Cyber network scrutiny eyed

Man admits to bombing army hospital

BANGKOK, June 20, (Agencies): Thailand aims to buy software to strengthen the military government’s ability to track online networks and monitor online activity while planning a cyber law that will expand powers to pry into private communications.

The beefing up of powers over the online world come as authorities are increasingly targeting social media for violations of a law that makes it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the king, queen, heir to the throne or regent.

The Digital Economy Ministry aims to spend 128.56 million baht ($3.8 million) on software including a “social network data analysis system” to monitor and map individuals and relationships between more than one million online users, according to a ministry document seen by Reuters.

“The software will sweep and store all data available on social media to be analyzed and monitored,” Teerawut Thongpak, director of the ministry’s Digital Service Infrastructure Department, told Reuters.

He said the government would post a tender for the software and then consider offers.

Monitoring

Governments around the world buy social media monitoring products to chart relationships and networks, as well as to monitor dissidents and identify their leaders.

New York University researchers have also found various US jurisdictions had spent more than $5.82 million on social media monitoring software.

Since a May 2014 coup in Thailand, the military government has arrested numerous people on suspicion of posting material on Facebook and other platforms deemed to violate the royal-insult law.

The legal watchdog group iLaw says 59 people have been found guilty over online posts since the coup. This month, in the toughest sentence yet, a man was jailed for 35 years under the law for posts online.

The government has asked Facebook to block some 300 posts from users in Thailand this year, a sharp increase from 80 restrictions during the period from mid-2014 to the end of 2016, according to Facebook reports.

A Thai man publicly confessed Tuesday to planting a bomb inside an army-run hospital last month, saying he was motivated by a loathing for the military and their frequent coups.

The blast occurred on the third anniversary of the junta’s 22 May coup and struck a VIP waiting room inside a military-owned hospital in Bangkok, wounding 21 people.

Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha initially played down the timing of the bombing after suggestions it must have been orchestrated by someone angered by his putsch.

But on Tuesday the man accused of carrying out the attack, 62-yearold former engineer Wattana Phumret, calmly detailed how he built a small device packed with nails and left it in a vase in Bangkok’s King Mongkut hospital.

“I was inspired by my hatred for governments that come from military coups. Each coup has caused an economic disaster and restricted people’s rights,” he told reporters at a packed police press conference following nearly a week in military custody.

Since 1932 the Thai army has carried out 12 successful coups — two of them in the past decade, a turbulent period marked by repeated rounds of deadly protests and short-lived governments.

Despite a veneer of stability under junta rule today, Thais remain divided and uncertain over the future, three years after the ousting of the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014.

During his confession Wattana also admitted to planting a small pipe bomb in Bangkok that caused no injuries in 2007, the year after the military ousted Yingluck’s brother Thaksin.

He also said he planted two small pipe bombs in the run up to this year’s coup anniversary, a rare claim of responsibility for several explosions on a long list of unsolved bomb attacks in Thailand.

China, Russia to hold drills:

A Chinese naval fleet is steaming towards the Baltic Sea to participate in joint exercises with Russia, with the show of force to take place after US President Donald Trump visits NATO ally Poland next month.

The three ships, headed by the Changsha destroyer, will link up with Russian vessels for drills near St Petersburg and Kaliningrad, Chinese state media reported.

Russia and China have taken turns hosting the exercises, dubbed “Joint Sea”, since 2012.

This year’s iteration is set to take place in late July, Xinhua news agency said, and will include Chinese marines and shipborne helicopters.