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.

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.