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.

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...

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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.