Geoffrey Pereira launches another tirade against Temasek Review on his blog
From our Correspondent
Straits Times journalist Geoffrey Pereira appeared to have lost his cool as he fired another round of tirade against Temasek Review. (read article here)
Last Friday, Mr Pereira published an article on his SPH blog attacking us for making “baseless” accusations against SPH.
His article was completely dissected and debunked point by point by us. Not only did Mr Pereira tried to obfuscate the matter by putting words into our mouth, he even got the basic facts wrong such as the time during which the alleged “grabbing” of our content occurred.
Perhaps peeved at being outwitted, outgunned and outflanked by a group of anonymous amateur bloggers, a visibly upset and emotional Mr Pereira continued to keep the issue alive by writing another (more) diabolic piece against us on his blog with the aim of destroying our credibility.
While we have exercised utmost civility, restraint and courtesy in addressing Mr Pereira in our articles, Mr Pereira chose to resort to name-calling in a desperate attempt to demonize us which is completely uncalled for.
Mr Pereira began by claiming that we have hurled “another piece of the usual nonsense at the company, often from the cover of anonymity.”
Since Mr Pereira regards our articles as “nonsense”, why is there a need to post two articles to rebuke them on his blog? Surely readers will be smart enough to judge for themselves whether the articles posted on Temasek Review are coherent or not.
Mr Pereira claimed that all our articles except our letter to SPH were “belligerent in tone and designed to ridicule his and his company.”
Mr Pereira took issue with the points we tried to made:
- TR never accused SPH of having a go at its server;
- he got the timing of the alleged attack wrong;
- he got the explanation, involving spoofing in Denial-of -Service (DOS) attacks, was wrong.
We don’t see how our detailed explanation to defend ourselves was misconstrued by Mr Pereira to be an affront to his status as a SPH journalist.
Serious allegations were made about us by Mr Pereira in his article. Just like we gave him the opportunity to defend his stance, surely we should be allowed to clarify the issues he raised as well?
Nowhere in the original article, be it the title or content did we accuse SPH of launching a DDOS attack against our server. Because the “grabbing” incident occurred a day after our server was down, we took extra pains to explain what DDOS meant exactly.
Mr Pereira obviously got his timing wrong. It was stated clearly in our article that the incident occurred between 10pm on 31 Oct and 1am on 1 Nov, but Mr Pereira claimed that no SPH journalist visited our site on 1 Nov from 1am to 6am. Did we write anything wrong by pointing out the factual inaccuracy in his article?
Furthermore, we did not accuse Mr Pereira of getting his explanation about IP spoofing in DDOS wrong.
Mr Pereira should have read our article thoroughly and carefully before jumping up and down again: IP spoofing is a common tactic used in a DOS attack, but in this instance, we are referring to content “grabbing” and IP spoofing is technically out of the question as we have already explained here.
Mr Pereira then went into a detour about the other articles we had published such as in ‘25 SPH employees “caught” surfing Temasek Review in 3 days’, published on Nov 7.
With due respect to Mr Pereira, we do not have to seek permission from him to publish any article we like on our site and it is really none of his business to interfere with our editorial policy.
Before he ended, Mr Pereira took another dig at us for capitalizing on the controversy to increase traffic to our site.
If Mr Pereira is a regular reader of our site, he will realize that our spat with SPH amounts to no more than 10 per cent of the articles posted on our site in the last one week.
Our main focus for the week was on the issues of immigration, rising prices of HDB flats, Chiam See Tong’s decision to move to a GRC and Mr Robert Amsterdam’s White Paper on political repression in Singapore.
Our traffic has been increasing for the last few weeks without or without this extra “publicity” from SPH. We can’t help it if Mr Pereira chose to divert traffic to our site by linking his blog to ours.
Strangely enough, Mr Pereira found fit to take issue with comments posted on his blog which was re-posted in an article on TR and accused us of “pelting and roasting” him:
“On Nov 10 yet another article from TR…..This was a compilation of anonymous comments, mostly poking fun at my original blog, and which TR filed under “Top News”. It was back to pelting and roasting.”
If Mr Pereira is unhappy with the comments poking fun at him, he should have deleted them in the first place. We did not post the comments and neither did we edit them with the intention to ridicule him.
In the last sentence of his article, Mr Pereira wrote:
“Our checks found that neither SPH as a company, nor any employee as an individual, launched a DOS attack on TR’s web server. There was also no attempt to “grab” TR material in a way that could overload its server.”
We have already clarified repeatedly that SPH did not launch any attack on our server and have apologized for any misunderstanding which may have resulted, so why is Mr Pereira still harping on it to divert attention away from the crux of the matter?
As far as we are concerned, it was a non-issue from the very beginning. It was Mr Pereira who chose to blow it out of proportion on his blog.
Perhaps, the sentence highlighted above in red can shed more light on what exactly happened.
So is Mr Pereira implying that SPH did “grab” TR material, but not in a way that could overload our server?
Well, that’s what we have been trying to find out all along: whether content from our site as early as 2008 was “grabbed” by anybody or anything from SPH!
Again, we did not accuse SPH of overloading our server with its “grabbing”: it didn’t because the software firewall on the server itself banned the offending IP address minutes into the action after the IP address exceeded 60 connects per minute, the threshold set by the system administrator.
Since Mr Pereira had admitted that some “grabbing” did take place, who are the culprits and what are their motives for doing so?
Can Mr Pereira or anybody else from SPH please answer these two questions point-blank without throwing smoke-bombs to confuse the public again?
Lest that Mr Pereira accused us of “ridiculing” him again, we must stress that the gist of this article is not to put him or anybody down but to clear up the misconceptions about the case. We are sorry if we bruise Mr Pereira’s fragile ego in the process.
From the tone of Mr Pereira’s article, it seems that he is more interested in ridiculing us and putting us down than engaging us.
Mr Pereira should really cool down and don’t forget the fact that he is a journalist by profession.
As for his comments that what we are “wayang” and what we have published is “nonsense”, we leave it to our readers to judge for themselves.
Related articles:
>> Debunking Mr Geoffrey’s claims in his misleading article: “Attack on Temasek Review: not SPH
>> Attack on Temasek Review: not SPH
>> SPH IP caught grabbing “content” from Temasek Review
>> Debunking Mr Geoffrey’s claims on “IP spoofing”
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Bang Kee Mong on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 12:28 pm
“…Mr Pereira tried to obfuscate the matter by putting words into our mouth…”
If true, is this act sue-able?
Kan Cheong Spider on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 12:33 pm
“If Mr Pereira is a regular reader of our site…”
no lah, their site din GRAB your contents right?
I suspect the journalists Consciously know what they write everyday and they CHOOSE to work there base on FREE WILL where the world is an oyster for real talents to find a job. So, since they Consciously do what they do with Freedom to Choose which company to work for, I suspect they enjoy being journalists in their organization which SERVES the PEOPLE without BIAS.
u believe me right?
Sinkapore on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 12:53 pm
Reading between the lines, SPH is ADMITTING that someone or something DID GRAB contents from TR’s servers BUT “just not in a way that could overload the server”.
If they HAD NOT GRABBED contents from TR’s servers, his reply would have been:
Our checks found that neither SPH as a company, nor any employee as an individual, launched a DOS attack on TR’s web server. There was also no attempt to “grab” TR material from their servers. PERIOD.
How clever, a nice play of words just as expected from these spin doctors at SPH, assuming he has no problem understanding simple english.
Maybe TR should rephrase the question and ask:
DID SPH at the time and date stipulated GRAB contents from TR’s servers regardless of whether the said act of grabbing did or did not cause additional load to TR’s server?
@admin, from their recent lack lusture reply, TR can safely assume that something or someone at SPH DID INFACT grabed contents from TR’s servers, no doubt about that since its a fact ADMITTED in their latest statement.
Rainnix on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 1:07 pm
I never expect there is so much twisting and turning from you. Why don’t you release your server log and we can all judge for ourselves? (Without tampering the records of course).
“Grab” is an improper word to use that why he took offense to that. TR should use the word “pilfer”.
cy on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 2:19 pm
sph 有完没完
they better take care of their own business, which is suffering from the internet than engage in pointless battles online.
anyway, their latest decision to build clementi mall shows they are running out of idea to save their print business
citizen on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 2:58 pm
Nowadays, when reading the ST times, i only read front page and world news. Home news I read those pertaining to non-local politics matters. The forum is being skipped as I personally find its full of BS and I am wondering if those who wrote in are real writers. Business section is read but news pertaining to GLCs are skipped. Used to be an ardent reader but the recent years made me uneasy when reading some articles.
Seelan Palay on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 4:14 pm
Funny how SPH gets so worked up over anonymous ‘accusations’ when they help so much in the ‘accusation’ of Singaporean social workers that were detained without trial and horrendously tortured for 2 years in 1987. Wish I had a newspaper with islandwide distribution to expose the ‘nation building’ press, too.
Kan_Cheong Spider on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 4:52 pm
Kan Cheong Spider on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 12:33 pm
“If Mr Pereira is a regular reader of our site…”
———-
wow dude… pls use your own unique moniker. plagarizing mine will not make you look better.
Time for Change on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 5:28 pm
citizen on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 2:58 pm
I think Singaporeans should refrain from reading the Shitty Times. It is full of BS. The world news is at least 2 days late. And I too believe that those who write in to the forum are YPAP members, PAP activists, RC members and paid ghost writers.
I alway vomit when I read anything from the Chua sisters and Andy Ho.
I have stopped buying the Shitty Times and I feel liberated.
Karmic Horlando on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 5:28 pm
Kan_Cheong Spider ,
roger that bro.
Time for Change on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 5:30 pm
“Our traffic has been increasing for the last few weeks without or without this extra “publicity” from SPH. We can’t help it if Mr Pereira chose to divert traffic to our site by linking his blog to ours.”
I believe Mr Pereira wants to draw TR readers to his blog. It is like a ghost town there.
Googler on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 6:00 pm
I suspect the “grabber” is none other than Geoffrey Pereira himself. Perhaps there are no 25 employees who accessed TR at the relevant time, but rather Geoffrey Pereira used 25 login IDs to conduct the “grabbing” exercise.
He could have been tasked to bring down TR or he tried to score points with his masters by doing it on his own initiative. Either way, he is now required to clean up the mess he has created.
The tactics from his responses are similar to the time honoured tactics used by LYK himself. If you cannot win on facts and logic, resort to name calling or nitpicking to distract and confuse.
Sinkapore on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 8:16 pm
Geoffrey Pereira is smart in a certain way. Instead od DENYING COMPLETELY the incident, he chooses to wayang and play with words and ADMITTED the incident INDIRECTLY.
So whichever way readers thinks, SPH is not wrong in anway based on his comments. One has to learn to read bewteen the lines to get the real spin between his statement.
For example: There was also no attempt to “grab” TR material in a way that could overload its server.”
He is NOT DENYING that there was INDEED a GRAB of TR’s contents but merely DENYING that the GRAB did not cause an overloaded TR’s server.
Basically SPH is admitting that there was such an incident but it DID NOT cause any issues with TR’s servers. A clear cut admission worded in an indirect way.
raxip on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 9:08 pm
The best is to ignore SPH and leave them to their own devices.
But some writers in TR just can’t seem to let go of this issue…
comando on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 9:13 pm
stop bitching and bullshitting through endless articles. I suggest you to challenge him and TR at the court (out of singapore). that way, both sides can be cross examined properly. you sound very pussy nowadays. what a loser attention seeker!
The english syntax allows for flexibility, fun & financial rewards on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 10:10 pm
English is fun:
1. Fun : you can express same views in countless ways.
2. Flexibility : sentences that sound the same could be 2 worlds apart in meaning. Or one can say things in creative ways to sound nicer but still get the point across.
3. Financially rewarding: those with expert command of english can benefit financially from it eg. lawyers.
“Our checks found that neither SPH as a company, nor any employee as an individual, launched a DOS attack on TR’s web server. There was also no attempt to “grab” TR material in a way that could overload its server.”
“So is Mr Pereira implying that SPH did “grab” TR material, but not in a way that could overload our server?”
Bravo TR!
exactly how I felt.
His words could mean 2 things at least.
He should have the courtesy to clarify with a simple Yes or No to your question.
English, its so fun.
Darkness on Fri, 13th Nov 2009 11:48 pm
Hey admin,
Do you hear me? I am Darkness of the brotherhood. Do yourself and everyone here a favor, ask this Xisd Tay aka Sinkapore to sit down and shaddap before he falls down; he is the main cause for this mushroom cloud; if he just shut his trap from the very beginning instead of trying to play the role of the liaison officer; all this nonsense concerning dos will just blow over quite nicely and it will be business as usual, but what do we have here? Again?
Listen to me – I am giving you good advice here.
Darkness 2009
Sinkapore on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 12:05 am
@Darkness, as far I am am concerned, you not happy, be a man and take it up with me. Don’t use TR as a platform for your personal agenda. Since you so bloodey smart and well connected, you should know how.
Also, why this DDoS here, DDoS there? NOBODY here is talking about DDos. Whats this DDoS fling you are having? Did you DDoS others so much that you sleep dreaming of DDoS too?
Frankly, I have NEVER heard of you nor have any stones to grind with you. What I post at TR is my opinion alone, just as you are entitled to yours. Don’t like what I am saying, just ignore me just like how I ignore you as and when I like
BTW, admin doesn’t owe you a living nor is she obliged to listen to you, you should really just return to your dark underground dungeon and do what you do best (oh yes, I DO know what you do for a living, I have my network too
)instead of taking pot shots and intimidating TR’s admin.
TR was letting the matter go but SPH choose to bring it up again, so if you have good advice here, you are directing it at the wrong person. YOu should go and advise the SPH so-called VPN Expert to shut the fiack up, but then do you have the balls to do that?
Victor King on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 2:57 am
Im really not sure what your purpose is. initially i thought you are a good blog to read, as you offer news from a diff perspective. I assumed that perspective to be neutral. However, im not so sure now. I have a feeling, that you are becoming anti-pap, and in ur efforts to becoming anti-establishment, you might end up hurtin the singapore image as well as the brand name of the country.
a humble word of advice, do be objective and neutral. i will still read ur blog, but would be less likely to agree with you if u insist on being ridiculously anti-pap..
Hopefully, this comment doesnt fall on blind eyes, or worse still tinted eyes which refuse to accept rationality..
Concerned on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 9:42 am
Agreed with Victor King’s comment. TR should be careful not to “jump the shark” with this whole SPH content-grabbing incident. Frankly, as a reader while I initially found this issue amusing, I’m becoming increasingly tired of TR’s apparent crusade. I understand that it’s been having a practical impact on your web site’s availability, but surely all this invective is over-reacting a bit, no?
More generally, I was first attracted to TR because I thought its unfiltered commentary was a welcome breath of fresh air. But lately it’s been starting to sound more and more like a opposition party propaganda mouthpiece. Yes, no doubt SPH is a PAP propaganda machine. But is it any nobler to serve the same role for the other side of the political aisle?
In my opinion, TR will be best served by remaining neutral in its overall coverage, doling out criticism to both sides where deserved and–yes–even giving credit to both sides where due.
Morvius on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 11:42 am
I agree. Neutrality is important. But then again, there has been so much news about PAP (And almost none for the opposition), of course they would be the target of the articles!
bystander on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 7:06 pm
Why make enemies with the brotherhood? Having friends is always a good thing. As no man can ever afford to be an island online.
IMHO the only people who dont see the need to cultivate friendship online is the PAP. They regularly piss off people with their top down edicts, so when they want to do anything online, it takes 10 times the effort as they have no allies to help them smooth the rough edges, so they can do little or nothing at all, as there is no good will.
Friends are important, very important.
ConsciousWorker on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 10:26 pm
I think it is too obvious that Mr. Pereira is being over-defensive. To people who are better informed about the state of affairs of our city state, it only goes to show how much the “loyalists” want to win in everything that they have been brainwashed to believe in. And it only goes to show the real truth.
Sinkapore on Sat, 14th Nov 2009 10:32 pm
@bystander, I assumed you are making that remark at my post to Darkness, thus the following clarification.
Correctly said. Sisterhood or brotherhood are all welcome to befriend any reader in this forum, including me.
Friends CARE and HELP, but I cannot say the same for Darkness. From the onset, he has called TR’s admin liars, taunt the admin, threatened to expose secrets of his so-called ‘friends’, secrets of which we all know nothing about, continue to spike and more threats.
If thats the kind of ‘friends’ one is to expect from the Brotherhood, then I would rather settle for friendship with the Sisterhood.
@Victor King, this article is NOT about the PaPies. It has got nothing to do with the PaPies, per se.
Sinkapore on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 1:38 am
FRIENDLY WARNING TO DARKNESS
And lastly, here’s a FRIENDLY WARNING to Darkness who threatened TR’s admin by posting that he wants to ‘go to war’ with TR because she have chosen to ignore his constant rubbish.
What the hell is wrong with your pea-sized brain? You want to ‘war’ with TR just because they refused to be threatened/intimated by you into distorting facts and admit that they lied about the DDoS? Just exactly how old are you? Grow up and get a life, will ya?
TR is not yours and will never be yours. TR’s admin is not obligated to take your ‘advice’ nor respond to your threats. TR’s personnal is not as ‘transparent’ as you think and can and will approach the authorities to initiate action against you if you start making illegal threats and demands on them.
Don’t for a minute be deceived by your own childish imagination that you actually live in the dark and thus nobody knows who you are or is unable to trace you. Even if you use a proxy or a VPN, you CAN still be traced, its just a matter of WHO and WHICH department is involved. Sinkapore is NOT exactly without laws and it definitely applies to those low in the food chain, ie: you, me and those not in the famiLEE.
Being ‘expert’ yourself, I need not remind you that a server can be configured to reveal more about YOU than just IP address, date and time of access. It can also log your Network Address, Machine Name, User Agent and much much more. It is really not so difficult for someone who knows, isn’t it?
Go visit TOC and play games if you don’t like TR or do what you do best by DDoSing some other sites and collect your ‘rewards/ang pow’, leave TR alone, please.
endoftheroad on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 1:03 pm
Maybe he was deliberately pushing your buttons? Maybe he wanted you to do? Did you consider?
Did you know “going to war” is a figure of expression that is used at least a hundred or so times in LAN? It simply means we will play one round with you.
How many people do you think are going to post here after this?
Bye Bye
Sinkapore on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 1:23 pm
@endoftheroad, it is common sense that anything you do on the net is trackable. ALL servers (anywhere in the world) comes with logging one way or another.
TR has to protect itself and will not use information gained from user’s postings for any commercial or illegal use.
However, if any reader is out to harm TR or extort their admins, then it is only fair that whatever action be taken to identify the offender and take them to task.
If you are a genuine reader or contributor, what is there to worry about? Only their System Administrators have access to such information and they have their own Privacy Policies too.
As for your remark of ‘going to war’, its playing with words again but considering that the admins of TR or me has NO ‘relationship’ with him, we certainly can safely conclude that he seriously wasn’t referring to a game of chess or counter strike.
enok on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 4:16 pm
You have lost the plot along with the gambit TR. I have always admired TR for it openess, but this is the straw that breaks the camels back. Did you ever consider Darkness wanted you to press the chicken button?
I am just thinking, if this can happen to Darkness, what abt me?
Sorry, it is too risky
enok on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 4:18 pm
Btw the IP they use is called the SLF 2, its an open template
harvardian on Sun, 15th Nov 2009 4:56 pm
Wtf!
“If you are a genuine reader or contributor, what is there to worry about?” Plenty to worry about if you ask anyone out there in blogosphere. I guarantee you. What you may not realize Sinkapore is Darkness commands a following amongst the intellectuals. They lied to you, they are still writing, average two to three essays a day. Only this time, they are all in lock and key forums. No point trying to find them. They change sites every alternate day. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may have fallen into a well placed trap. We all know Darkness was after all once a contributor to wayang. Recently, following the SPH vs Temasek bohuha, his tone towards Temasek changed drastically. Why would he do a 180 turn? That is the part that gets me!
I am sorry but this is bound to raise a host of questions.
FYI “we go to war” or “wgtw” or “wegow” is a sf slang used by 17th level wow gamers, it is gaming parlance. If they really wanted to declare war, they would have to issue out an official windbag communication that can sometimes even run 3 pages signed directly from Primus Aldentes Prime by delivered by a third stage navigator who happens to be a worm who lives in an acquirium. May come as a biggy surprise to you, but Darkness doesnt have the right to declare war, we all know only the Imperium has the right to do that.
No doubt about it, he wanted you to drop the atomic bomb.
peace out
Matt Call on Mon, 16th Nov 2009 3:19 am
Thank you for your very useful article. But I had difficult time navigating through your website as I kept getting 502 bad gateway error. Just thought to let you know.