Open to attack: government caught snooping

Excerpts:

IN late April, the Singapore government was caught snooping into PCs without seeking permission from their owners.

..... Internet users in Singapore were faced with a more organized affront to their computer privacy. SingNet, an Internet service provider, acknowledged that it asked the Home Affairs Ministry's IT security unit to scan its customers' PCs for viruses without their consent. SingNet is owned by Singapore Telecom, which is in turn 80 percent-owned by the government.

[Note: SingTel's CEO is BG (NS) Lee Hsien Yang another son of Lee Kuan Kew.]

SingNet's actions only came to light because a student, who had downloaded antihacker software from the Internet onto her PC, traced the scan back to the ministry.

SingNet's home page on the Web apologizes for the intrusion--"We should have informed you first," it says--and invites visitors to voluntarily submit to the virus search instead. The company says the scanning did not "enter" any PCs nor unveil any personal data. Also, SingNet claims it found 900 PCs infected with "trojan horse" viruses that allow hackers to enter computers via the Internet and take almost complete control.

The SingNet action and the discovery of the "trojan horse" viruses highlight the ease with which PCs can be snooped on while on-line.