Singapore’s PM Vows to Track Down Anonymous

Declaration in response to hacker group's threat to 'wage war' on Singaporean government over Internet freedom

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Beawiharta Beawiharta / Reuters

Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong talks during a dialogue session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Nusa Dua, Indonesia resort island of Bali October 6, 2013.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong promised to track down hackers affiliated with the international hacktivist collective Anonymous on Wednesday, following the group’s threat that it would wage war against his government.

“When somebody threatens to do harm to [Singapore’s information infrastructure], we take that very seriously and we will spare no effort to try and track down the culprits,” said Lee, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Prime Minister’s statement follows a hacktivist’s successful infiltration of a pro-government newspaper’s web site last week, on which they posted a message protesting a new Internet licensing framework that seeks to rein in news sites operating in the city-state. Anonymous posted a video the same day on Youtube, saying that if the controversial scheme was not scraped then it would “be forced to go to war.”

The group appears to be increasing its focus on governments in Southeast Asia. On Sunday, members claiming affiliation with the group hacked five websites run by departments of the Filipino government, calling on people participate in a mass demonstration against corruption on Nov. 5.

[WSJ]