14 ms·

Death in Singapore

459 points by Lightning 14y ago

ayah77 14y ago
With the Singapore media reporting nearly every event that happen on the island, from the mundane to the salacious, how is it that the unusual death of a young American expat gets no ink at all? Obviously a higher up must have ordered SPH to suppress the story. Why? As history has shown time and again, once there is a cover up, the bells should be ringing... Something's rotten in Singapore.
- ftay 14y ago
  Suicides generally don't get reported unless they are exceptional in some way (e.g. celebrities, murder-suicide combo)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
batgaijin 14y ago
Wow... that is beyond weird. From what I've read I always thought Singapore was quite the corrupt-free police state.
- hboon 14y ago
  It isn't a police state. And in recent years, it has been shown that it isn't corruption-free either.
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100537.htm http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100537.htm You get caned if you overstay your 90 days.
    - venus 14y ago
      And? How does that have any bearing on the story at hand whatsoever? As an entrepreneur who has seriously considered moving to singapore in the past I am much more interested in what can happen when you do obey their (quite reasonable) laws.
      - batgaijin 14y ago
        I think we all know if you're in asia stay as legal as possible. I'm just saying don't make an exception for Singapore.
        venus 14y ago
        Fair enough. Good advice. I'm trying not to come across as some pro-authoritarianism masochist in this thread but am I really alone in thinking that there's some merit in deciding a set of laws, then enforcing them? Overstay your visa? Is that really a minor crime? Does that happen by accident? When was the last time you "accidentally" stayed more than 90 days in a foreign country? In my country, Australia, you'd be "punished" by being flown home at our expense. Wow. What a deterrent. That'll stop them .. er, using the same passport the next time they try. There are a lot of things to love about western society but the blind adherence to this 1970s "never harm the child" ideology is fucking crap. Corporal punishment works. It's as simple as that. We have dispensed with it in western culture - without an effective alternative - to our loss.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        Are you familiar with what caning, as performed as intended in Singapore, actually entails? It is not merely the infliction of pain, not some glorified form of spanking, but rather the infliction of bodily injury so severe that it requires immediate medical attention. It is barbaric, there is no nicer way to put it. Any reasonable human would consider it torture. Suggesting that it could ever be a suitable punishment for violating the terms of a visa is ludicrous. If that is the sort of thing that you want to buy into, then I guess all I can say is that the rest of western society is better off without your perspective.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    Really, then what exactly would you call it? You are essentially subject to all manner of ridiculous punishment for what would be considered minor or non-offenses in most free countries. Most of their elections are uncontested. You can dress it up because their streets are clean and safe, but it's still facism.
    - venus 14y ago
      > You are essentially subject to all manner of ridiculous punishment for what would be considered minor or non-offenses in most free countries Like vandalism and petty theft. And just look at how successful those "free countries" have been in addressing those categories of crime! What you call "ridiculous" is simply what you have been conditioned to think, no more. Elsewhere in the world it might be called "effective".
      - homosaur 14y ago
        Fascism is very effective. It's about values and freedom. If you don't care about that, safety is easy.
        venus 14y ago
        Corporal punishment of petty crimes == fascism. Is that your thesis? I believe you to be quite misinformed in your understanding of fascism, freedom, and everything else. As far as I can see, the only "freedom" on offer in the society you hint at is the freedom to not be punished effectively for your crimes. Please, Americans: if you have to mention the word "freedom" in your argument then you are probably talking shit. Think about it.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        Are you familiar with Sinclair? I've long been a fan of his definition of the term. As he puts it, fascism is one part capitalism and one part brutality (if I recall correctly I believe he specifies murder, but I think the relation and general sentiment is clear.)
  - flexie 14y ago
    Oh, but Singapore is a police state (a state where the government exercises rigid and oppressive laws). It is also a dictatorship. It may not be the worst of its kind in that it actually has (the thin conception of the) rule of law, but it's not a free country and it lacks decent human rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law_doctrine_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law_doctrine_in_Singapo...
    - sleepyhead 14y ago
      You are painting a very dark picture of a country which in practice works better and has less problems than the US.
    - lgieron 14y ago
      I think everyone agrees that dictatorship is superior to democracy IF the dictator is (and remains in the future) competent and also a decent human being. Maybe that's the state in Singapore right now?
      - flexie 14y ago
        I don't agree. I'd rather have the - sometimes - incompetent, corrupt and selfish democratically elected politicians of the US or Europe, than the 'benevolent dictator' (even if he existed). I really like the idea of democracy that much. It's not that I don't see your point. Often democracies are inefficient. I just still prefer democracy.
      - sigkill 14y ago
        You're right. I'm listening to the History of Rome, and even they had a dictator appointed during war to 'cut the crap and get on with things' in times of emergency. Time and again, it has been proven that a single benevolent dictator is much better for the country than a democratic system. The only problem is that it's hard to find someone who does not fall into the 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' category, which is why we as a society are rather uncomfortable with the idea of a dictator.
  - DigitalTurk 14y ago
    Well, you don't have free press (the ST is a joke) and you're not allowed to criticize politicians by name. I don't know if it's a police state, but it definitely isn't a free country either.
    - ValentineC 14y ago
      There are numerous internet publications where politicians are criticised by name, though many publications self-censor because politicians have often initiated (and won/settled) defamation lawsuits [1]. There have been numerous allegations on the independence and impartiality of the judiciary when it comes to said lawsuits, however [2]. It is true that no printed newspapers may be published in Singapore without a permit [3]. [1] http://therealsingapore.com/content/history-defamation-suits-and-other-similar-actions-singapore http://therealsingapore.com/content/history-defamation-suits... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence_in_Singapore#Defamation_suits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence_in_Singap... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Singapore#Newspapers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Singapore#Newspapers
- throwawaysnipe 14y ago
  Some replies to parent dispute the 'police state' moniker. Decide for yourself: (Source: http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/singapore http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/singap... . Points below are all direct quotes) * Singapore's Internal Security Act (ISA) and Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act permit the authorities to arrest and detain suspects for virtually unlimited periods of time without charge or judicial review. * The Misuse of Drugs Act permits the authorities to confine suspected drug users in "rehabilitation" centers for up to three years without trial. * Outdoor gatherings of five or more persons still require police permits. The city-state's Speakers Corner -- where people may demonstrate, perform, and hold exhibitions -- remains the only outdoor space where uncensored speech is allowed in the country. * The Singaporean government and senior government officials have frequently brought charges of "scandalizing the court," criminal and civil defamation, and sedition to silence and even bankrupt its critics. * Singapore's 208,000 foreign domestic workers are still excluded from the Employment Act and key labor protections, such as limits on daily work hours. * Human rights defenders in Singapore risk being fined, imprisoned, bankrupted, and banned from traveling outside the country without government approval.
  - wilfra 14y ago
    While these aren't good, they don't refute the commonly held belief that Singapore is essentially free from corruption. Human rights is another issue and on this they do very badly. They are among the worst places in the World to get arrested for basically anything and they have harsh laws that restrict all sorts of personal freedoms. But that's not corruption.
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      Well, the article in no way actually implies corruption. If the men in power decided that Shane's death needed to be covered up, and the men in uniforms followed orders - then that is exactly how a non-corrupt police state works; you have strict order but that order doesn't neccessarily favor the people. A corrupt state would have the relevant police officer be bribed individually and/or extracting favors from the relatives; corruption requires weak structure, where the system is centralised in theory but decentralised in practice, as decisions are made or changed by corrupt officials. But if the authority decides to do an evil thing and the system executes it without question - then that's a perfect example of an efficient, noncorrupt police state that achieves it's goals and spits at the costs.
- aerique 14y ago
  I do not think it possible to have a corrupt-free police state.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Not trying to invoke Godwin's law, but AFAIK both Stalin and Hitler had police states with rather little corruption; certainly far less corruption than nowadays Russia or mid-Africa.
    - homosaur 14y ago
      But those aren't police states at all, Russia and Central Africa. They are very poorly organized and great parts of the countries are lawless. They may have authoritarian governments but those governments have limited authority to enact things. And with Stalin/Hitler, you'd also have to look at the neighboring historical eras. For all you know Germany historically was also very non-corrupt. (not a challenge, if you do know, please speak!)
      - znowi 14y ago
        > They may have authoritarian governments but those governments have limited authority to enact things. Corruption is an integral part of the system in those countries. It is not that respective governments have limited authority (quite otherwise in actuality) - they allow this to happen. It is how they function. What you perceive as lawlessness is a normal (desired) state of affairs. If, for instance, you're a honest law enforcement official or a dutiful member of the parliament, you will not fit in and will have to either accept the rules of the system or be expelled (imprisoned or killed if you're stubborn).
      - st0p 14y ago
        > And with Stalin/Hitler, you'd also have to look at the neighboring historical eras. For all you know Germany historically was also very non-corrupt. (not a challenge, if you do know, please speak!) Doesn't matter, this still refutes the original statement.
  - 14y ago
- epsylon 14y ago
  This isn't corruption if they're following orders from above.
- _quasimodo 14y ago
  I think they are just corrupt on a much higher level. Sure, you might not have everyday bribery, but if a big company chooses to fuck you they will not have a problem with closing both eyes for a minute.
pingou 14y ago
Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile device or I'm from France but I'm told I can't read the article unless I register on ft.com. Does anybody have a link that might work better ?
- homosaur 14y ago
  http://pastebin.com/s2th4i04 http://pastebin.com/s2th4i04 I know this is poor, please check this out on the real site when you can.
- yareally 14y ago
  The pastebin given is probably good enough, but you can also run it through google cache (add cache: in front of the url and search for it on google). If it does not work still, add strip=1 to the end of the cache url so it does not load anything from the site. Here's a link to it with that + run through viewtext.org: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fclient%3Dopera%26q%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F2%2Fafbddb44-7640-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0.html%2523axzz2KzVJrFJo%26sourceid%3Dopera%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26strip%3D1%26complete%3D0%26pws%3D0 http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.google...
dba7dba 14y ago
Getting chills while reading the article. Another reason why ZTE and Huawei shouldn't be allowed near US telecom infrastructure. Sure not proven guilty in court but the association is too weird.
creamyhorror 14y ago
This story is all over my FB wall. Rest assured there are many concerned Singaporeans listening, and it'll be harder to ignore this case now that the FT has brought it to the world's attention. I'd like to hear the IME and police's side of the story, though - hopefully a higher body will conduct a proper investigation to settle the facts and determine motives. We rarely get serious cases of cover-ups being exposed, so if this is the real deal, it'll be a very interesting one, especially if it concerns foreign governments.
- varunkho 14y ago
  wondering why didn't the person possibly looking/cleaning the evidence from the harddrive take it with him in the first place? Isn't Suspense theory indicating something deeper? > Hours later, in the middle of the night, someone went into Shane’s hard drive and accessed five folders, all labelled IME. ... Since the time of Shane’s death is uncertain, Massoud could not say who looked at the IME files. > But Massoud found activity, again, on several more IME files on the night of June 27, three days after Shane’s body was found. He said someone looked at IME folders – including one labelled “Supervisor” and one labelled “Goal Setting” Edit: Usually the actual suspect would want to remove the evidence itself – in this case, the harddrive is carefully tampered with. Still the contained information is enough to put the blaim on a party – or the actual accuser is more profound than it is semed?
  - steve-howard 14y ago
    It's possible that his laptop, with the external hard drive, was accessed remotely, and that the "speaker" was simply removed by the police when they took the laptop. If it was on a corporate network (as it would be if he used it to back up data) then they might well have been exposed to some form of corporate spyware. Of course, we can't know with the computer under wraps.
    - varunkho 14y ago
      > But Massoud found activity, again, on several more IME files on the night of June 27, three days after Shane’s body was found. He said someone looked at IME folders – including one labelled “Supervisor” and one labelled “Goal Setting” ... One file in particular was opened and closed but closed improperly so that a “shadow” file was created. That shadow file was then deleted by the same person. Massoud located the original file on the drive – it was a PowerPoint presentation of the “Layer structure and summary of Veeco grown HEMT wafer”. This contains the scientific formula – a specific recipe – for enhancing a GaN chip. “In that two-minute window, someone is perusing. Something is happening. And it’s not automated, it’s a person.” Certainly harddrive is again manipulated long after it had been detached from the laptop by police.
AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
Families of the suicidal always blame everyone else.
- HeyImAlex 14y ago
  Did you actually read the entire story? While I'm wary of anything I read on the internet, if FT is being completely truthful you can't help but think that things are a bit odd. From the beginning I felt like it was probably just grieving parents gripping at straws, but the strangeness just kept piling up...
  - AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
    Things are odd, yes, but I imagine that suicide cases are quite frequently odd...
    - homosaur 14y ago
      I guess that means "no, I didn't read it."
    - Confusion 14y ago
      Not in the eyes of outsiders. In this case even outsiders, such as myself, think the story doesn't add up, provided the facts from the story are accurate. If the police says holes were drilled in the bathroom walls to bolt in a pulley and subsequently no holes are seen, then something is very wrong.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  No, they do not. Edit: you insensitive jerk.
- AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
  These sorts of cases - in which families accuse the police of complicity or incompetence during suicide investigations - are not exactly unknown. I recall reading accounts of a similarly "suspicious suicide" several years ago. It also included sympathetic interviews with a grieving family in denial. Read for yourself how that turned out: Initial suspicion report, 2007: http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-07-18/news/who-killed-hugues-de-la-plaza/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-07-18/news/who-killed-hugues-de... Example of another suspicion report: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-6599236.html?pageNum=1 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-6599236.html?pageNum=1 Whelp, "independent" (kinda) investigation says probably a suicide (2009): http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7020354 http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_fran... Some continue to push the murder theory (there are many more recent news articles too): http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com/ http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com/ The fact is, no one really knows. Once you hear the other side of the story, things get more convoluted. It seems that the police have a decent reason to classify it as a suicide, but it also seems that the case may have been a murder. So it's weird. These sorts of cases seem to pop up from time to time. Most likely some are murders, and most likely some are suicides. I'm not confident in my own ability to determine which is which by simply reading a highly biased account in a newspaper.
doktrin 14y ago
Meyi
nshepperd 14y ago
> The Todds agree that Shane’s hard drive may be a critical piece of evidence in how he died and could shed fresh light on the vulnerabilities of technology safeguards. But they question how the Singapore police have so far investigated Shane’s death, so they won’t hand over the drive. They are offering, instead, to send a copy of the contents of the drive. Good. This is pretty much the only sane way to handle digital evidence, anyway.
- maeon3 14y ago
  It's possible the hitmen could have cloned the drive, bought a replica, mirrored the contents and deleted any incriminating evidence, the parents are probably not advanced enough to know the difference between a file and a browser. I'd look for evidence that the hard drive shows evidence of usage by the victim here.
- aeze 14y ago
  Until you realize they're sending a logical copy with no hash of the original.
- njloof 14y ago
  Shane had no place taking home a copy of his work computer. Didn't deserve what happened, but that was just foolish... unless he was an informant.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    If he was fearing for his life, he could have been intending to use it as insurance.
contingencies 14y ago
Fellow hackers: stay away from anything connected to the defence industry. Security might be fun, it might pay well, but the ethics are terrible, things get used for bad purposes, and you can easily lose your freedom or worse.
- homosaur 14y ago
  Amen, my friend. Money: not fuckin' worth it.
  - eshvk 14y ago
    Counter perspective: I used to work in robotics and really the majority of the jobs are in defense or defense related. There are a handful (less now that willow garage is closing down) of robotics companies that do civilian work. Sometimes it is not just about the money.
    - homosaur 14y ago
      I don't work in the field I have a degree in. You have to judge these things against your own morals and ethics and decide whether working in your field is actually even a good thing.
      - white_devil 14y ago
        Faith in Humanity: +1pt
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  Shane Todd worked for the IME, a globally regarded research organisation based in a country that scored higher in the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index than the U.S. (87, #5 versus 73, #19) [1]. If he worked for the defence industry then so would an Oracle engineer deployed at Northrup Grumman or a SpaceX engineer in competing with Lockheed Martin. [1] http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/ http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/
rdl 14y ago
This is terrifying. Either it's a tragic suicide (which hurts even more given that there have been so many high-profile tech suicides recently), or it's an escalation of low-grade economic/technology/cybersecurity war between the US and China.
- homosaur 14y ago
  Not recently on the suicides, mate, always. The only recent thing is the rockstar status of these folks where it hits the news.
VexXtreme 14y ago
Sounds like a classic case of corporate murder. In the cozy world of web startups, we engineers have an incredible amount of freedom and control over our lives and what we do... but megacorps and companies connected to the defense/war industry are known for treating their engineers as fungible resources that can easily be disposed of once they get the job done. Sounds like something out of a hi-tech Tom Clancy spy novel? Think again, things like this happen for real, there's your proof. Like someone else said here, stay away from that industry altogether. For the people in control of that industry, engineers aren't super ninja rockstars like they would be at a Silicon Valley startup, they are just means to an end.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- homosaur 14y ago
  Western educated engineers are a dime a dozen in Asia for companies with large bank. White folks probably have a very confused view on this when they head out to Asia for work.
  - frrp 14y ago
    Interesting. Could you, please, elaborate on this? I would like to learn more about this issue so any good sources of information would be highly appreciated.
- miked 14y ago
  >> Sounds like a classic case of corporate murder. No, it sounds like a case of Chinese government murder, something they have plenty of experience with. They must have known that there was a good chance that he would talk to the US government. The more interesting aspect is that the IME, a agency of the Singaporean government, would appear to be in on at least the suppression of the story.
  - crdoconnor 14y ago
    To a policeman the explanation is always fairly simple. Murder's not common in Singapore, especially not 'corporate' murder but suicide is.
Matti 14y ago
Not the first death of that kind in Singapore: "Family suspects interference in David Widjaja case" http://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/363855 http://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/363855 "However, it appeared the court process was intentionally directed to a conclusion of suicide despite evidence showing a strong possibility of murder, according to David's family and the verification team. "We have strong evidence that he was murdered but that fact was not brought up in the court," David's father, Hartono Wijaya, told a press conference Tuesday at the National Commission on Human Rights." [...] "He added there was a suspicion David's death was related to his research: "Multiview Acquisition from Multi-camera Configuration for Person Adaptive 3D Display". "His friends said his three-dimensional study could be used for various purposes, either for entertainment or even for military needs." "And we must not forget that after David's death, there were two unusual deaths at NTU - his professor's assistant *committed suicide' four days later and another researcher was hit by a car 25 days later."" EDITED: Having read more about the specific case, it seems to me that the official story sounds plausible enough. It's not at all clear whether there was foul play involved.
- contingencies 14y ago
  Absolutely chilling. What are the odds of being hit by a car in Singapore? One would think that, given so few people have them and that there are so few roads large enough to speed down, with the culture being so conservative, drugs near-absent and surveillance omnipresent, that it would be rare indeed; further, it would be trivial to catch the perpetrator. Were they caught in this case? Not, I suppose. It feels as if western state-assisted assassinations of civilians are becoming a more frequently documented reality, and not just for CIA rendition, UAV or economic sanction victims, either.
  - lukeholder 14y ago
    I dont know much about these cases, but having lived in singapore you are just as likely to be hit by a fast moving car as anywhere. I saw people running across the ~4 lane orchard rd all the time while shopping.
    - 14y ago
ck2 14y ago
Huawei has been deemed a security risk by powerful US lawmakers Shane had deep misgivings about the project he was working on and feared he was compromising US national security The fact he didn't walk away in the first moment he felt this way, most likely means one of the US agencies killed him. We are apparently already allowed to kill citizens without trial when they are not on US soil. Well written article though and the presentation was helpful.
- disbelief 14y ago
  This is the first conclusion I came to as well. Some entity in the US would have the strongest motive. Possibly number two could be IME, if there's something they're trying to hide. Claims that it was perpetrated by China and/or the Singapore gov't hold less water for me.
- walshemj 14y ago
  Sounds like your not taking your meds - a us citizen who has joined terry taliban and in a war zone is not the same as having doubts about working for Huawei. The obvious thing to do in such circumstances is to offer your services to the CIA as an inside source.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  What is to be gained from killing an IME employee on the last day of his employment with IME?
- sophacles 14y ago
  I really don't think this follows. Even if we take everything presented in the article at face value, there are a lot of questions unasked (let alone answered) in the article: 1. How did he come to the conclusion/concern he might be violating US national security? Speculations: * He could have come to the conclusion on his own, he was apparently a smart guy. * He could have been asked about his work by embassy officials. * He could have heard/overheard a conversation that lead him down that path. * other reasons I don't have any knowledge of. 2. Once he became concerned, what actions did he take? Speculations: * He kept it to himself and his family. * Being described as an all-american boy, he could have gone to the US embassy with his concerns. The general perception of US citizens is if you report things like this, even if you're unintentionally involved, you are not targeted. * He could have started asking uncomfortable questions at work. 3. Why did he copy a bunch of (presumably NDA) "trade secret" research onto his own hard drive? Speculation: * He just wanted a copy of his work. (I know I've done this with certain bits of code) * He wanted to give a gift to his new employer * He wanted something to bargain with in case the USG investigated him. * He was just going to hand it to the embassy. * He didn't do it with any intent, it was just part of a normal backup routine and he didn't even think of it. 4. Why would that hard drive not have been destroyed or taken, particularly if it was accessed after death? (especially since the place was unlocked) Speculation: * Deep spy game stuff -- the accessed files were altered to be "wrong" * There isn't foul play * There is more dangerous information that they were really worried about, not the stuff he had * No one realized the information was not on the company network, and some IT guy was just spot-checking against official work to make sure stuff wasn't lost. 5. If there are national security implications, what things are we not being told because of classified? No speculation on my part here. I have no way of pretending to have a reasonable understanding of this world. 6. What don't we know about Shane Todd? (Not in a blame the victim way, but there is lots of a person's life that can't be described in an article of this size. Is there something about him his family didn't know? Is there something they are embarrassed to talk about?) Speculation dependent questions: 1. If he went to the USG as a good citizen, what did they do? * They could have advised him to not abruptly up and leave for personal security reasons. * They could have asked him to get them copies of the research. * They could have blown him off, or told him, "thanks, but don't worry about it". 2. Who are all the people who would be interested in targeting him? * His employers (as speculated/suggested in the article). * The US government, as you speculate. * Governments who pay/partner with his employers * Singapore government, wanting to keep various ties quiet 3. If they are after the research, why kill him rather than just steal his computers?
lystergic 14y ago
Quote1 [But the stress made him come back to God, she said. “Mom, can we pray?” Shane asked in April. “If I survive this, Father, I want to live my life to serve you.”] I find it odd that the Todd family did not invoke the attention of US gov earlier. They argue that Shane Todd had been anxious and feared for his life for some time before his death. Had that been the case, and Shane Todd was unable to leave Singapore due to his situation, surely the US gov should've been informed of the situation and help transfer Shane back to the US. The US gov would also have had an interest in doing so since Shane Todd had reported to his mother that he was possibly compromising the security of his home land due to his research in Singapore. Quote2 [“He said he felt he was being asked to compromise American security.”] Quote1 indicates Shane means to dedicate his life to 'God'(phrased Father) if he survives. I assume that any parent hearing their child stating this would immediately take action as to save the life of their child and thus contact some instance of US gov.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  Someone who worried he was harming national security and then continued at his position for any time could face repercussions from the USA government for that. Obviously in hindsight it would have been better to get Shane out of the whole situation by any means necessary. In general, however, you shouldn't get FBI files started on your loved ones. After all, what would seem more likely: that one will be hassled by the FBI after one's mother calls the FBI, or that one's widely-respected first-world-government-affiliated employer will orchestrate one's murder upon resignation?
confluence 14y ago
This kind of shit still happens? Holy crap. I'm probably going to be involved in the defense industry over the next decade - and this was a serious eye opener. Robotics is fun - getting killed for it isn't. I'm staying the hell away from foreign countries and contacts from now on.
- crusso 14y ago
  Not that we have great statistics on it, but it would seem that the odds of getting killed just because you're in the defense industry are negligible. You should be more concerned about traveling on the highway, traveling by plane, the food you put in your body, the amount of exercise you get, and how often you risk being hit by lightning. That said, if you find yourself in Asia being asked by agents of foreign governments to violate US security concerns... smile and nod your head then hastily get your ass to the US Embassy for debriefing and extraction.
arbus 14y ago
I'm a Singaporean and have served for some time in the military( Compulsory National Service as well as a short stint as a regular) and I think that the comments below seem to misunderstand the level of control that the government has over speech, people and companies in Singapore. We have many restrictive laws here but they are very selectively enforced. As long as you stay away from "hot" topics such as direct criticism of the ruling party and sensitive issues such as immigration, you are ok. But if you make too many waves, there are many ways in which such selective enforcement can come back to bite you. On an individual level, you will get much more attention on things like your tax returns. Your Provident Fund usage can be limited in many ways(It is a opaque system and they don't need to give you any justifications) If you own a company, it will also be subject to a much higher tax scrutiny. They can choke your company by limiting the number of foreign talent that you can hire( again an opaque process). They can reject your applications without any reasons and simply say better luck next year. Even with all these pressures, Singapore is a great place to do business and just enjoy a generally high quality of life as long as you don't do anything foolhardy or get really unlucky with the cards that you get dealt. On a side note, if the person in question above was involved in some tricky business, then I would not put it past this government to take drastic measures
- confluence 14y ago
  You are exhibiting some insane cognitive dissonance there. Your post is internally inconsistent. Singapore is Disneyland with a death penalty.
  - markdown 14y ago
    It's hard to understand, isn't it? However, I feel the same about where I live... Fiji. We're run by a dictator at present, but you wouldn't know it unless you got involved in anti-government "activities".
    - lgieron 14y ago
      In communist Poland it was basically the same... The ruling cronies didn't care about you as long as you didn't threaten their power.
siliconviking 14y ago
“The United States has offered FBI assistance to the Government of Singapore on the Shane Todd case" (but Singaporean authorities have not accepted the assistance) - what is the jurisdiction for the FBI to pursue this investigation without Singaporean consent? Doing that sounds like an appropriate measure at this stage (a little surprised that it hasn't already happened).
- DrJokepu 14y ago
  They have obviously no jurisdiction but they might have access experience, money, human resources, technology and information Singaporian authorities might not necessarily have access to. This kind of cooperation is fairly common in cases involving multiple countries, but obviously they can only conduct an investigation in Singapore with the consent of the Singaporean government. They are free to conduct an investigation within the United States, however.
  - siliconviking 14y ago
    But what exactly would stop the FBI from sending agents to Singapore and conducting their own investigation, with or without consent? Need it be covert, it could certainly be covert. I'm currently operating under the assumption (which seemed likely to me) that the Singaporean government / police had a motive for not wanting to involve the FBI. Hence the more reason for the FBI to be there.
  - ValentineC 14y ago
    I'm more curious as to why the Singaporean government has yet to accept the assistance. While Singapore may wish to protect its sovereignty when it comes to law enforcement (i.e. police), I feel more unsafe knowing that the police investigation was lacking (and possibly closed, considering they've considered it a suicide) compared to what the FT has reported. Not a good thing for a country widely perceived as having little crime.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
api 14y ago
I'm amazed at how many elite-school tech types idolize Singapore for some strange reason. I've heard a number of gushing recommendations for the place from the MIT/Harvard set. I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative.
- rdtsc 14y ago
  I find that libertarian types love it. Its dystopia is closer to their own dystopia.
  - dr_doom 14y ago
    I know it's anecdotal like your own post but I saw an Anthony Bourdain Singapore episode and he said it was one of the worst possible places for libertarians like himself. I know I hate it.
  - gph 14y ago
    Are you sure you meant libertarians? I don't see how anything about Singapore would fit in with libertarian ideology...
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      "Libertarian" has just become lingo for "people with political ideologies that I consider fringe". You can find people calling anarchist ideologies "libertarian" while also finding people willing to call those who dream of Singapore libertarians. There is not rhyme nor reason to it.
    - SilasX 14y ago
      Low tax rates, low burden of regulation, market-oriented systems for traditionally government-provided services (tolls for driving, making individuals bear a proportionate amount of the cost of health care), more individual control over government old-age savings system.
brown9-2 14y ago
Mrs Todd read the notes and handed them back to the detective. “My son might have killed himself, but he did not write this,” she said with some calm. The notes were surprising, she said later. One praised IME and its management. Another apologised for being a burden to his family. Neither sounded like Shane. One, Shane had never been a burden – “he had excelled at everything he put his mind to,” Mrs Todd said. Two, “he hated the way IME was run and the way top management treated people.” Shane’s girlfriend later said she was sure Shane’s last moments were not spent lauding IME. “He hated his job,” she said. It's always amazing how in (possible) conspiracies like this, the perpetrators make one simple mistake that so clearly gives the whole thing away.
- pyre 14y ago
  "By the way, Bob (who definitely did not kill me and fake it as a suicide) should get a promotion and maybe even a Christmas bonus this year for his excellent work!"
- raylu 14y ago
  The "being a burden to his family" bit really stuck out to me. That is something that has been deeply embedded into east Asian culture for a long time and would not be at all strange for an Asian to say. On the other hand, it's not something you usually hear from someone brought up in America.
  - brown9-2 14y ago
    I am not Asian but it the idea of praising your company's leadership, even on the brink of death, seems stereotypical "east Asian culture"ish too doesn't it?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
verytrivial 14y ago
I wonder if the Todd family have transcripts of the Skype calls where Shane aired his concerns regarding the demands being made of him, and what he was planning to do about it went back State-side -- I venture that the Chinese government does.
omilu 14y ago
My first thought was "oh no something happened to bunnie" and I felt physically sick as i opened the link.
christina32 14y ago
Very Sad...God bless !!
christina32 14y ago
Very Sad...God bless !!
john3572 14y ago
Pretty obvious that the Chinese military industrial complex had Shane Todd snuffed. The Singapore police and government are caught in the middle and had no other choice but to whitewash the whole thing. The obvious conclusion is that if you're a brilliant young American or European working on something sensitive in Singapore then this could happen to you too. Be very careful...
john3572 14y ago
Pretty obvious that the Chinese military industrial complex had Shane Todd snuffed. The Singapore police and government are caught in the middle and had no other choice but to whitewash the whole thing. The obvious conclusion is that if you're a brilliant young American or European working on something sensitive in Singapore then this could happen to you too. Be very careful...

459 points by Lightning 14y ago

With the Singapore media reporting nearly every event that happen on the island, from the mundane to the salacious, how is it that the unusual death of a young American expat gets no ink at all? Obviously a higher up must have ordered SPH to suppress the story. Why? As history has shown time and again, once there is a cover up, the bells should be ringing... Something's rotten in Singapore.

ftay 14y ago
Suicides generally don't get reported unless they are exceptional in some way (e.g. celebrities, murder-suicide combo)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

batgaijin 14y ago

Wow... that is beyond weird. From what I've read I always thought Singapore was quite the corrupt-free police state.

hboon 14y ago
It isn't a police state. And in recent years, it has been shown that it isn't corruption-free either.
- batgaijin 14y ago
  http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100537.htm http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100537.htm You get caned if you overstay your 90 days.
  - venus 14y ago
    And? How does that have any bearing on the story at hand whatsoever? As an entrepreneur who has seriously considered moving to singapore in the past I am much more interested in what can happen when you do obey their (quite reasonable) laws.
    - batgaijin 14y ago
      I think we all know if you're in asia stay as legal as possible. I'm just saying don't make an exception for Singapore.
      - venus 14y ago
        Fair enough. Good advice. I'm trying not to come across as some pro-authoritarianism masochist in this thread but am I really alone in thinking that there's some merit in deciding a set of laws, then enforcing them? Overstay your visa? Is that really a minor crime? Does that happen by accident? When was the last time you "accidentally" stayed more than 90 days in a foreign country? In my country, Australia, you'd be "punished" by being flown home at our expense. Wow. What a deterrent. That'll stop them .. er, using the same passport the next time they try. There are a lot of things to love about western society but the blind adherence to this 1970s "never harm the child" ideology is fucking crap. Corporal punishment works. It's as simple as that. We have dispensed with it in western culture - without an effective alternative - to our loss.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        Are you familiar with what caning, as performed as intended in Singapore, actually entails? It is not merely the infliction of pain, not some glorified form of spanking, but rather the infliction of bodily injury so severe that it requires immediate medical attention. It is barbaric, there is no nicer way to put it. Any reasonable human would consider it torture. Suggesting that it could ever be a suitable punishment for violating the terms of a visa is ludicrous. If that is the sort of thing that you want to buy into, then I guess all I can say is that the rest of western society is better off without your perspective.
- homosaur 14y ago
  Really, then what exactly would you call it? You are essentially subject to all manner of ridiculous punishment for what would be considered minor or non-offenses in most free countries. Most of their elections are uncontested. You can dress it up because their streets are clean and safe, but it's still facism.
  - venus 14y ago
    > You are essentially subject to all manner of ridiculous punishment for what would be considered minor or non-offenses in most free countries Like vandalism and petty theft. And just look at how successful those "free countries" have been in addressing those categories of crime! What you call "ridiculous" is simply what you have been conditioned to think, no more. Elsewhere in the world it might be called "effective".
    - homosaur 14y ago
      Fascism is very effective. It's about values and freedom. If you don't care about that, safety is easy.
      - venus 14y ago
        Corporal punishment of petty crimes == fascism. Is that your thesis? I believe you to be quite misinformed in your understanding of fascism, freedom, and everything else. As far as I can see, the only "freedom" on offer in the society you hint at is the freedom to not be punished effectively for your crimes. Please, Americans: if you have to mention the word "freedom" in your argument then you are probably talking shit. Think about it.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        Are you familiar with Sinclair? I've long been a fan of his definition of the term. As he puts it, fascism is one part capitalism and one part brutality (if I recall correctly I believe he specifies murder, but I think the relation and general sentiment is clear.)
- flexie 14y ago
  Oh, but Singapore is a police state (a state where the government exercises rigid and oppressive laws). It is also a dictatorship. It may not be the worst of its kind in that it actually has (the thin conception of the) rule of law, but it's not a free country and it lacks decent human rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law_doctrine_in_Singapore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law_doctrine_in_Singapo...
  - sleepyhead 14y ago
    You are painting a very dark picture of a country which in practice works better and has less problems than the US.
  - lgieron 14y ago
    I think everyone agrees that dictatorship is superior to democracy IF the dictator is (and remains in the future) competent and also a decent human being. Maybe that's the state in Singapore right now?
    - flexie 14y ago
      I don't agree. I'd rather have the - sometimes - incompetent, corrupt and selfish democratically elected politicians of the US or Europe, than the 'benevolent dictator' (even if he existed). I really like the idea of democracy that much. It's not that I don't see your point. Often democracies are inefficient. I just still prefer democracy.
    - sigkill 14y ago
      You're right. I'm listening to the History of Rome, and even they had a dictator appointed during war to 'cut the crap and get on with things' in times of emergency. Time and again, it has been proven that a single benevolent dictator is much better for the country than a democratic system. The only problem is that it's hard to find someone who does not fall into the 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' category, which is why we as a society are rather uncomfortable with the idea of a dictator.
- DigitalTurk 14y ago
  Well, you don't have free press (the ST is a joke) and you're not allowed to criticize politicians by name. I don't know if it's a police state, but it definitely isn't a free country either.
  - ValentineC 14y ago
    There are numerous internet publications where politicians are criticised by name, though many publications self-censor because politicians have often initiated (and won/settled) defamation lawsuits [1]. There have been numerous allegations on the independence and impartiality of the judiciary when it comes to said lawsuits, however [2]. It is true that no printed newspapers may be published in Singapore without a permit [3]. [1] http://therealsingapore.com/content/history-defamation-suits-and-other-similar-actions-singapore http://therealsingapore.com/content/history-defamation-suits... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence_in_Singapore#Defamation_suits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence_in_Singap... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Singapore#Newspapers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Singapore#Newspapers
throwawaysnipe 14y ago
Some replies to parent dispute the 'police state' moniker. Decide for yourself: (Source: http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/singapore http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/singap... . Points below are all direct quotes) * Singapore's Internal Security Act (ISA) and Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act permit the authorities to arrest and detain suspects for virtually unlimited periods of time without charge or judicial review. * The Misuse of Drugs Act permits the authorities to confine suspected drug users in "rehabilitation" centers for up to three years without trial. * Outdoor gatherings of five or more persons still require police permits. The city-state's Speakers Corner -- where people may demonstrate, perform, and hold exhibitions -- remains the only outdoor space where uncensored speech is allowed in the country. * The Singaporean government and senior government officials have frequently brought charges of "scandalizing the court," criminal and civil defamation, and sedition to silence and even bankrupt its critics. * Singapore's 208,000 foreign domestic workers are still excluded from the Employment Act and key labor protections, such as limits on daily work hours. * Human rights defenders in Singapore risk being fined, imprisoned, bankrupted, and banned from traveling outside the country without government approval.
- wilfra 14y ago
  While these aren't good, they don't refute the commonly held belief that Singapore is essentially free from corruption. Human rights is another issue and on this they do very badly. They are among the worst places in the World to get arrested for basically anything and they have harsh laws that restrict all sorts of personal freedoms. But that's not corruption.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Well, the article in no way actually implies corruption. If the men in power decided that Shane's death needed to be covered up, and the men in uniforms followed orders - then that is exactly how a non-corrupt police state works; you have strict order but that order doesn't neccessarily favor the people. A corrupt state would have the relevant police officer be bribed individually and/or extracting favors from the relatives; corruption requires weak structure, where the system is centralised in theory but decentralised in practice, as decisions are made or changed by corrupt officials. But if the authority decides to do an evil thing and the system executes it without question - then that's a perfect example of an efficient, noncorrupt police state that achieves it's goals and spits at the costs.
aerique 14y ago
I do not think it possible to have a corrupt-free police state.
- PeterisP 14y ago
  Not trying to invoke Godwin's law, but AFAIK both Stalin and Hitler had police states with rather little corruption; certainly far less corruption than nowadays Russia or mid-Africa.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    But those aren't police states at all, Russia and Central Africa. They are very poorly organized and great parts of the countries are lawless. They may have authoritarian governments but those governments have limited authority to enact things. And with Stalin/Hitler, you'd also have to look at the neighboring historical eras. For all you know Germany historically was also very non-corrupt. (not a challenge, if you do know, please speak!)
    - znowi 14y ago
      > They may have authoritarian governments but those governments have limited authority to enact things. Corruption is an integral part of the system in those countries. It is not that respective governments have limited authority (quite otherwise in actuality) - they allow this to happen. It is how they function. What you perceive as lawlessness is a normal (desired) state of affairs. If, for instance, you're a honest law enforcement official or a dutiful member of the parliament, you will not fit in and will have to either accept the rules of the system or be expelled (imprisoned or killed if you're stubborn).
    - st0p 14y ago
      > And with Stalin/Hitler, you'd also have to look at the neighboring historical eras. For all you know Germany historically was also very non-corrupt. (not a challenge, if you do know, please speak!) Doesn't matter, this still refutes the original statement.
- 14y ago
epsylon 14y ago
This isn't corruption if they're following orders from above.
_quasimodo 14y ago
I think they are just corrupt on a much higher level. Sure, you might not have everyday bribery, but if a big company chooses to fuck you they will not have a problem with closing both eyes for a minute.

pingou 14y ago

Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile device or I'm from France but I'm told I can't read the article unless I register on ft.com. Does anybody have a link that might work better ?

homosaur 14y ago
http://pastebin.com/s2th4i04 http://pastebin.com/s2th4i04 I know this is poor, please check this out on the real site when you can.
yareally 14y ago
The pastebin given is probably good enough, but you can also run it through google cache (add cache: in front of the url and search for it on google). If it does not work still, add strip=1 to the end of the cache url so it does not load anything from the site. Here's a link to it with that + run through viewtext.org: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fclient%3Dopera%26q%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F2%2Fafbddb44-7640-11e2-8eb6-00144feabdc0.html%2523axzz2KzVJrFJo%26sourceid%3Dopera%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26strip%3D1%26complete%3D0%26pws%3D0 http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.google...

dba7dba 14y ago

Getting chills while reading the article. Another reason why ZTE and Huawei shouldn't be allowed near US telecom infrastructure. Sure not proven guilty in court but the association is too weird.

creamyhorror 14y ago

This story is all over my FB wall. Rest assured there are many concerned Singaporeans listening, and it'll be harder to ignore this case now that the FT has brought it to the world's attention. I'd like to hear the IME and police's side of the story, though - hopefully a higher body will conduct a proper investigation to settle the facts and determine motives. We rarely get serious cases of cover-ups being exposed, so if this is the real deal, it'll be a very interesting one, especially if it concerns foreign governments.

varunkho 14y ago
wondering why didn't the person possibly looking/cleaning the evidence from the harddrive take it with him in the first place? Isn't Suspense theory indicating something deeper? > Hours later, in the middle of the night, someone went into Shane’s hard drive and accessed five folders, all labelled IME. ... Since the time of Shane’s death is uncertain, Massoud could not say who looked at the IME files. > But Massoud found activity, again, on several more IME files on the night of June 27, three days after Shane’s body was found. He said someone looked at IME folders – including one labelled “Supervisor” and one labelled “Goal Setting” Edit: Usually the actual suspect would want to remove the evidence itself – in this case, the harddrive is carefully tampered with. Still the contained information is enough to put the blaim on a party – or the actual accuser is more profound than it is semed?
- steve-howard 14y ago
  It's possible that his laptop, with the external hard drive, was accessed remotely, and that the "speaker" was simply removed by the police when they took the laptop. If it was on a corporate network (as it would be if he used it to back up data) then they might well have been exposed to some form of corporate spyware. Of course, we can't know with the computer under wraps.
  - varunkho 14y ago
    > But Massoud found activity, again, on several more IME files on the night of June 27, three days after Shane’s body was found. He said someone looked at IME folders – including one labelled “Supervisor” and one labelled “Goal Setting” ... One file in particular was opened and closed but closed improperly so that a “shadow” file was created. That shadow file was then deleted by the same person. Massoud located the original file on the drive – it was a PowerPoint presentation of the “Layer structure and summary of Veeco grown HEMT wafer”. This contains the scientific formula – a specific recipe – for enhancing a GaN chip. “In that two-minute window, someone is perusing. Something is happening. And it’s not automated, it’s a person.” Certainly harddrive is again manipulated long after it had been detached from the laptop by police.

AlexeiSadeski 14y ago

Families of the suicidal always blame everyone else.

HeyImAlex 14y ago
Did you actually read the entire story? While I'm wary of anything I read on the internet, if FT is being completely truthful you can't help but think that things are a bit odd. From the beginning I felt like it was probably just grieving parents gripping at straws, but the strangeness just kept piling up...
- AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
  Things are odd, yes, but I imagine that suicide cases are quite frequently odd...
  - homosaur 14y ago
    I guess that means "no, I didn't read it."
  - Confusion 14y ago
    Not in the eyes of outsiders. In this case even outsiders, such as myself, think the story doesn't add up, provided the facts from the story are accurate. If the police says holes were drilled in the bathroom walls to bolt in a pulley and subsequently no holes are seen, then something is very wrong.
chris_wot 14y ago
No, they do not. Edit: you insensitive jerk.
AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
These sorts of cases - in which families accuse the police of complicity or incompetence during suicide investigations - are not exactly unknown. I recall reading accounts of a similarly "suspicious suicide" several years ago. It also included sympathetic interviews with a grieving family in denial. Read for yourself how that turned out: Initial suspicion report, 2007: http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-07-18/news/who-killed-hugues-de-la-plaza/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-07-18/news/who-killed-hugues-de... Example of another suspicion report: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-6599236.html?pageNum=1 http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-6599236.html?pageNum=1 Whelp, "independent" (kinda) investigation says probably a suicide (2009): http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7020354 http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_fran... Some continue to push the murder theory (there are many more recent news articles too): http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com/ http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com/ The fact is, no one really knows. Once you hear the other side of the story, things get more convoluted. It seems that the police have a decent reason to classify it as a suicide, but it also seems that the case may have been a murder. So it's weird. These sorts of cases seem to pop up from time to time. Most likely some are murders, and most likely some are suicides. I'm not confident in my own ability to determine which is which by simply reading a highly biased account in a newspaper.

doktrin 14y ago

Meyi

nshepperd 14y ago

> The Todds agree that Shane’s hard drive may be a critical piece of evidence in how he died and could shed fresh light on the vulnerabilities of technology safeguards. But they question how the Singapore police have so far investigated Shane’s death, so they won’t hand over the drive. They are offering, instead, to send a copy of the contents of the drive. Good. This is pretty much the only sane way to handle digital evidence, anyway.

maeon3 14y ago
It's possible the hitmen could have cloned the drive, bought a replica, mirrored the contents and deleted any incriminating evidence, the parents are probably not advanced enough to know the difference between a file and a browser. I'd look for evidence that the hard drive shows evidence of usage by the victim here.
aeze 14y ago
Until you realize they're sending a logical copy with no hash of the original.
njloof 14y ago
Shane had no place taking home a copy of his work computer. Didn't deserve what happened, but that was just foolish... unless he was an informant.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  If he was fearing for his life, he could have been intending to use it as insurance.

contingencies 14y ago

Fellow hackers: stay away from anything connected to the defence industry. Security might be fun, it might pay well, but the ethics are terrible, things get used for bad purposes, and you can easily lose your freedom or worse.

homosaur 14y ago
Amen, my friend. Money: not fuckin' worth it.
- eshvk 14y ago
  Counter perspective: I used to work in robotics and really the majority of the jobs are in defense or defense related. There are a handful (less now that willow garage is closing down) of robotics companies that do civilian work. Sometimes it is not just about the money.
  - homosaur 14y ago
    I don't work in the field I have a degree in. You have to judge these things against your own morals and ethics and decide whether working in your field is actually even a good thing.
    - white_devil 14y ago
      Faith in Humanity: +1pt
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
Shane Todd worked for the IME, a globally regarded research organisation based in a country that scored higher in the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index than the U.S. (87, #5 versus 73, #19) [1]. If he worked for the defence industry then so would an Oracle engineer deployed at Northrup Grumman or a SpaceX engineer in competing with Lockheed Martin. [1] http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/ http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/

rdl 14y ago

This is terrifying. Either it's a tragic suicide (which hurts even more given that there have been so many high-profile tech suicides recently), or it's an escalation of low-grade economic/technology/cybersecurity war between the US and China.

homosaur 14y ago
Not recently on the suicides, mate, always. The only recent thing is the rockstar status of these folks where it hits the news.

VexXtreme 14y ago

Sounds like a classic case of corporate murder. In the cozy world of web startups, we engineers have an incredible amount of freedom and control over our lives and what we do... but megacorps and companies connected to the defense/war industry are known for treating their engineers as fungible resources that can easily be disposed of once they get the job done. Sounds like something out of a hi-tech Tom Clancy spy novel? Think again, things like this happen for real, there's your proof. Like someone else said here, stay away from that industry altogether. For the people in control of that industry, engineers aren't super ninja rockstars like they would be at a Silicon Valley startup, they are just means to an end.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
homosaur 14y ago
Western educated engineers are a dime a dozen in Asia for companies with large bank. White folks probably have a very confused view on this when they head out to Asia for work.
- frrp 14y ago
  Interesting. Could you, please, elaborate on this? I would like to learn more about this issue so any good sources of information would be highly appreciated.
miked 14y ago
>> Sounds like a classic case of corporate murder. No, it sounds like a case of Chinese government murder, something they have plenty of experience with. They must have known that there was a good chance that he would talk to the US government. The more interesting aspect is that the IME, a agency of the Singaporean government, would appear to be in on at least the suppression of the story.
- crdoconnor 14y ago
  To a policeman the explanation is always fairly simple. Murder's not common in Singapore, especially not 'corporate' murder but suicide is.

Matti 14y ago

Not the first death of that kind in Singapore: "Family suspects interference in David Widjaja case" http://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/363855 http://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/363855 "However, it appeared the court process was intentionally directed to a conclusion of suicide despite evidence showing a strong possibility of murder, according to David's family and the verification team. "We have strong evidence that he was murdered but that fact was not brought up in the court," David's father, Hartono Wijaya, told a press conference Tuesday at the National Commission on Human Rights." [...] "He added there was a suspicion David's death was related to his research: "Multiview Acquisition from Multi-camera Configuration for Person Adaptive 3D Display". "His friends said his three-dimensional study could be used for various purposes, either for entertainment or even for military needs." "And we must not forget that after David's death, there were two unusual deaths at NTU - his professor's assistant *committed suicide' four days later and another researcher was hit by a car 25 days later."" EDITED: Having read more about the specific case, it seems to me that the official story sounds plausible enough. It's not at all clear whether there was foul play involved.

contingencies 14y ago
Absolutely chilling. What are the odds of being hit by a car in Singapore? One would think that, given so few people have them and that there are so few roads large enough to speed down, with the culture being so conservative, drugs near-absent and surveillance omnipresent, that it would be rare indeed; further, it would be trivial to catch the perpetrator. Were they caught in this case? Not, I suppose. It feels as if western state-assisted assassinations of civilians are becoming a more frequently documented reality, and not just for CIA rendition, UAV or economic sanction victims, either.
- lukeholder 14y ago
  I dont know much about these cases, but having lived in singapore you are just as likely to be hit by a fast moving car as anywhere. I saw people running across the ~4 lane orchard rd all the time while shopping.
  - 14y ago

ck2 14y ago

Huawei has been deemed a security risk by powerful US lawmakers Shane had deep misgivings about the project he was working on and feared he was compromising US national security The fact he didn't walk away in the first moment he felt this way, most likely means one of the US agencies killed him. We are apparently already allowed to kill citizens without trial when they are not on US soil. Well written article though and the presentation was helpful.

disbelief 14y ago
This is the first conclusion I came to as well. Some entity in the US would have the strongest motive. Possibly number two could be IME, if there's something they're trying to hide. Claims that it was perpetrated by China and/or the Singapore gov't hold less water for me.
walshemj 14y ago
Sounds like your not taking your meds - a us citizen who has joined terry taliban and in a war zone is not the same as having doubts about working for Huawei. The obvious thing to do in such circumstances is to offer your services to the CIA as an inside source.
brown9-2 14y ago
What is to be gained from killing an IME employee on the last day of his employment with IME?
sophacles 14y ago
I really don't think this follows. Even if we take everything presented in the article at face value, there are a lot of questions unasked (let alone answered) in the article: 1. How did he come to the conclusion/concern he might be violating US national security? Speculations: * He could have come to the conclusion on his own, he was apparently a smart guy. * He could have been asked about his work by embassy officials. * He could have heard/overheard a conversation that lead him down that path. * other reasons I don't have any knowledge of. 2. Once he became concerned, what actions did he take? Speculations: * He kept it to himself and his family. * Being described as an all-american boy, he could have gone to the US embassy with his concerns. The general perception of US citizens is if you report things like this, even if you're unintentionally involved, you are not targeted. * He could have started asking uncomfortable questions at work. 3. Why did he copy a bunch of (presumably NDA) "trade secret" research onto his own hard drive? Speculation: * He just wanted a copy of his work. (I know I've done this with certain bits of code) * He wanted to give a gift to his new employer * He wanted something to bargain with in case the USG investigated him. * He was just going to hand it to the embassy. * He didn't do it with any intent, it was just part of a normal backup routine and he didn't even think of it. 4. Why would that hard drive not have been destroyed or taken, particularly if it was accessed after death? (especially since the place was unlocked) Speculation: * Deep spy game stuff -- the accessed files were altered to be "wrong" * There isn't foul play * There is more dangerous information that they were really worried about, not the stuff he had * No one realized the information was not on the company network, and some IT guy was just spot-checking against official work to make sure stuff wasn't lost. 5. If there are national security implications, what things are we not being told because of classified? No speculation on my part here. I have no way of pretending to have a reasonable understanding of this world. 6. What don't we know about Shane Todd? (Not in a blame the victim way, but there is lots of a person's life that can't be described in an article of this size. Is there something about him his family didn't know? Is there something they are embarrassed to talk about?) Speculation dependent questions: 1. If he went to the USG as a good citizen, what did they do? * They could have advised him to not abruptly up and leave for personal security reasons. * They could have asked him to get them copies of the research. * They could have blown him off, or told him, "thanks, but don't worry about it". 2. Who are all the people who would be interested in targeting him? * His employers (as speculated/suggested in the article). * The US government, as you speculate. * Governments who pay/partner with his employers * Singapore government, wanting to keep various ties quiet 3. If they are after the research, why kill him rather than just steal his computers?

lystergic 14y ago

Quote1 [But the stress made him come back to God, she said. “Mom, can we pray?” Shane asked in April. “If I survive this, Father, I want to live my life to serve you.”] I find it odd that the Todd family did not invoke the attention of US gov earlier. They argue that Shane Todd had been anxious and feared for his life for some time before his death. Had that been the case, and Shane Todd was unable to leave Singapore due to his situation, surely the US gov should've been informed of the situation and help transfer Shane back to the US. The US gov would also have had an interest in doing so since Shane Todd had reported to his mother that he was possibly compromising the security of his home land due to his research in Singapore. Quote2 [“He said he felt he was being asked to compromise American security.”] Quote1 indicates Shane means to dedicate his life to 'God'(phrased Father) if he survives. I assume that any parent hearing their child stating this would immediately take action as to save the life of their child and thus contact some instance of US gov.

jessaustin 14y ago
Someone who worried he was harming national security and then continued at his position for any time could face repercussions from the USA government for that. Obviously in hindsight it would have been better to get Shane out of the whole situation by any means necessary. In general, however, you shouldn't get FBI files started on your loved ones. After all, what would seem more likely: that one will be hassled by the FBI after one's mother calls the FBI, or that one's widely-respected first-world-government-affiliated employer will orchestrate one's murder upon resignation?

confluence 14y ago

This kind of shit still happens? Holy crap. I'm probably going to be involved in the defense industry over the next decade - and this was a serious eye opener. Robotics is fun - getting killed for it isn't. I'm staying the hell away from foreign countries and contacts from now on.

crusso 14y ago
Not that we have great statistics on it, but it would seem that the odds of getting killed just because you're in the defense industry are negligible. You should be more concerned about traveling on the highway, traveling by plane, the food you put in your body, the amount of exercise you get, and how often you risk being hit by lightning. That said, if you find yourself in Asia being asked by agents of foreign governments to violate US security concerns... smile and nod your head then hastily get your ass to the US Embassy for debriefing and extraction.

arbus 14y ago

I'm a Singaporean and have served for some time in the military( Compulsory National Service as well as a short stint as a regular) and I think that the comments below seem to misunderstand the level of control that the government has over speech, people and companies in Singapore. We have many restrictive laws here but they are very selectively enforced. As long as you stay away from "hot" topics such as direct criticism of the ruling party and sensitive issues such as immigration, you are ok. But if you make too many waves, there are many ways in which such selective enforcement can come back to bite you. On an individual level, you will get much more attention on things like your tax returns. Your Provident Fund usage can be limited in many ways(It is a opaque system and they don't need to give you any justifications) If you own a company, it will also be subject to a much higher tax scrutiny. They can choke your company by limiting the number of foreign talent that you can hire( again an opaque process). They can reject your applications without any reasons and simply say better luck next year. Even with all these pressures, Singapore is a great place to do business and just enjoy a generally high quality of life as long as you don't do anything foolhardy or get really unlucky with the cards that you get dealt. On a side note, if the person in question above was involved in some tricky business, then I would not put it past this government to take drastic measures

confluence 14y ago
You are exhibiting some insane cognitive dissonance there. Your post is internally inconsistent. Singapore is Disneyland with a death penalty.
- markdown 14y ago
  It's hard to understand, isn't it? However, I feel the same about where I live... Fiji. We're run by a dictator at present, but you wouldn't know it unless you got involved in anti-government "activities".
  - lgieron 14y ago
    In communist Poland it was basically the same... The ruling cronies didn't care about you as long as you didn't threaten their power.

siliconviking 14y ago

“The United States has offered FBI assistance to the Government of Singapore on the Shane Todd case" (but Singaporean authorities have not accepted the assistance) - what is the jurisdiction for the FBI to pursue this investigation without Singaporean consent? Doing that sounds like an appropriate measure at this stage (a little surprised that it hasn't already happened).

DrJokepu 14y ago
They have obviously no jurisdiction but they might have access experience, money, human resources, technology and information Singaporian authorities might not necessarily have access to. This kind of cooperation is fairly common in cases involving multiple countries, but obviously they can only conduct an investigation in Singapore with the consent of the Singaporean government. They are free to conduct an investigation within the United States, however.
- siliconviking 14y ago
  But what exactly would stop the FBI from sending agents to Singapore and conducting their own investigation, with or without consent? Need it be covert, it could certainly be covert. I'm currently operating under the assumption (which seemed likely to me) that the Singaporean government / police had a motive for not wanting to involve the FBI. Hence the more reason for the FBI to be there.
- ValentineC 14y ago
  I'm more curious as to why the Singaporean government has yet to accept the assistance. While Singapore may wish to protect its sovereignty when it comes to law enforcement (i.e. police), I feel more unsafe knowing that the police investigation was lacking (and possibly closed, considering they've considered it a suicide) compared to what the FT has reported. Not a good thing for a country widely perceived as having little crime.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

api 14y ago

I'm amazed at how many elite-school tech types idolize Singapore for some strange reason. I've heard a number of gushing recommendations for the place from the MIT/Harvard set. I personally see it as some kind of horrible sci-fi "Stepford Wives" "smile or die" dystopia... like a yuppie latte-sipping upscale version of North Korea. It makes me thankful for ghettoes and dirt and bums, given the alternative.

rdtsc 14y ago
I find that libertarian types love it. Its dystopia is closer to their own dystopia.
- dr_doom 14y ago
  I know it's anecdotal like your own post but I saw an Anthony Bourdain Singapore episode and he said it was one of the worst possible places for libertarians like himself. I know I hate it.
- gph 14y ago
  Are you sure you meant libertarians? I don't see how anything about Singapore would fit in with libertarian ideology...
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    "Libertarian" has just become lingo for "people with political ideologies that I consider fringe". You can find people calling anarchist ideologies "libertarian" while also finding people willing to call those who dream of Singapore libertarians. There is not rhyme nor reason to it.
  - SilasX 14y ago
    Low tax rates, low burden of regulation, market-oriented systems for traditionally government-provided services (tolls for driving, making individuals bear a proportionate amount of the cost of health care), more individual control over government old-age savings system.

brown9-2 14y ago

Mrs Todd read the notes and handed them back to the detective. “My son might have killed himself, but he did not write this,” she said with some calm. The notes were surprising, she said later. One praised IME and its management. Another apologised for being a burden to his family. Neither sounded like Shane. One, Shane had never been a burden – “he had excelled at everything he put his mind to,” Mrs Todd said. Two, “he hated the way IME was run and the way top management treated people.” Shane’s girlfriend later said she was sure Shane’s last moments were not spent lauding IME. “He hated his job,” she said. It's always amazing how in (possible) conspiracies like this, the perpetrators make one simple mistake that so clearly gives the whole thing away.

pyre 14y ago
"By the way, Bob (who definitely did not kill me and fake it as a suicide) should get a promotion and maybe even a Christmas bonus this year for his excellent work!"
raylu 14y ago
The "being a burden to his family" bit really stuck out to me. That is something that has been deeply embedded into east Asian culture for a long time and would not be at all strange for an Asian to say. On the other hand, it's not something you usually hear from someone brought up in America.
- brown9-2 14y ago
  I am not Asian but it the idea of praising your company's leadership, even on the brink of death, seems stereotypical "east Asian culture"ish too doesn't it?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

verytrivial 14y ago

I wonder if the Todd family have transcripts of the Skype calls where Shane aired his concerns regarding the demands being made of him, and what he was planning to do about it went back State-side -- I venture that the Chinese government does.

omilu 14y ago

My first thought was "oh no something happened to bunnie" and I felt physically sick as i opened the link.

christina32 14y ago

Very Sad...God bless !!

christina32 14y ago

Very Sad...God bless !!

john3572 14y ago

Pretty obvious that the Chinese military industrial complex had Shane Todd snuffed. The Singapore police and government are caught in the middle and had no other choice but to whitewash the whole thing. The obvious conclusion is that if you're a brilliant young American or European working on something sensitive in Singapore then this could happen to you too. Be very careful...

john3572 14y ago