It has been 17 days now since the Singapore General Elections. Enough of time to put thoughts into electrons and share it with the rest of the world but importantly, to help me remember what […]
Hiding in plain sight
[photo from https://rangerrick.org/ranger_rick_jr/hiding-in-plain-sight/%5D In the Inconvenient Questions interview done by Viswa Sadasivan (recorded 3rd July 2020, and released 5th July 2020, i.e., during the campaign period), I mention that there are lots of information that […]
Of trust and obfuscation
[image above from http://chloescheffe.github.io/trust.html%5D Last Friday, 19th June 2020, I was part of a group of four from the local open source hacker community to tear down the proposed TraceTogether token. This was by invitation […]
Seriously? NRIC for TraceTogether?
[Image from https://www.solarwindsmsp.com/blog/what-pii-and-phi-and-how-do-you-secure-them and added NO to it using gimp.] I wrote earlier that asking for a phone number when registering the TraceTogether app on the mobile phone was about the only useful and barest […]
Looking forward to a recyclable, open sourced, wearable, contact tracing device
So, the other shoe is about to drop. Gov is planning on providing everyone a wearable contacting tracing device to counter the limitations of apps that run in mobile phones (from the Apple ecosystem) – […]
A flawed idea. Zoom does not get it (or maybe they are pretending).
Earlier this week, a report came out that the video conferencing provider, Zoom, would be providing End-to-End-Encryption (E2EE) but only for paying customers. They’ve made a case that because “bad” people would use encryption to […]
Curated playlist of videos
I did not realise that there are plenty of videos of events at which I spoke, interviews I gave and panels I was part of. For my own purposes, I thought it is best if […]
Working Remotely with FOSS tools
These last few months have been really wonderful in enabling me to catch up on making sure that as much of the technology that I use to be working online is indeed free and open […]
Jit.si if you care and Zoom if you don’t.
So, last week, from 8th April onwards, the Singapore Government imposed a partial lockdown (PL) – or as they say euphemistically “circuit breaker” (CB). The Singapore Ministry of Education introduced Home-based Learning (HBL) that they […]
A tip to play audio (and video) in a browser
So, the teacher in the house, aka my wife, asked me to help with the online teaching she has to do specifically with being able to play audio tracks for her students. She uses Fedora […]
Mailed in ballots
[photo above from https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2018/04/08/california-counties-testing-voting-centers-to-boost-anemic-turnout/%5D With all of the talk and tentative actions by the ruling party in trying to hold the general elections in Singapore, it is now the right time to look at mail-in […]
No. Internet voting is still a No Go.
I was asked by a friend why is it that we can’t do voting over the Internet. With all of the digitisation being done globally, and the ongoing COVID-19 issue, shouldn’t Singapore – the Smart […]
BuildTogether – data, code, people for the world
The Singapore Government Technology Agency released, at the end of last week (Friday 20 March 2020) a mobile phone app, called TraceTogether which uses the bluetooth of the mobile phone to establish tiny database with […]
Goodbye Prep Chet and Nimi Chech
Two of my all time favourite humans. You both lived wonderful lives, brought joy and delight to everyone you met. Both of your legacies lives on in your family. Thank you being being you, Prep […]
Of NUCs and Bastions
[image above from https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/ssh-proxy-bastion-proxyjump%5D Just documenting the systems I have on my home network so that I know what to do next time as well as being a repository of tips and tricks for anyone […]
xrandr – note to self
This is really a note to self because every now and then, the external monitor at my desk, a Dell 27″ monitor, gets confused. My laptop – a Lenovo T450s running either Fedora 31 or […]
The sale of PIR.org (and with it .ORG)
About two weeks ago, the Internet Society announced that their subsidiary, the Public Interest Registry (PIR) will be sold to an external party. Like the announcement of the acquisition of Red Hat by IBM was […]
Handwaving. No surprises.
So, the Singapore Parliament and the Ministry of Communication and Information replies to my question about the plan to track MPs in parliament. This reply appeared in the 22 November 2019 of the MSM. Many […]
Two statements that I live by
Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think. I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
Fa(r)cial Recognition + Parliament = Smart Parliament?
If the Singapore Parliament aspires to be a smart Parliament, it should live stream proceedings in full on the Internet with no delay (Facial recognition system to track MPs’ presence in Parliament, Nov 8). By doing that, MPs’ attendance can be tracked using software that is already available.
And Election Kakis gets underway
I am really pleased to have been able to hold the first (or many, many more) training sessions of volunteers that Election Kakis has been seeking. Today’s session was attended by 20 people from various […]
Majulah Singapura
I truly love how Ramli Sarip delivered the national anthem at this year’s National Day Parade. It was stupendous, visceral, raw and tugged at the emotions. I truly love this rendition. Terima Kasih, Ramil. […]
Democracy is a participatory sport, not a spectator sport!
Over eight years ago, I helped out a political party by volunteering to being their Polling Agent. It was a wonderful learning opportunity in addition to having a chance to participate. The lessons I learned […]
Standard C150 handheld – manual and schematic
I am just putting this here more for archival purpose than anything. I have a Standard C150 handheld transceiver that I have used when I first bought it but have not been for the last […]
The Enormous Empowering of Free and Open Source Software Ecosystem
It is quite disappointing to see the escalation of bad behaviour on the part of some of the partners in the technology industry legally pushed on by US politicians who have no idea what they […]
Good bye and On on!
Today, a second person that I know, decided to be euthanised. He was suffering from a very rare brain tumour that was operated on a few years ago and made recovery. Over the last few […]
Start-ups and patents
I have been part of a few start-ups and there has always been the conversations around “are we patenting our ideas?”. I understand the nature and purpose of a patent and the lofty principles behind […]
Railway Records
My sons and I had a chance to attend a wonderful evening play written by my wife’s sister-in-law’s sister, Sharmila. Location: the north end of the black-painted steel bridge near the old Bukit Timah Railway […]
Congratulations to the new SCS president and council
I have been in the SCS executive council for many years. I am deeply thankful for the camaraderie and friendship of the numerous committee members. It was a pleasure serving with all of you for […]
Why am I running for the presidency of the SCS?
Yes, I’ve decided that I will run for the post of the President of the Singapore Computer Society. The Annual General Meeting of the SCS will be held later this month on 28th March 2019. […]
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal
This. There was a time when I was so happy to be able to connect to the Internet with my mobile phone by dialing-in into the ISP. I remember on a trip to Tel Aviv, […]
2019 – Here we come
As the earth passed a point in space that marks the start of the next trip of the planet around our Sun, humanity comes together (ok, may be now all, which is sad), to ponder […]
Electronic voting and trust
There was s series of letters published in one of the daily papers here in Singapore about the apparent anomaly that we do lots of stuff electronically, but voting is not one of them. There […]
Defending my country
As a former reservist officer, I am deeply concerned with the kind of language and propaganda that is being put out by our government leaders around the issue about marine incursions in the seas off […]
Simple life hack
Turn your mobile data to the OFF as a default when out and about. Why? Read on. Since about October 2017, I’ve been quite conscious about how my phone connects to the data network via […]
Working around censorship
The Internet is a wonderful and absolutely essential resource that needs to be looked after, managed well and secured so that it can deliver the vast benefits to humanity and more. But along with that […]
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2018 – Singapore
It was wonderful that Red Hat’s Open Innovation Labs is a sponsor of this year’s NASA Space Apps Challenge event that is being held in Singapore. It was held at LEVEL3‘s offices at the Mapletree […]
Not allowed to code? Really?
[image from: http://cdn.blog.safe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/no-coding.png%5D Lots of interesting, but not surprising, information is being made public about the Singhealth data breach. The Commitee of Inquiry has been told that there was an IHIS employee who found a […]
Happy 35th Birthday GNU!
The GNU project was officially announced on 27 September 1983 by Richard Stallman. Thirty-five years of a project that has now become the fundamental building block of everything we use and see in technology in […]
A healthcare IT foundation built on gooey clay
Today, there was a report from the Solicitor General of Singapore about the data breach of the SingHealth systems that happened in July. These systems have been in place for many years. They are almost […]
What I’ve learned in 15 years at Red Hat
[image credit: https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Spock-shades.jpg%5D In September 2003, I was asked by Gus Robertson to consider joining Red Hat – essentially to kickstart the Red Hat office in Singapore/ASEAN. I was at that time running my own […]
Why is 10 million people the target for Singapore?
This is a number that keeps coming up every now and then. Sometime in January 2013, a white paper released by the then government (which happens to be the same now) about pegging the […]
You gotta love the UNIX way of doing things
A colleague was asking for some help in a demo he was planning on that would involve him editing a spreadsheet in LibreOffice on his laptop and then the spreadsheet to be saved to a […]
The value of independence
As we approach the 53rd National Day on 9th of August 2018, Singaporeans have all reasons to be happy and cheerful. The economy is doing well (enough), we all have a roof over our heads, […]
My updated GPG keys: 0x61AFA27B
I have just updated my GPG keys. The fingerprint is: 0x61AFA27B And my public key is: —–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—– mQINBFtV24ABEADERsMgNNOOFpzfaYxrmlmYPd0IOjFn3iIba38SvqVyWJxLmuvc[…]
SingHealth, PDPA, Smart Nation, sigh!
Looks like I am clear from the data breach at SingHealth. My Mom’s data, however, is not. This is the SMS received: Yes, I’ve redacted her name, and yes, I use Signal as my SMS […]
About that data breach at SingHealth
PSA Notice Please go to https://datacheck.singhealth.com.sg/ and click on the log in button to check if your data was exposed by the breach at SingHealth. The login needs your SingPass account and verification. I was […]
ssh tunnel via userspace systemd service
[image above is a screenshot of 0pointer.de – in place of a systemd logo] This is short how-to on setting up a systemd service that is run from a user account. In the /etc/systemd/system directory: […]
So, you want to do computer science, huh?
This has been on my mind for a while. Lots of friends are asking me for advise about their interest in pursuing courses on computer science (undergrad or grad). First things first: I do have […]
And, they are online now
Over a week ago, I was pinged by @l00g33k on twitter with a picture of a description of a piece of code I wrote in 1982. That lead to a meet up and reliving a […]
You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep**
Lots of what we take for granted found expression in the thoughts and writings of John Perry Barlow. He crafted “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” back in 1996. It held lots of truths […]
Seeking a board seat at OpenSource.org
I’ve stepped up to be considered for a seat on the Board of the Open Source Initiative. Why would I want to do this? Simple: most of my technology-based career has been made possible because […]
Of open source, security and collaboration
I had the privilege of being a panelist at the inaugural “India Digital Open Summit” held in Mumbai, India on 19th January 2018. The event was organized by Reliance Jio and held at the Jio […]
Wireless@SGx for Fedora and Linux users
Eight years ago, I wrote about the use of Wireless@SGx being less than optimal. I must acknowledge that there has been efforts to improve the access (and speeds) to the extent that earlier this week, […]
My submission to the proposed changes to the Films Act
[The submission deadline is 5pm Singapore time Saturday December 30, 2017. Image above from http://www.newlovetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/the-godfather.gif ] I have sent the following to the IMDA as per their requests for comments for the proposed changes to […]
This is very interesting! (it is proprietary though)
I just came across something called hashgraph that seems to be able to replace blockchains as the basis of distributed ledgers. The hashgraph is wrtten up by Dr Leemon Baird in this paper: http://leemon.com/papers/2016b.pdf is […]
Phenomenal!
It is just amazing to see how the validity of Einstein’s theories have been tested repeatedly and proven to be correct. Einstein did all of what he did in his mind, on the blackboard and […]
It takes time to apologise. I get it. But …
It has taken full NINE days for the CEO of the SMRT to come out and take ownership of the flooding incident of the North South Line that happened on October 7th. In addition to […]
Transparency is good. Really.
I got a call from Christopher Tan, the Senior Transport Correspondent of a local MSM earlier this afternoon. Kudos to him in tracking me down (not that it was difficult). He was doing a follow […]
Is this a failure of leadership?
Saturday, October 7, saw heavy rainfall and as expected, rain water got into everything. That’s what water does. We know that. And we design for it. We engineers have figured out how to manage this. […]
The ongoing spinning
PAP ministers and surrogates spinning the racially oriented presidential election.
No, Halimah, You Are Mistaken
I just saw this article online on one of the MSM sites. In it, the former speaker of parliament, Mdm Halimah Yacob is being interviewed as a potential candidate for this year’s presidential elections. Let […]
What if no one came?
So, there was this shop that was set up to give a chance for those who like pancakes to go there and claim their pancakes. People found out that anyone can go to the shop […]
Three must haves in Fedora 26
I’ve been using Fedora ever since it came out back in 2003. The developers of Fedora and the greater community of contributors have been doing a amazing job in incorporating features and functionality that subsequently […]
The next president and Singapore at 200
So, we are now in the silly cycle of “electing” the next president. This year’s election is very controversial. The parliament approved a change in the rules for election of president and added a clause […]
Some updates on “who’s my MP”
I have not received any reply from the person who is supposed to be the MP for my place on what I sent to the person on 8th July. I am not expecting a reply, […]
On being an engaged and responsible citizen
I sent this to my MP on July 5 and am awaiting a reply (if there is a reply, I will post it here as well but leaving out the identity of the MP if […]
Thank you, Uncle Sar, and Rest In Peace!
I’ve always known him as Uncle Sar. He was a teacher, a biology teacher no less. When he used to visit us at home when I was 7 or 8 years old, he would always […]
A better model to work with citizens
I have been putting off installing the SGSecure application on my phone. I finally decided to do it via the Google Playstore. It got downloaded and installed and when I started the app, it needed […]
Quarter Century of Innovation – aka Happy Birthday Linux!
Happy Birthday, Linux! Thank you Linus for that post (and code) from a quarter of a century ago. I distinctly remember coming across the post above on comp.os.minix while I was trying to figure out […]
Joseph Schooling should not be the last
It was a supreme delight to have been able to sing Majulah Singapura (the video cannot be viewed because the IOC mafia thinks they own the copyright) with Joseph Schooling after being medaled at the […]
Congratulations NUS Engineers Class of 2016!
My speech at the Commencement of NUS Faculty of Engineering on July 12, 2016 at 3:00 pm. Mr Neo Kian Hong, Member, NUS Board of Trustees, Distinguished Guests, Friends and Families of Graduands, Graduating Class […]
This is quite a nice tool – magic-wormhole
I was catching up on the various talks at PyCon 2016 held in the wonderful city of Portland, Oregon last month. There are lots of good content available from PyCon 2016 on youtube. What I […]
Lots of rescued data
I had finally managed to rescue one of many drives that had documents and articles I wrote from the 90s and early 2000s. I will be putting them up on this blog and would have […]
Remember, Remember The Eleventh of September. Majulah Singapura.
My extended family will be voting sometime today. My wife and I will be exercising our right to vote at Qifa Primary School. That was the same place we voted in 2011. The People’s Action […]
Ensuring that this gets as wide a read as possible before September 11, Polling Day
This has been circulating in the chat groups on telegram.org and whatsapp.com and want it to be as widely read as possible. I did not wirte it, and I would love to give credit to […]
As the silly season starts
By noon on September 1st, we will know who are running for the 89 seats in the parliament. As voters we are all keen to know who the candidates are. The irony is that the […]
He probably is indeed telling the truth! (info graphic updated on Aug 29)
It would appear that ESM Goh Chok Tong is indeed telling the truth that “checks and balances are a seductive lie”. He says in that article that: “the check comes from the “integrity of the […]
The need for a independent Electoral Commission
I am reading the Candidate Handbook for Parliamentary Election 2015 for the first time. I don’t have any of the earlier versions so I cannot tell what the changes are (yes, no edit history/change log; […]
And the games have begun
Oh, the classic off-by-one error. All of us who were expecting the polling day to be September 12, started counting from the day after the nomination day. Missed out the fact that nomination day itself […]
What I want for the future of Singapore starting today.
Fifty years of being an independent country and having seen how we have evolved over the years with my fellow Singaporeans is just amazing. Yes, the political hand did play a significant part in the […]
To keep things in context
Just so that we don’t get distracted with all the SG50 festivities and forget key historical details, here’s some of the festive commemorations we’ve seen in Singapore. In four years, 2019, Singapore would be 200 […]
A special moment in time
It is sad that Achan (dad in Malayalam) is not around to watch and take part in the festivities around Singapore’s 50th National Day. I *know* instinctively how excited he would have been. He was […]
Completely missing the point about silly mobile “data plans”
I have on my cell phone a “plan” that gives me 50G of mobile data. When I first got the data plan back in 2006 or so, I think the telco provided I believe 2G […]
Secure E7y Nomadic Toolkit
I spoke about creating the Secure E7y Nomadic Toolkit at FOSSAsia 2015. Here’s the video recording and the link to the presentation. On April 22, I had a 14-min interview on 938Live radio station. Here’s […]
The rain on the parade made it meaningful
Thank you, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. You gave your whole life to this country of ours. My parents, my siblings, my family and all of my extended family count our blessings for the gumption you […]
Congratulations, Howie!
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to contest for the post of the president of the Singapore Computer Society at the AGM on Thusday March 26 and the meeting decided to vote in […]
homage
This was penned by my sister, Srila. It is Nineteen Seventy-five Thirteen years of age Be aware of the world around you Says Dad, bless his soul So I begin to notice politics LKY, Goh […]
Charting the future of the Singapore Computer Society
As some of you might know, I am a Fellow of the Singapore Computer Society. That honour was conferred on me in 2009 for my contributions to the IT profession as well as to the […]
Congratulations Class of 2014 Republic Polytechnic
I am honoured to be invited to be the guest of honour and speaker at this year’s graduation at the Republic Polytechnic (http://www.rp.edu.sg/grad/home/Eventdetails.aspx?id=571). Here’s my speech: Mr Yeo Li Pheow, Principal and CEO of Republic […]
UEFI and Fedora/RHEL – trivially working.
My older son just enrolled into my alma mater, Singapore Polytechnic, to do Electrical Engineering. It is really nice to see that he has an interest in that field and, yes, make me smile as […]
Here be the dragons!
I cannot believe that the MCE planners did not think things through. Of how the traffic is to flow from East to West and vice versa as well as all the other exits from the […]
Sparks of brilliance and WTFs!
The Land Transport Authority is the agency charged with all things land-based transport. 2013 is a busy year for them. Two major infrastructure projects came online. The first one was on December 22nd with the […]
First impressions about the new Marina Coastal Expressway
I decided to take a spin onto the new Marina Coastal Expressway today. And my first impression is that it is screwed up. Not the highway per se. The highway is top-notch. Five lanes in […]
I know more than you do
I cannot help but continue to be baffled by the way the G responds to some of the continuing challenges that the nation faces. Way back in 2009, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced the […]
A blast from the past
I was searching for advertisements that I recalled seeing in the Linux Journal back in the mid 1990s that was put out by Red Hat about their upcoming release of Red Hat Linux. Fortunately, I […]
Toshiba’s FlashAir wifi-enabled SD card
I was looking around on Saturday at the various SD cards for my Canon 500D. I thought that since there are these new fangled wifi-enabled ones, I should consider getting one of those. My enquiries […]
Will we ever have engineers?
As noted by Vivian, the first of three key ingredients before anything starts is to have engineers, engineers who are valued and who want to change the world by their work and their ideas. As […]
Things to be thankful for as we celebrate 48 years of independence. Majulah Singapura!
I’m thankful for: If we were ever at war, it was under the Union Jack, not the Crescent and Stars. Singapore has never been to war. While, yes, we have a small standing military setup […]
Getting a good grip on the haze conditions
I feel that with DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s speech this past Monday, June 17 2013, at the eGov Global Exchange event about the Singapore government going whole hog with 100% machine readable data on the data.gov.sg, […]
