In his Total Defense message yesterday (Feb 14), Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen went on full scaremongering mode making absurd suggestions about cyberattacks “shutting down water and electrical supply”. The airhead PAP Minister painted an exaggerated catastrophic outlook without backing up his claims:
“Cyber attacks that can disrupt our transport systems and hospitals, shut down water and electricity supply, even cause financial markets to crash.”
Essential services like water, electricity, transport and healthcare network are all privately-managed network, using customised operating systems different that of mainstream programming framework. The suggestion of how a “cyberattack” disrupt services reflects only how ignorant the Defense Minister is of basic networking principles.
Minister Ng Eng Hen then turned his attention on fake news, claiming that it can incite unrest and destabilise society:
“A fake news campaign can stir unrest and incite Singaporeans to distrust one another.”
This message itself is at best a fake news since the major fake news generator is the Singapore government, churning propaganda articles daily from it’s state media, SPH and Mediacorp. The Singapore state media is ranked 154th in the world for credibility, due to Singapore’s restrictive media censorship laws.
The Defense Minister also inaccurately described the Japanese invasion in 1942, as the invaders then were invading a British colony. Singapore was not an independent country in 1942, and the country was under British invasion. No national-level negotiations were arranged with the Japanese that would have averted massive killings. Thailand avoided military confrontations with Japan during World War 2, by remaining neutral. In World War 2, local soldiers were sacrificed to act in the interests of China and the British.