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.