If you care to believe it, this blog tries to make a difference in the world by dedicating itself to the Democracy, Discussion, Freedom, and Furtherment of Comedy.

The author (mainly? sometimes??) talks about Singapore, but is into all things comedy and comical. And once even seriously entertained the notion of going into stand-up comedy full-time.

Conspiracy theorists can rejoice once again, as i present more material for your consideration...

this morning, a message, purportedly from the Editor of The Optical, a local political yahoogroup, was sent to the whole group, with the subject of "Information".

--quote:--
From theoptical@yahoo.com.sg Wed Nov 10 16:40:18 2004
X-Sender: theoptical@yahoo.com.sg
X-Apparently-To: theoptical@yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 77596 invoked from network); 11 Nov 2004 00:40:14 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218)
by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Nov 2004 00:40:14 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO yahoogroups.com) (61.90.80.196)
by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Nov 2004 00:40:13 -0000
To: theoptical@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 07:40:13 +0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 1
X-MSMail-Priority: High
X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 61.90.80.196
From: theoptical@yahoo.com.sg
Subject: Information
X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=142516066
X-Yahoo-Profile: theoptical
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Important bill!



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--end quote--

yep!!, that's right!!! an email, possibly containing "interesting attachments", was sent to a list such as The Optical, mimicking the official email of the editor. The attachment could have been made to send out precious identifiable info to a central server, but... - who knows??? [Conspiracy theorists pls take note]. The real editor sent out an official response to that email later in the day:

--quote:--
From: The Optical
Date: Thu Nov 11, 2004 6:27 pm
Subject: A Note from Editor of TheOptical

A Note from Editor of TheOptical

An email with the subject header "information" was
sent out sometime today to our readers.

Please disregard and do not open the email purpotedly
from the Optical.

We did not send that email and we think it's either a
virus or some other dirty trick.

Thank you.

Editor
TheOptical

=====
THE OPTICAL
Singapore
News: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheOptical
Web: http://sg.geocities.com/theoptical
E-mail: theoptical@yahoo.com.sg

Disclaimer: The Optical provides Singapore political news as well as other types of news which we believe will have an impact on Singapore either directly or indirectly. The Optical is not responsible for the content of broadcasted articles.
--end quote--

This is The Optical's official "description", as found on its yahoo group page:

--quote:--
The Optical is a Singapore politics e-mail news service that "lens better political vision", and targets primarily the politically apathetic Singaporean. If you are Singaporean and interested in local politics, you'll find this a good addition to your collection of e-mail news. If you are Singaporean and NOT interested in politics, all the more you should subscribe - Singapore is your country, so it's time to pay attention! If you're not Singaporean but wish to know more, we welcome you because we don't buy the argument that your subscription means "interference in Singapore's domestic politics" else Singaporeans shouldn't be paying attention to the U.S.-Iraq war without being concerned of their own domestic politics. To contribute an article or simply to find out more information, please e-mail "theoptical@yahoo.com.sg".
--end quote:--


In the meantime, ... i await further proof for any more conspiracies...


NOTE!!!: since the offending IP address came from Thailand ('61.90.80.196' gets resolved to 'ppp-61.90.80.196.revip.asianet.co.th'; asianet.co.th is a Thai ISP - named "true internet"; dont ask me why), we believe that this has nothing to do with the Singapore Gahment at all. Rather, it has everything to do with the Thai government. Yep - that must be it. If anybody is to be suspected... it must surely be the Thai government. After all, they dislike alternate sources of information about politics.

----

(Updated 08-Dec-2004)

#ADDENDUM:
For anybody who might be interested in some of the details or claims... Check out the comments at the bottom of the article (they are read from bottom to top).

#1 - ALL YOUR YAHOOGROUP ARE BELONG TO US.

#2 - (No, i'm just kidding lah - certain conditions must be fulfilled, and they were certainly there in The Optical's case...)