Anonymity in cyberspace is an illusion

Anonymity in cyberspace is really an illusion

By Fang Zhi Yuan

When Minister for Community, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said in a speech recently that “anonymity is an illusion in cyberspace”, some netizens dismissed his words as an empty threat and even challenged him to trace them. Some tried to court trouble by hurling invectives at him in internet forums on purpose to prove him wrong.

Recent incidents have convinced me that anonymity in cyberspace is really an illusion. The government does have the technical and financial means to track every single one of us down if it is determined to do so. The only reason why it is refraining from taking such drastic actions is that the price to pay for is too high.

In 2007, three bloggers were prosecuted under the Sedition Act for the articles they posted on their personal blogs which are deemed to be offensive to a minority race in Singapore. One of them, if I remembered correctly hosted his blog on a blogspot.com. He was tracked down in the matters of days.

That is why this site has repeatedly shunned from discussing racial and religious issues because we know the government is especially anal about them. And this is also the reason why comments from all our readers are still put under moderation for us to filter out these taboo subjects.

Though wayangparty.com has acquired a reputation as one of the most liberal blogs around, we do practise a limited form of self-censorship. As far as possible, we try not to censor or moderate comments posted here.

There is no anonymity on government-owned forums like CNA, Hardwarezone and STOMP. Your IP addresses have been locked and it is very easy to trace your identity compared to let’s say, delphiforums which is hosted in the United States.

After we broke the news about “PothePanda”, we have been receiving emails from Singaporeans from all walks of life including civil servants about internet policing by the government.

Unfortunately, there is no way we can verify their claims and we can only take what they say with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, we believe there is some element of truth in them.

The government does know what is going on in the blogs and internet chatrooms. For example, the PAP MPs are aware of the online poll we conducted on Seng Han Thong and his assailant and this was brought up in Parliament.

Journalists read our blog daily to fish for information here. Two hours after we published the leak about the CDC bonuses, a journalist emailed us to inquire more about the case.

You may have noticed that there are a few commentators who criticized our articles all the time with the sole motive of putting us down. Some readers have asked us to censor their comments altogether. We have to allow them to post freely not so much for free speech, but because they are our “guardian angels”.

If the encounter of “PothePanda” is to be believed, a covert ops may be going on for quite some time to identify “radical” bloggers and netizens and to “persuade” them to moderate their stance via an invitation to “limp kopi”.

Nobody will know what is happening because the press doesn’t report on it and the monikers simply vanish into thin air. I am sure you are aware of some prominent bloggers and forumers who have been on the “missing in action” list for a long time.

Over here at wayangparty, I must admit we have pushed the boundaries to its limits and probably beyond it. Though some of our articles may sound too “dangerous”, we have taken extra precaution to ensure there is no way the authorities can find fault with us. It will surely peeve them off, but it will be too tall an order for them to charge us without any solid grounds.

We are taking a calculated risk and I must admit I am quite disturbed by recent developments. A long time socio-political blogger Lucky Tan has taken down his blog till further notice. This was what he wrote: “I receive a few emails that a number have been followed. Something may be on. I’ll be back once the picture is clearer.”

I am not sure if Lucky Tan had received the same emails as we did, but the contents are definitely not reassuring.

Perhaps it is time for wayangparty.com to re-evaluate its editorial stance and policy. We are no longer the wayangparty.com 6 months ago. With a readership approaching TODAY Online’s (our alexa.com ranking today is 696, not far from TODAY’s 412), it is inevitable that people will start to sit up and take notice of us. It may become a necessity to move eventually into the middle ground not only to survive, but to continue to grow.

When Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamarrudin was arrested under the ISA last year, over 2,000 Malaysians turned up in a candle-light march to protest against his arrest. I wonder at times whether any of our readers will bother if we “disappeared” from blogosphere one day.

Public pressure is the only and yet the best form of defence against a dictatorial regime bent on cracking down on dissenting voices in order to preserve and perpetuate its own political hegemony without which we will forever be herded by them like blind sheep.

As of now, I implore every one of you reading this to take extra precaution when posting in the government-owned forums. A seemingly innocuous post on molotov cocktails can get one into trouble. The cloak of anonymity is in reality a delusion and it pays to be on the safe side.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=25000.1