the most guarded with their privacy settings of all personas, taking steps to protect and control their digital footprint.

“In today’s digital world, consumers are continuing to spend more of their time and money online,” Iacobuzio said. “That’s all the more reason that understanding these five distinct personas will be important for a variety of audiences, but perhaps most especially for retailers and marketers.”

Other findings in the study showed that 60% of consumers know how to change the privacy settings on their web browser; 64% believe their personal data has value to merchants and advertisers; and 55% appreciate when companies tailor offers to them based on the information they share.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING - China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalising the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

"Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities," the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.

"So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?" complained one user.

"We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom," wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumours, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

Check for DNSChanger malware or lose Internet access by July 9, telco says

MANILA, Philippines — Leading telecommunications firm Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and its wireless arm Smart Communications urged Pinoy Internet users to check if they have been infected with a malware which will restrict their Internet access if not removed by July 9.

The malware, called DNSChanger, was discovered to be re-routing Internet traffic of infected PCs to servers of a group of Internet hackers, which allows them to display advertisements or spread malware to more users.

Once infected, the Domain Name Settings (DNS) of an infested computer will be changed to that of the hackers’ servers. Reports said systems have started to become infected when they visited similarly infected websites, “or downloaded particular software to view videos online,” according to technology news site CNet.

In addition to changing the DNS servers of the computer, the malware has also been known to prevent antivirus updates from occurring, which means traditional security software couldn’t possibly detect the infection.

The group behind the malware has since been arrested by authorities in 2011, but the temporary redirection servers set up by law enforcement bodies to give users the time to clean up their systems will soon be shut down.

“If you fail to take action, you may not be able to access Internet websites and use web services like email and search,” said PLDT and Smart Spokesperson Ramon Isberto in a statement.

To check if your system is infected, PLDT and Smart urged to go through your computer’s settings:

Windows
1. Click Start
2. Open the Command Window
3. (For Windows 7) Type cmd at the search bar
4. (For Windows XP) Click Run, then type cmd at the bar
5. Type ipconfig /all
6. Search for the DNS Servers section

Mac OS X
1. Click the Apple icon an the top left of the screen
2. Select System Preferences
3. Locate the “Network” icon
4. Read the “DNS Server” line

If the DNS servers are pointed at any of the following addresses, then it means the system is infected:

• 85.255.112.0 through 85.255.127.255
• 67.210.0.0 through 67.210.15.255
• 93.188.160.0 through 93.188.167.255
• 77.67.83.0 through 77.67.83.255
• 213.109.64.0 through 213.109.79.255
• 64.28.176.0 through 64.28.191.255

Alternatively, users can visit the following websites to automatically check if their units have the DNSChanger malware: http://www.dns-ok.us/ and http://dnschanger.detect.my.

To permanently rid your system of the malware, you can use various services put up by security software firms such as Kaspersky , ESET, McAfee , Microsoft , Norton, and Trend Micro.

source: interaksyon.com

Valentine-themed spam to rise four-fold this year – McAfee

MANILA, Phiippines — Internet users smitten by the love bug this Valentine’s Day need to be wary about being carried away by their emotions as security software firm McAfee warns that cyber criminals could be on the prowl on hearts–and eventually, pockets–this season of love.

According to a recent threat bulletin from McAfee, the amount of Valentine-themed spam messages is expected to “quadruple globally, as we approach the holiday, based on previous years of spam volumes.”

“This means that the bad guys are trying to take advantage of our open hearts with romance-related scams designed to trick you out of your information and money, or get you to click on dangerous links,” McAfee said.

These suspicious messages could come in the form of unsolicited mail advertising Valentine gifts; Valentine e-cards; online dating scams; romance-related malware; and phishing sites found on search engines, the antivirus provider said.

“One of the reasons we’re seeing an influx in this kind of spam is because scammers are using a technique called ‘snowshoe spamming’ in which they spread spam across multiple Internet addresses to evade spam filters,” it cautioned.

Should users receive any of the messages stated above, McAfee said they should be judicious enough to verify the source of the message, as in the case of e-cards.

“If you click on a link in a phony e-card, you could wind up accidentally downloading malware onto your device,” it pointed out.

The company also warned users who are looking for potential gifts to give to their loved ones through search engines to be extra vigilant, since scammers are always on the prowl and could trick users into giving up their credit card information.

“You may, for instance, come across a dangerous website while doing a search for ‘Valentine’s Day jewelry’,” it said. “Attracted by the site’s low prices, you may enter your credit card number and personal information and then get sweet nothings in return.”

But cyber criminals could also come in the form of an unsuspecting potential flame found on one of the myriad of online dating sites, McAfee said, pretending to be a sweet talker seemingly interested in forging romantic involvements online.

For these types of crooks, McAfee reiterates an age-old advice to “be suspicious of anyone who claims to fall in love too fast,” because they may actually be after your wallet, if not out to break your heart.

“Do an online search on any potential suitor to see if what they’ve said about themselves is true. Cross-reference the information you have against sites like LinkedIn or Spoke,” it added.

source: interaksyon.com

Groups, bloggers ask PNoy to veto cybercrime bill

MANILA, Philippines — Various groups and Internet users have called on President Benigno Aquino III not to sign the proposed Cybercrime Prevention Act, saying that some provisions in the bill could only do more harm than good.

The uproar against the proposed measure came just a day after the upper chamber of Congress passed Senate Bill 2796 on third reading, with majority of Senators voting to pass the bill.

The lower house, on the other hand, has yet to take up its version of the bill on second reading.

Consumer group TXTPower, in a statement, said the bill looks less about preventing cybercrimes than an “orchestrated attempt to control and limit Internet use.”

“Under the bills, government would have the power to take down, sans a court order, websites at anytime and anywhere if authorities find alleged prima facie evidence of offenses,” the group said.

The group added that the bills have “serious and grave threats” to the privacy of Filipino Internet users, especially with provisions allowing government to take and preserve traffic data for a period of time.

“For example, under the Senate version, the government would have the power to retain all user-identifiable data for a period of six months, from as many individuals it could possibly tag as suspected cybercriminals,” said TXTPower.

UP College of Law’s Internet and Society Program Director Atty. JJ Disini pointed out that as written, the proposed legislation puts too much power under the Department of Justice (DOJ), which would act as the coordinating agency for the government’s anti-cybercrime efforts.

“Under the bill, the DOJ can issue an order [to take and restrict access to data] should it be found as prima facie evidence for a violation,” Disini said. “In effect, the DOJ’s power is even greater than the court’s power.”

Vague provisions

The lawyer pointed out that when the DOJ has been able to issue an order restricting access to data, the fight is already over. In addition, Disini said the bill doesn’t provide for the specific basis to which the DOJ can issue an order.

“At least, in the case of the court, the judge has to be convinced of the evidence. There are specific requirements a judge must consider before issuing a warrant,” he stressed.

With such sweeping powers, blogger Cocoy Dayao of the ProPinoy Project said the vague provisions of the law only make it prone to abuse.

“This bill is so vaguely written that it can potentially mean the ability of Government to restrict Internet access,” Dayao said in a blog post.

“We’ve seen it in Egypt. We’ve seen [it] elsewhere during repressive regimes. I’ve no doubt that Aquino probably won’t be abusing this, but who is to say a more authoritarian government rises up?” he added.

In addition, since the proposed bill also have provisions against acts that constitute libel committed through various online venues, Dayao said the bill can also be used to muzzle overeager critics of government.

Disini further pointed out that posting libelous comments online actually constitutes double liability, since an alleged offender can potentially be accused of libel under the cybercrime law and the Revised Penal Code.

“In other words, it’s worse [to commit] libel online. It’s already worse, for other reasons. But the problem is bloggers, for example, don’t have an organization. They don’t have an infrastructure to assist them in case of libel suits,” he stressed.

‘Useless’ new agencies

Among other questionable provisions of the proposed law, Disini took notice of the part, which establishes several new agencies and offices that would be tasked to coordinate anti-cybercrime efforts of the government.

Specifically, an Office of Cybercrime will be established under the DOJ to coordinate with other cybercrime-related offices in other agencies, such as the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO).

A budget of P50 will be given to these newly installed agencies to implement the provisions stated under the measure.

“Do you really need a coordinating council [to combat cybercrime]? While I understand the desire to have centralized efforts, we should encourage different agencies to improve on their skills and let whatever expertise they have to be developed,” he said.

Disini stressed that “cybercrime is actually a law-enforcement issue,” pointing out that the Philippines already has capable law-enforcement agencies to handle such cases.

Focus on FOI instead

TXTPower, for its part, said that instead of trying to clamp down on purported cybercriminals, the government should instead pass the long-overdue Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill.

“Instead of opening up government to public scrutiny with the FOI, we now see the government going on the offensive with a cybercrime bill that transforms the Philippine internet into one giant place for fishing expeditions on alleged cybercriminals,” the group said.

The Philippines is part of a small minority of countries still without an FOI law, TXTPower claimed. The House of Representatives recently said that the FOI bill is not part of the lower chamber’s priority measures for the year.

“Aside from passing the FOI law, the government should also focus its sights on improving and expanding internet access, curbing corporate abuses by telecommunications companies, and removing taxes on end-users of telecommunications services,” it added.

source: interaksyon.com