Social media network Facebook has been threatened by Anonymous who has launched ‘Operation Facebook’ and announced that they would destroy the network on November 5, 2011 – Guy Fawkes Day.
To be more precise, somebody has set up a Twitter account and YouTube Channel to announce the Operation Facebook. The reason? ‘Privacy.’
Comparing Facebook to totalitarian governments, the notorious, indefinite online collective Anonymous (often called “hacktivists”) has vowed to destroy the ‘Wal-Mart’ of social networks.
Facebook has often faced flak for violating users’ privacies. The list of Facebook’s transgressions is lengthy and has been chronicled by Danah Boyd in her Harvard/UC Berkeley paper Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck regarding frequent changes to users settings without notification, to new issues raised by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
As far as this announcement to kill Facebook, which the message describes as the “medium of communication we all so dearly adore,” by Anonymous, the loosely affiliated hacktivist collective is concerned, PCMag is of the opinion that it is difficult to know what is real, what is a put-up job and whether it is the solo effort of an especially ambitious Anon looking to marshal support for his cause.
In recent weeks, Anonymous joined forces with remainder of the more tightly knit hacker group LulzSec to target law enforcement agencies in an ongoing operation called Antisec. The press release announcing Operation Facebook evidences that it is linked with Antisec, wherein it mentions that ‘Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause.’
Anonymous, has previously hacked into the Iran’s government emails, the Pentagon, possibly, the IMP, News Corp, and Anders Breivik’s Twitter account.
The November 5 date is significant in that it commemorates Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators’ failed attempt to blow up England’s House of Lords in 1605. Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta elevated Fawkes to a anarchist anti-hero in popular culture.
Anonymous has particular attachment to Guy Fawkes Day, with its members wearing V for Vendetta inspired masks for some of its earliest known public actions, such as a project to discredit Scientology in 2008.
When the Google+ excitement first hit, Anonymous set up a profile on the service. Like many others soon to follow, they were banned under Google Plus’ “real names” policy. In reaction, Anonymous said they would set up their own social network where anonymity was the standard. Called AnonPlus, it was just hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army in a retaliatory attack.
Below is the Anonymous press release and the accompanying video message:
Operation Facebook
DATE: November 5, 2011.
TARGET: https://facebook.com
Press:
Twitter : https://twitter.com/OP_Facebook
http://piratepad.net/YCPcpwrl09
Irc.Anonops.Li #OpFaceBook
Message:
Attention citizens of the world,
We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.
Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.
Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your “privacy” settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you “delete” your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more “private” is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family.
http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.html
http://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iphone/
You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realize what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.
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.
Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #phrasebook . Engaged.
This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveillant, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.
We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
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