TR Emeritus

Nov 7, 2013

I refer to the article “No effort spared to find hackers: PM Lee” (Straits Times, Nov 7).

It states that “Singapore will “spare no effort” to track down and bring to justice those who threaten to attack the Republic’s computer network.

… such threats are not “a laughing matter”.

“It is not just anything goes and you are anonymous, therefore there is no responsibility … Therefore when somebody threatens to do harm to it, to bring it down, to knock it out, we take that very seriously and we will spare no effort to try and track down the culprits.

“And if we can find him, we will bring him to justice and he will be dealt with, severely.”

Last Thursday, global hackers group Anonymous issued its threat to protest recent licensing regulations on news sites. The group posted a YouTube video of someone in a Guy Fawkes mask, urging Singaporeans to mount a protest on Tuesday as well.

… the Government was beefing up its systems to make it difficult for cyber hackers, though he cautioned it was not possible to be “100 per cent waterproof” because IT systems are complicated and “somewhere or other, there will be some weakness which could be exploited””.

I would like to applaud the tough stand against the hackers.

I am sure my fellow Singaporeans are relieved and proud of the fact that despite the threat and actual hacking which countries like Australia and Philippines were recently unable to prevent, Singapore’s protection was so good that the greatest down-time of the largest number of web sites in the history of Singapore was not due to hacking but a technical glitch during a planned maintenance to protect our networks.

In this connection, I would like to suggest that just like being prepared is the key to cyber security and protection, we should plan ahead and think about what exactly we will do when we find the person(s) who had threatened to hack us.

If like what most of the media reports quoting experts say that the person(s) who made the threat is likely to be overseas, what Singapore laws or international laws can we use to ” bring him to justice and he will be dealt with, severely”?

For example, I understand that there is a German anti-hacking law.

I believe that it may be easier from a legal perspective to charge a hacker(s), but what about a person(s) who made a video threatening to hack, but did not do so, or tried to but did not succeed?

I am a layman. Can the legal experts give us their views on these? We must be prepared when we find the person(s) who made the threat – and I am confident we will eventually find him, her or them.

What are the legal implications or differences as to the person(s) who made the threat being Singaporean in Singapore, Singaporean or ex-citizen overseas, or foreigner(s) overseas?

Are there any legal precedents in history and international law on bringing those who “threaten to hack” to justice?

Whilst it is important to find and deal with those who threatened to hack us, we should also inquire as to how we managed to have the technical glitch which caused widespread disruption and embarassment to Singapore’s international standing, with a view to learning the lessons so that it does not happen again.

Leong Sze Hian