The Defence Ministry (Mindef) is widening its use of software that can remotely disable cameras in its mobile devices and wipe out their data.
Mobile device management (MDM) technology is being tested for camera-equipped tablets that are used by civilian contractors to repair or manage more than 6,000 Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and Mindef buildings and facilities across the island.
Such gadgets are increasingly being used to perform non-core functions in the military.
If someone is found to be taking an unauthorised photo of a classified document or area with the tablet, the software can not only lock the device remotely, but also detect its location, delete its contents and disable its camera, microphone and Wi-Fi connection.
The Straits Times understands that Mindef is looking to hook up up to 520 mobile devices with the mobile device management software.
Brigadier-General Paul Chew, director of the Military Security Department, said Mindef is considering various options, including using MDM-configured mobile devices, to “strengthen governance and enhance efficiency of facilities management operations”.
Currently, MDM applications have been installed in tablets and laptops used by soldiers to access online lessons in military institutes such as the Basic Military Training Centre and Safti Military Institute.
The United States Defence Information Systems Agency has used MDM since 2013 to manage more than 97,400 users with BlackBerry, iOS and Android handsets or tablets. They include those from the army, air force and other defence agencies.
The latest move to use MDM software for facilities management-related devices will allow the SAF to ease restrictions on using camera- equipped mobile devices in camp but, at the same time, clamp down on the unauthorised use of such devices in highly sensitive areas.
Smartphones are increasing in popularity in Singapore, making up more than 70 per cent of the some 7.3 million mobiles in Singapore.
Since 2012, camera-equipped devices have been allowed in zones marked green, such as cookhouses, bunks and medical centres.
Zones marked red – such as unit operations rooms and offices with sensitive information – are no-camera-phone zones and servicemen must deposit their phones in lockers before entering them.
The DSO National Laboratories, Singapore’s largest defence research body, is among several organisations here that also use MDM software to manage mobile devices.
Mr Clement Teo, senior analyst at technology and market research company Forrester, said using technologies such as MDM is a smart and efficient way to secure and protect Mindef assets.
“You are enabling people to be as productive as they can be in the camp to get their jobs done without forcing them to change the device they use.”
Malaysia has sent a team to the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion to determine whether debris which washed up there is from missing flight MH370.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board vanished without trace in March 2014.
Aviation experts have said the debris looks like a wing component from a 777, known as a flaperon.
Malaysia Airlines said it would be “premature” to speculate on its origin.
There were 227 passengers on the flight, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians.
“Whatever wreckage found needs to be further verified before we can further confirm whether it belongs to MH370,” Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai told reporters in New York where he was attending a UN Security Council debate for a separate Malaysian jet shot down over Ukraine.
“So we have dispatched a team to investigate on this issues and we hope that we can identify it as soon as possible,” he said.
French air transport officials are also investigating the wreckage
The wife of the in-flight supervisor for the missing MH370 plane, Jacquita Gonzales, told the BBC that she is torn by the news.
“A part of me hopes that it is (MH370) so that I could have some closure and bury my husband properly but the other part of me says ‘no, no, no’ because there is still hope,” she told the BBC by phone.
The two-metre-long (6ft) piece of wreckage washed up on the island, about 600km (370 miles) east of Madagascar, late on Wednesday.
The search efforts for MH370, led by Australia, are focussed on a broad expanse of the southern Indian Ocean – some 6,000km to the east of Reunion, which is a French region.
There have been other plane crashes much closer to Reunion, but flight MH370 is the only Boeing 777 to have disappeared in the area.
Officials said in April that the search area would be doubled if nothing was found
An US official told the Associated Press news agency that, based on the photos, investigators had a “high degree of confidence” that the part was a flaperon unique to a Boeing 777 wing.
A flaperon is a part of the wing used to manage the lift and control the roll of an aircraft.
French authorities in Reunion are also investigating the debris and Australian investigators are reported to be in touch with manufacturers over the find.
In a statement, Australian Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss said that if the wreckage was identified as being from MH370, this “would be consistent with other analysis and modelling that the resting place of the aircraft is in the southern Indian Ocean”.
Any new evidence will be used to refine search efforts, the statement added.
Analysis: BBC’s transport correspondent Richard Westcott
Experts should be able to tell fairly quickly if this is a piece of MH370. Aircraft parts have individual serial numbers on them, and the airlines should have records of all those numbers.
So in theory, investigators could check them and give a positive or negative ID. If it is part of the aircraft, it’s washed up thousands of miles from where search teams continue to look for debris at the bottom of the sea.
And realistically, although it would confirm the aircraft crashed and broke up, a piece of wing is unlikely to reveal much more about what actually happened on board the plane.
But these are all big “ifs” right now. It could still be yet another false alarm.
The Australian-led search teams have been focusing on a 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) area off the coast of Western Australia, where the plane is believed to have crashed.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan, who heads the operation, told AP that even if the part was proven to be from MH370 it would not change the search area, as it was “entirely possible that something could have drifted from our current search area to that island”.
Confirmation the debris came from MH370 would also disprove theories that the airliner went missing somewhere in the northern hemisphere, Mr Dolan said.
Key moments in the search for MH370
8 March, 2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Saturday 8 March (16:41 GMT, 7 March), and was due to arrive in Beijing at 06:30 (22:30 GMT). Malaysia Airlines says the plane lost contact less than an hour after takeoff. No distress signal or message was sent.
20 March: Australian search teams say they are investigating two objects spotted on satellite images in the southern Indian Ocean and sent long-range surveillance planes to the area. The objects were later revealed not to be from MH370.
24 March: The Malaysian prime minister announces that following further analysis of satellite data it was beyond doubt that the plane had gone down in this part of the ocean.
28 March: The main search area was moved 1,100km (684 miles) to the north-east and closer to Australia, following further analysis of the speed of the plane and its maximum range.
5-8 April, Australian and Chinese vessels using underwater listening equipment detected ultrasonic signals, which officials believed could be from the plane’s “black box” flight recorders. The pings appeared to be the most promising lead so far, and were used to define the area of a sea-floor search.
29 May: Australian officials announced that the search had found nothing and the area where the signals were heard could be ruled out as the final resting place of the plane.
26 June: Officials announced a new 60,000 sq km search area some 1,800 km west of Perth. This phase of the operation started in August with detailed mapping of the sea bed.
16 April, 2015: Officials from Australia, Malaysia and China say the search area would be doubled if nothing is found in the current search zone.
EDIT: Okay, I wasn’t expecting so many shares. I’m sorry if this offended anyone, but I would like to say that of course the figures vary, and it CAN vary greatly. The only reason this one costs this much is because almost everything an average Malay wedding has was factored in. However, and with that being said, this infographic is NOT implying that you have to spend this amount. Of course it’s a DUH thing (common sense!) to spend within your budget. The whole point of this is to inform the uninformed that Malay weddings are definitely not $50.
_____
I would say 8 out of 10 non-Malays I know are often plain ignorant when it comes to the expenses involved in a Malay wedding. In fact, I have met many of such people who have this impression that a Malay wedding only costs so much. To help address this common problem as well as to educate the non-Malays, I decided to create a simple visual graphic that breaks down the expenses of a Malay wedding in Singapore.
Disclaimer: These are average figures I got from speaking to my married and about-to-get-married friends, and they do not necessarily represent the mass. Also, the figures are based on only one side of the couple. So yes you are right – multiply them by two to get the final figures for both bride and groom’s events.
To all my Malay friends, if you have any input(s)/comment(s) on this, drop me a message!
P/S: Oh, I would also like to add one more point – Malay weddings usually never expect monetary recoup. We don’t complain even if we receive $10 (common amount, honestly) after feeding your family of 8!
Under a policy review by the Social and Family Development Ministry announced on Jul 28, unwed working mothers may soon get the same benefits as married ones.
Welcoming the announcement, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) said children of unwed mothers should not be penalised for their family structure.
Unwed mothers currently do not benefit from housing policies and tax reliefs such as the Qualifying Child Relief, Working Mother Child Relief and Grandparent Caregiver Relief, and that makes it harder to raise a child, said a single mother.
Susan (not her real name) is a 40-year-old who works in the events industry. She hopes the revised policy will be fairer to unwed mothers and their children.
“What I’m requesting is very basic. These are basic necessities like housing, you need a roof over your head. I wanted to apply for a BTO flat but as a single, I can only apply for a two-room flat. But I can’t live with my child in a one-bedroom flat so I appealed to HDB to request to apply for a three-room BTO flat but it has been denied a couple of times. So I had no choice but to buy in the open market,” Susan said.
“Why would I want to share a room with my son? I mean, when he’s younger it’s fine but when he is older, I’m sure he would want his own room,” she added.
Under rules by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), an unwed mother and her child are not considered a family nucleus and therefore do not qualify for a new three-room flat.
AWARE said this puts these families at a disadvantage as they are not given the same support as other families.
Ms Jolene Tan, Programmes and Communications Senior Manager at AWARE, said: “If you can’t afford a resale flat, then you find yourself in the situation of perhaps having to seek the goodwill of other relatives or to go to interim rental housing and all of this can create instability in the family environment.”
AWARE acknowledged that unwed mothers are not excluded from all benefits. For example, they are eligible for infant care and childcare subsidies. But the association said unwed mothers should not be excluded from any benefits at all and should receive even more support from the government.
Nominated Member of Parliament Kuik Shiao-Yin, who has brought the issue of unfair treatment of single unwed mothers up in Parliament previously, said that the review of policies is encouraging to hear. She added that this is an equalisation of opportunities as children of single unwed mothers can now start off on the same footing as children of married mothers.
The policy review is expected to be completed before the announcement of Budget 2016.
I spotted this at Marina Bay Sands food court 29/7/15.
Me and my friend will have lunch together, and this PRC women sitting on the next table, just let her son pee in the pastic bag in front of us without giving a f*** of the surrounding people.
Best part is, after she is done, she simple throw the bag of pee on the floor!!
