Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Anonymous Plans To Take Down Facebook on November 5,2011


Hacker Group Anonymous Photo; Mark Zuckerberg Facebook
Anonymous has declared war on Facebook, ostensibly in the name of user privacy.  According to Anonymous, Facebook will go down on November 5, i.e. Guy Fawkes Day.
Operation Facebook has a user-editable post on PiratePad, with which some are urging Anonymous-affiliated hacktivists not to go through with the attack. Others are discussing potential vulnerabilities in Facebook's core, or attack opportunities through weaknesses in third-party FB applications.
Operation Facebook's Twitter account mentions "the Lulz Boat", but LulzSec isn't mentioned in the YouTube warning video (see below).
The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It's unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don't understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them "for their own good" while they then make millions off of you. When a service is "free," it really means they're making money off of you and your information.

While Facebook has a very casual attitude towards user privacy (and, arguably UX overall), Mark Zuckerberg may want to ask for a quick security review. Anonymous-affiliated hackers have quite a track record of breaking into government databases, while Facebook can barely get photos to display uniformly.
Our prediction: if Anonymous gets it into its collective head to take down Facebook, it can probably pull it off. This isn't to say that FB would be down permanently (or even for more than an hour), but other questions are raised: who, precisely, will be in control of your account data, and how will that data be used?

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