When Terrorism Is Not Terrorism

 Read:

• http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/hacking-attacks-are-nothing-short-terrorism-k-shanmugam
• http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/any-form-cyber-attack-threat-people-yaacob

What is Terrorism:

Terrorism is an act that brings terror to the people and cause collateral damages. Terrorist attacks caused by Terrorism are usually targeted against civilian targets to bring unrest and cause fear in the minds of the people to force the people to conform to mental behaviours the attackers want the people to exhibit all for the intent of a specific political outcome.

According to Oxford Dictionaries, the definition of Terrorism can be found here.

According to Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, the definition of Terrorism can be found here.

Applicability of Terrorism:

Let us investigate into the applicability of the term of Terrorism for the hacktivism that Anonymous carried out. The Anonymous defaced the webpages and executed Denial of Service attacks on the digital assets of the Singapore Government. That is considered vandalism .... NOT VIOLENCE !

Did Anonymous go in and wipe off databases and critical operations data on the digital assets of the Singapore Government ? So far there is no evidence to suggest that violence a.k.a deleting or corrupting databases and data assets of Singapore Government actually took place.

Violence would have meant that Anonymous got in and simply dump stuff all over the place, deleted data, corrupted files or in a more severe scenario, they could have used compromised systems to meddle with the traffic lights, train services, military signalling ... etc ... but nothing happened to us in the physical world. Everything got on fine and people have the luxury of time to point fingers on whose fault it is that allowed Anonymous to compromise and get into the digital systems of the Singapore Government. All the Anonymous did was simply voiced themselves using the compromised systems and nothing more than that to make themselves heard.

Cheapening of the word "Terrorism":

• Here is Bruce Schneier's lament on the cheapening of the use of the word "Terrorism".

Conclusion:

I agree with security expert, Bruce Schneier, on the cheapening of the word "Terrorism" and the rampant use of it these days by those who are unhappy and would like to push their fault onto others. Why didn't the Singapore Government ensure the security of their digital assets and allow some loose hacktivist group like Anonymous to pwnz them and their digital assets. The Government is suppose to dictate and set a high security standard for the local industry to follow in order to secure our nation's e-commerce capabilities but it seems the Singapore Government failed to do so in setting up a good example.

March of Hypocritism

Read:

• http://sg.news.yahoo.com/saf-halts-singing-of-‘misogynist--lyrics-from-marching-song--aware-064151720.html

We should replace all the army songs with something more suitable to the atmosphere with the song below. It shall be mandatory that all NSF and NSMen are to memorize this song by heart in honour and glory of our nation's decisive and wise decisions.

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

All day round. 

Sing this splendid marching song,

Oh comrades at arms.

Trololol trololol...

This is the only song we can sing,

For the splendid glory of the country. 

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

All month round. 

Raping and fucking is disallowed,

Only beating ass and murdering is allowed.

Trololol trololol...

For the hypocrites we are and those we please,

Gloriously singing this righteous song,

So it is... 

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

All year round. 

Sing this splendid marching song,

For we fear we may displease the powers that be.

Trololol trololol...

For the glorious hypocrisy we sing this song,

Without which we shall all perish,

Ohohoh... 

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

The march of the hypocrites goes trololol trololol,

Endlessly....

Which army songs do not contain vulgarities ? These stuff are not meant to be taken seriously and are simply used to boost morale for the troops that are suffering from fatigue during long marches carrying heavy loads on their bodies. The human mind simply brighten up when they are in contact with such phrases due to conditioning and these songs have been there for a long time as an army heritage connecting the past to the present and future. The sudden guilt feeling and removal of 'misogynist' lyrics is simply a bad knee jerk reaction and a displeasure to old heritage... oh and not to forget ... the ever rampant hypocrisies we face in the army besides the normal workplace.

De-Anonymizing In Doubt

Read:

• http://sg.news.yahoo.com/james-raj--35--charged-for-hacking-ang-mo-kio-town-council-website-034350228.html
• http://sg.news.yahoo.com/15-singaporeans--assisting--police-over--million-mask-march--assembly-125952286.html

The Government of Singapore attempted to put headlines for their supposed arrest of people connected to Anonymous hacktivists in certain ways be it outright physical protest or hacktivism. The mode they exude is kind of like "Yeah, we scored goal" when they charged a guy named James Raj for supposedly hacking the Ang Mo Kio Town Council site and supposedly signing off as the elusive "The Messiah" who have coordinated hacktivist activities against the digital properties owned by the Singapore Government.

In my opinion, as I have experienced in previous posts, Anonymous and "The Messiah" are simply names that anyone can use to spoof their actual identities with fake aliases. In fact, the Singapore Government had made no headways (in my view) on finding out the true faces of this elusive group of hacktivists called "Anonymous". The US Government have spent so much efforts and resources in multiple attempts to unmask the so-called "Anonymous" and to exterminate them but they are still alive and kicking really hard.

According to the news reports, the Singapore Government quickly announced that they have made headways into investigation on the attacks made by "The Messiah" and Anonymous only some days after the hacking sprees have passed. I am really doubtful if the Singapore Government got their things right because an investigation is not a simple affair and simply takes huge amount of time and effort for a single hack to be investigated let alone the multiple disruptions "The Messiah" have created on the Singapore Government's digital assets.

I am pretty doubtful on the capabilities of the Singapore Government to be able to quickly nab the supposed "Messiah" in such a short time given the fact that collecting evidence from a single crime scene is already hard enough as the investigators need to decide on computer forensic methodologies to extract evidences from a single crime scene. Here we have multiple crime scenes (multiple exploited digital assets / websites / servers) that have been created by "The Messiah" and Anonymous. One can imagine the vast extend of resources and capabilities that have to be committed to such a massive investigation. Besides collecting crime scene evidences, the work to restore so many compromised assets and to harden all of them from future attacks is a surmounting task to be completed in a short amount of time. Where would there be enough time and resource to commit a verdict that the Singapore Government have found extensive evidences relating to "The Messiah" and Anonymous ?

The 15 people who have been arrested for attempting a protest dressed in Guy Fawkes mask might be "helpful" to the Singapore Government by the use of coercion or abuses and turned as spies or to reveal identities or methodologies regarding Anonymous or "The Messiah" if they have information regarding them. Who knows what the Singapore Government would do to them keeping in mind that the Singapore Government's may use ruthless techniques in extracting information are not different from that of their allies.

I wonder how much headway the Singapore Government would make in an attempt to unmask the attackers against their digital assets considering the technical expertise of the Anonymous and "The Messiah" are not that of some amateur's show. The use of strong encryption, authentication and identity anonymisation used by the Anonymous and coupled with Anonymous as a loose group and an identity that anyone can use to their own likings makes it harder to understand and unmask them.

If the Singapore Government could release their evidences transparently in public for the academic groups to study, it will allow a better understanding on the extend of damage the Government have faced from the attacks by the Anonymous and would also allow the public to comprehend the current situation and a fair trail for those who are involved as I am doubtful that the Government of Singapore have gotten anything useful and I would suspect a mis-trail or a possible chain of miscarriage of justice that might occur if the Singapore Government are not fully transparent on their investigations and evidences.

I would also encourage the Singapore Government to engage in more dialogues with citizens to listen to any grievances rather than their usual tactic of sueing people whenever they find their egos butt hurt or hulling them into a dark corner whenever they please and also to be more transparent in their workings to be ahead of other world Governments out there and to set a standard for other Governments to follow and for the people of Singapore to respect.

Anonymous and SG Govt

Here is some of my personal comments on the current Anonymous activities against the SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT.

Read this:
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/anonymous-threatens-singapore-government-in-youtube-video-091443515.html

Watch this:

INTRODUCTIONS:
The Anonymous hacktivist group, in a few campaigns of their own, have threatened the SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT (instead of Singaporeans) and managed to infiltrate the servers belonging to the SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT (SG Govt). The Prime Minister's Office web servers were not spared when the SG Govt threatened to capture members of the Anonymous who are responsible for attacking the servers of  the SG Govt. SG Govt loyalist and news agencies under the direct command of the SG Govt attempts to misrepresent these events as a direct cyber attack against Singapore and her citizens in an attempt to enrage the Singapore citizens into denouncing the Anonymous hacktivist group. IDENTIFYING ANONYMOUS: Before anyone can attempt to identify the members of the Anonymous hacktivist group, a brief understanding on what the Anonymous group is and how it operates is the key to attempting to identify possible Anonymous members. Anonymous is a loose collective of hacktivist that does not have a central command structure. They have their own sub-groups and territories but most of them are loosely associated that uses the power of the loose collective of hacktivist to execute and coordinate their operations. Since they are a loose group with no central command, it is very hard to identify them. The only way to identify members of the Anonymous whom have attacked the SG Govt's servers is either they betray their comrade's identity or they reveal their own identity consciously or accidentally. CYBERWAR: Some people will consider the attacks by Anonymous as a cyberwar against Singapore or the SG Govt but let me assure anyone reading, a cyberwar defined by Security Experts like Bruce Schneier defines cyberwar as multiple countries engaging each other in warfare using electronic means during wartime events. So, for those who love to promote such hacktivist events as cyberwar, you are trying real hard to deceive the public and love promoting FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Shame on those who blame this event as a cyberwar attempt.
TECHNICALITIES: Technology plays a big part in this event. The SG Govt use a mix of Java technology, Microsoft's .NET technology and Microsoft's IIS servers. It is not difficult to identify the technologies used by observing the page types (.JSP, .JSPX, .ASP, .ASPX, .do) and from the HTTP headers when interacting with their servers. Java have been known to have a whole sleuth of zero-day holes and critical bugs that have not been fixed yet. Some of the Java bugs that are critical have not been fixed for ages. The .NET technology has their own critical bugs but they are not as well known as the problems found in Java technology. Microsoft Server technologies like the Microsoft IIS have always been shunned by security conscious users due to the fact that Microsoft (it's Operating System and technologies) have lots of bugs that have not been fully addressed and fixed. Although the Linux OS and other Open Source alternatives do have their bugs and issues, they have a tendency of being patched at a faster rate due to their Open Source nature where anyone can grab the codes and inspect them with ease without the hassles of restrictive corporate licenses and procedures and push out patches at a faster rate than their Closed Source Microsoft competitors.
One of the issues with tracking down the Anonymous attackers are the anonymity of the Tor network they use as part of their tools. The Tor network routes communications within it's own virtual private network making them anonymous as Tor is designed to use encryption and plausible deniability technologies when handling communications. That means, anyone can be accused of being the source of any communications due to the anonymous and plausible deniable technology within Tor. The problem is not with the Tor network but the intentions and actions of the user. A knife blade can be used for cooking or can be used to murder someone, similarly, technology is neither good nor bad and simply pointing fingers at Tor being an evil tool and to deny it's use is simply childish as the attempt to ban something will make people more willing to rise up and invent tools to circumvent restrictions. In a way, the advance methods used to hide identity on the Internet by the Anonymous members during their exploits against the SG Govt servers may pose a huge issue to tracking them and correctly identifying them.
Other tools like securely erasing and manipulating of evidences after exploiting servers may also pose additional challenges when trying to unmask the identities of the Anonymous attackers.
THE ANONYMOUS CONCEPT: The concept behind Anonymous is cyber hacktivism. They see themselves as the Robin Hoods of the Internet which stands up against "Badly Behaved" Governements, Organisations and Individuals. Their strong self-justification attitude gave rise to such a movement.
The many attempts to crush the Anonymous as a whole have failed despite the incarceration of some individual members of the Anonymous group.
Governments around the World have made attempts to restrict freedom on the Internet with policies that mostly make no sense whatsoever other than to comfort themselves and allow them to retain their powers for a longer period. Out of such frustrations, groups of annoyed netizens who are computer savy have appeared to attempt to 'wrangle freedom back' from 'oppressive regimes'.
Such concepts are the motivation behind cyber hacktivism which uses the Internet and technology to make their voices heard.
There are people whom have enlarged and badly bloated egos and have been assaulted by these hacktivist for some reasons and have attempted to snuff them out with limited success as these activities due to the concept of hacktivism.
SUMMING UP: Below is one sentence to sum up the entire event....
Bad technologies being used and thus exploited but still remain shameless in pointing fingers.
To put it simply, the fault lies in bad IT and Computer Security governance of the SG Govt servers and instead of learning from their mistakes and publicly apologise for their in-apt and quickly remedy their situations, they point fingers at their attackers. They never realized that the biggest present their attackers gave them was a lesson on how to fix their ailing IT and Computer Security systems and to prevent future failures.

IPPT Gets Worse

Read the following news:

•  http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/saf-soldiers-ippt-likely-change-next-year-20131023

And here's my outlook...

---

In summary, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) wants to update the IPPT system to 'stay relevant' by removing the SBJ station and amending the running segment of the test. The SBJ station maybe replaced by Push-ups and the usual 2.4 km run would have it's distance increased by 0.8 km to 3.2 km.

From a sports science point of view, the push-ups and pull-ups / chin-ups exercises stresses the upper body and both exercises are compound exercises (exercises that involves multiple muscle groups simultaneously) with emphasis on stressing the upper body muscle groups. By doing 2 upper body compound exercises (push-ups and pull-ups / chin-ups), the person would be tired out more quickly and the physical performance would deteriorate.

The running portion of the IPPT test (currently is 2.4 km) is one of the 'Most-Failed' segment of the IPPT test. Trying to increase the distance to 3.2 km would be a particularly bad decision and there maybe an increase in failure rates.

Overall, the changes to the current IPPT system is not at all pleasant nor logical as the implementers of IPPT have not yet found a sound way to reduce the amount of failure rates in IPPT and yet wants to further modify the IPPT system for the worse.

What have to be understood is that the civilian conscripts have their own life and are different from full-time servicemen who have the time and energy available to train for long hours to prepare themselves physically for these IPPT tests. The civilian male population have to work in a competitive local environment where their jobs are being challenged by the ever quickly expanding local population and after a hard day's / week's work, they have to prepare for IPPT and National Service.

That is way too much things for the civilian male population in Singapore to do. How would the civilian population be able to pass their IPPT ?

Also, imagine you are the boss of a company, would you want an employee to come to you to take a few hours off for their IPT/RT/IPPT sessions or to leave for a week or a month to attend for NS matters ? My boss once asked me the relevance of all these IPPT system when I was about to leave work to tend to IPPT matters and I was unable to reply him.There is a saying that time itself is money and wasted time is money lost. Which company would want their employees leave work earlier to tend to NS matters which would cost the company precious work hours and indirectly lose possible profits ?

What is the true significance of IPPT when it has not much sense to it ?

Please read my earlier posts regarding my dissection of the IPPT system to understand much of the woes of this IPPT system.

Issues with Government manged Fitness Training

I have been attending RT (Re-training) sessions for the country's IPPT system due to failing the IPPT test. Here are my views on the overall RT training that I have experienced so far.

The allocated time for RT training is 4 hours (that's really a lot of time being allocated which we could use for something more constructive) and the session itself takes around 2 hours or abit more with rest time inclusive. Each session is further sub-divided into a few training parts that depends on the trainer your training group (you are group according to what you failed) gets assigned as each trainer has their own styles and preferences.

The first portion of the training is usually games and some games are really senseless and pointless (e.g. complex version of musical chair with buddy systems and unlimited / endless chasing around). By the time we are done with the first part of the games, we would have been dead tired and spent half of our vigour on that alone. This is not really a good sign as we need to manage our energy levels for the other 2 or 3 parts of training we have not done yet.

The rest of the training segments are simply straight out training after that and the effectiveness of different training regimes and strategies depends on the trainer's preference.

For the most part, I personally feel that much of the training implemented are not really so effective due to inconsistencies in training strategies between different trainers per session.

Safety is also a big issue. Recently (17th Oct 2013), someone in Bedok FCC collapsed and fainted during RT training. The rumour is that the person collapsed due to heat stroke. I personally saw the poor guy being carried off in a stretcher by the medic and some trainers and his eyes were staring blankly in space. That was one hell of an eerie glare from a person who had fainted. I heard another rumour yesterday (19th Oct 2013) that someone got injured yet again and this time is carted around on a wheelchair.

Seeing injuries and knockouts occurring so frequently during RT training lessons is really giving me the chills up my spine. Due to training being conducted in different regions of the FCC for different types of training, it's very hard to track everyone's status (especially health) and 'You' don't have so many medics to deploy. Safety without causing too much problems for trainers and 'Us' should be given a deep thought. A suggestion is to have a wardrobe of spare exercise clothings for rent (of course a fee maybe collected for renting out clothings) for those who do not have proper attire instead of denying them access to training.

In an attempt to make training sessions fun (good attempt though), safety and consistency must be key. 'You' should not design games that would turn into an infinite loop of chasing and wasting half tank of energy. Energy and vigour is really precious to everyone. We come from work and some of us traveled a long distance to come for training and arrived at the FCC really tired.

During some of the trainings, we are required to go all out when it's not even our last portion for the day. So real thought have to be put into properly conserving and utilizing energy to allow 'Us' to last longer during the training sessions. 'We' cannot just simply burn all our energy just for a portion of the session as it does not make sense to do really well in one portion of the training and do badly in another portion.

In general, the difference betweeen IPT training and RT training is that for the former, you may apply for IPT training as a preparatory training to 'prepare You' (making you 'healthy) whereas RT is training once you have been deemed failed in your 'fitness' in accordance to the standards set by the Government. For IPT, you have 18 sessions (discount of 2 sessions) whereas for RT you have the entire 20 sessions. What is the difference of just that 2 session ? I do not really know. It's just 8 hours of discount (4 hours allocated per session x 2 session).

There are IPPT test every 8th and 18th lessons for both RT and IPT so if you pass any of the test, 'You' have completed the entire training course for the year and 'Your' obligation to Government's all-reaching and undeniable contracts that we do not have a choice to accept or deny (because we are born as Singasporeans...).

'You' appear for training (somehow) dragging 'Your' feet and do some training that may or may not help 'Your fitness' and must complete 18/20 lessons and every lesson to the next one 'You' only have a few days (1 - 2 days) of rest as 'You' are trying to complete so many lessons within just 3 months.

Do 'You' think 'You' have the energy and preparations ready to attempt to pass the tests conducted on the 8th and 16th lessons ? I honestly do not have the energy nor time to prepare myself for these in-between tests. If I were to not plan all my sessions in advance for the 18/20 lessons, I would not be able to complete the current year's training and I will be punished according to the 'Law of Singapore' under the so-called 'Enlistment Act' or whatever 'Act' they call it... some fanciful name someone thought of long time ago...

I am trying to rush to complete all the lessons, trying to fulfill 'National Requirements for Male Singapore Citizens', trying to be effective in my daily life and working life (I am a working adult) and trying to find time to spend with my family and friends... oh and not to mention ... struggling to keep up with my own personal life ....

I am trying so hard to do so many things ... fulfill so much invisible requirements ... how can I not be stressed out trying to get everything done perfectly ?

I wanted to add some gym routines into my free time but due to all these above requirements ... especially the pretty unhealthy (due to injury and death rates) and useless (most exercises given are proven to be effective) 'National Requirements for Male Singapore Citizens', I do not have time to go gym nor do I have energy left for the next few days after all these running and jumping and nonsense from that 'National Requirements for Male Singapore Citizens'.

Would it not be healthier for the 'Male Citizens of Singapore' to be given time to train on their own without stress from tests and some 'National Fitness regimes.. IPPT system' and by changing the hectic culture of this country by slowing down the pace of life here ?

If 'You' were to slow down the pace of life here, the quality of living would improve tremendously and who wouldn't want to go out for a nice evening jog if they ever had the time to do so or hit out at the gym to pump some iron and get their hearts beating fast and furious from some good hearty workout ? 'You' would be able to get everyone healthy without needing to spend a single cent (paying Cisco for fitness sessions, paying 'Us' for every session of training and paying people who achieve awards). Those money would have been able to be re-diverted for something better.

Come on, give 'Us' a break... 'We' are tired with 'Your' nonsense and tired of putting on this show for 'You' by pretending to be subservient to 'Your' causes.

If you are truely and honestly interested in listening to 'Us', give 'Us' a break for starters. Remove the IPPT system for starters. It's honestly not working. 'You' think it works because the numbers look nice on 'Your' corporate spreadsheet but on the ground it is purely nonsense. If the removal of the IPPT system looks tough, you should reduce all the sessions to 5 or 10 sessions for starters and remove the subsequent tests. Make this IPPT system into a 'National Forum' to exchange knowledge in a true democratic style instead of subjecting 'Us' to useless nonsense.

Creating a truely democratic 'National Forum' is 'Your' next goal into reversing the sleepiness of this country's progress and to revitalize the people physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Putting everyone on equal grounds is that next step 'You' need to take.

I hope you are not sleeping in front of your computer once you have reached this end portion of this really long blog post.

More spicy stuff coming next time....

Health & IPPT in SG

Singapore's fast-pace modern lifestyle meant that people will usually work long hours and when they get back home, they will need to handle their families and not to forget, the deadly public transport during peak hour can be intense.

The Singapore Government's answer to these health issues is to push campaigns to attempt a futile effort to try and attract more people to a "healthy lifestyle". Both hard and soft tactics were used in an attempt.

Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) is one of the methods the Singapore Government employ to ensure that their male NSmen population are "healthy" by forcing them by law to participate in a 9-month yearly physical fitness test which accesses the individual's physical health by attempting 5 different "physically challenging" stations.

Below is a list of the 5 test stations for IPPT and some of my thoughts:

1. Chin-up / Pull-up: 
    - Upper body strength test. Logical and works.
   
   
2. Sit-up: 
    - The idea for sit-ups station is to execute as many sit-ups within 60 seconds. I don't see how it can be used as an indicator of health.
   
    - A strong abdominal core is one that can take loads on it. One of the ways to train the abdominal muscles in bodybuilding is to add weights when doing crunches. Speed (how many crunches you can do in fix amount of time) does not mean your core is strong.
   
   
3. Standing Broad Jump (SBJ):
    - The idea for SBJ is to test the lower limb's strength. There are two ways to master SBJ. One way is to be good at it without techniques and the other way is to have a good knowledge of techniques. I managed to pass my SBJ by figuring out a set of techniques that focuses on breathing and positioning of the body and it has nothing to do with using sheer strength to accomplish the SBJ.
   
    - I would presume that the SBJ is used to test the muscular strength of the lower limbs but a better test for the muscular strength of the lower limbs would simply not be SBJ as you could get away with it by understanding body mechanics and use techniques to overcome it.
   
   
4. Shuttle Run:
    - Shuttle Run is supposed to test our overall body's ability to coordinate. I really don't know why anyone would want to test someone's flexibility and coordination. How does flexibility and body coordination got to do with the body's health ?
   
   
5. 2.4 km Run / Jog / Walk:
    - One can categorize running into 2 broad categories which are endurance and speed. If you want to test endurance, you would need to get a person to run a fairly long distance without stopping. If you want to test a person's speed, you get them to sprint for  short distance. In a 2.4 km test, you are allowed to walk, jog, sprint, cruise or stop moving. 2.4 km by itself is not a long distance for endurance test but it's a fairly long distance to test one's ability to move quickly. The 2.4km test is a classical example of the testers not knowing what they want to test and simply include everything into the test and hope it works. This test imparts the wrong knowledge regarding running and health to uneducated people.

To summarize my analysis of the IPPT test stations, the testers really have very little clue on what they want to test (except chin-ups since everyone knows chin-ups is one of the best gauge of the upper body's strength).

Now, let's look at the IPPT window scheme. The previous scheme's time period for IPPT was 12 months but it has been reduced to 9 months which would inevitably encounter a spike in the amount of failures by reducing the amount of time involuntary participants (who are forced by the law of Singapore to participate) have to prepare themselves for the test.

We need to consider that the pace of life and the lifestyle is centred around business and economics. The increasing population of Singapore causes the transport network to be flooded during the evenings and mornings when office workers have to get on and off work. When a person goes back home, they will be badly tired (both mentally and physically) and they have families and friends to attend to too.

Instead of having a fixed one size fits all plan imposed on the people in regards to their fitness via IPPT system, the Singapore Government should acknowledge the fact that the IPPT system is not producing the results they want. People are exercising because they are fearful of the system and fear-driven policies usually wouldn't end well.

Exercise should be considered within each individuals own physical capacity and means (time and resource). There are people who are not able exercise properly due to underlying health problems and they are usually ignored.

Considering all these issues mentioned above, I think the Government should put IPPT on the back seat or probably freeze it while looking for other alternatives. They should also encourage fitness that have been proven not simply by experience but by hard facts instead of gimmicks which one of them is the fitness IPPT purport to bring. Imagine how would you feel if you were forced by the system to do RT/IPT/IPPT after a hard day's work in the office ?

One of the methods I would like to suggest is to implement real change to the lifestyle of Singapore itself instead of just giving monetary incentives (which is an outdated technique). Change the PE and any other government controlled fitness education system to be more meaningful rather than just play games during PE lessons and that's it. If you want a truely healthy nation that is truely motivated to the common goal of health, then don't make health a rule or regulation because it's counter productive. People need to genuinely experience and enjoy physical exercises instead of being forced into submission.

Proper form should be taught to impart proper knowledge on muscular activation, cardiovascular exercises and other forms of relevant exercises which would help lessen chances of physical injuries and accidents and help one improve physical performance.

The Government should work harder in promoting better nutrition in Government controlled canteens and teach proper nutrition lessons instead of F&N lessons that are regarded of lesser importance or significance as too much attention are given to the major subjects in schools.

If everyone is properly educated and have the interest to exercise by themselves and become health-conscious, there is no need to test the people as they will always be healthy. Tests assumes a one fit all scenario that is not true and not even scientific at all. I think the Government should review the efficiency of it's policies and discard the IPPT system and the notion to force it's citizens into adhering to absurd rules and systems like the IPPT system.