Hacker Group Anonymous Aims to Destroy Facebook on Nov. 5

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Anonymous has announced plans to "kill Facebook" on November 5, citing privacy concerns as their motivation. The group, known for various hacking activities, has previously targeted law enforcement and government websites. The discussion highlights mixed reactions to their intentions, with some expressing excitement and others questioning the ethics of such cyber-attacks. Critics argue that targeting a private company is immoral, while supporters see it as a form of social protest against perceived corporate wrongdoing. There is speculation about the effectiveness of the planned attack, with some suggesting that announcing their intentions gives Facebook time to bolster security. The conversation also touches on broader themes of civil disobedience, the ethics of hacking, and the implications of digital privacy. Overall, the thread reveals a divide between those who view Anonymous as a necessary force for accountability and those who see their actions as criminal and unjustifiable.
  • #51
Jack21222 said:
Then why aren't they secure?


There is no such thing as perfect security and governments often don't want companies to have even the best available security. For awhile the US even made it illegal to use some of the best cryptography systems. As much as they don't want organizations like Anonymous running amok and causing trouble the idea of any organization being able to work in complete anonymity over the internet scares them more. The end result is that between the governments and the bean counters and sheer mismanagement companies often have less then stellar security.
 
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  • #52
Drakkith said:
No, you should make some sense and stick to the topic.

I have stuck with the topic, and all you've done is make vague insinuations.
 
  • #53
Actually what this makes me think that the group must have someone in the company already because from what I know of hacking the vast majority of it is done from the inside because it's 10,000 times simpler that way. I think the best way facebook could combat this is with a massive layoff of it's employees. Yep I'm sure that is what they have planned but... not for this reason.
 
  • #54
turbo said:
By announcing their intentions so early, they are giving Zuckerburg a long time to harden his security, so if they manage to kill FB, it will make them appear pretty potent.

I was also wondering why they were announcing their intentions for so far into the future when I saw the reports on it. You might have the answer. Maybe they are hoping for a challenge and are issuing "fair warning" to Zuckerburg.

Another possibility is that they really don't know how to hack into Facebook and are instead hoping to scare the users into fleeing and pulling all of their personal information off the site as a different way to cripple it.
 
  • #55
Why? Even if you agree that facebook is mostly a waste of time, what gives anyone the right to destroy someone else's property? They claim their labours are to build a heaven; yet their heaven is populated with horrors.
 
  • #56
ForMyThunder said:
Why? Even if you agree that facebook is mostly a waste of time, what gives anyone the right to destroy someone else's property? They claim their labours are to build a heaven; yet their heaven is populated with horrors.

Why are they doing it? Narcissism? Delusions of grandeur? Or perhaps the same reasons the crazed looters in England are running amok destroying property to protest violence? Maybe they didn't get enough attention as children, or were too spoiled and undisciplined as children? There are lots of crazy, destructive people in the world with illogical rationalizations of their bad behavior...that's why.
 
  • #58
ForMyThunder said:
Why? Even if you agree that facebook is mostly a waste of time, what gives anyone the right to destroy someone else's property? They claim their labours are to build a heaven; yet their heaven is populated with horrors.

That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?
 
  • #59
Proton Soup said:
it's a form of social protest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism

So are the riots in London. It doesn't make it right or effective, it just makes them another group of law-breaking thugs.
 
  • #60
KingNothing said:
I don't know why people are celebrating this. Cyber-crime is still crime. What they are doing is wrong and unethical. Attacking the assets and digital property of a privately-held company just because you don't like what they do is completely immoral.

Well that's an interesting view point and I'm empathic to it. But I also feel strongly that some of these companies under attack are completely devoid of ethics.
Granted that in the 20th century fictional entities operating in the world of commerce were legally afforded the rights and attributes of flesh-and-blood human beings. Meaning that companies can do many things a person can within the legal framework (a bizarre situation IMO). Following that line of thought and considering a company to have other human attributes such as ethics and emotions leads to some startling conclusions. If you consider the psychological state of some companies you will see that they are despotic, sociopathic megalomaniacs. I feel if it were a flesh and blood person doing the things some of these companies do, some reasonable force to bring them in-line would be... acceptable.

Face book is pretty naughty i recon. They plant cross-domain cookies on everyones computer that record users data. These cookies then talk with other third party sites and offer up the users info so the third party site can tailor adverts for the market.

That is like going into a social networking public house (pub) and chatting with your friend about football. With the bar-tender then taking notes on your conversation and pinning a sign on your back saying 'potential football punter'.

See, facebook doesn't sell your data per se, but they do run a system whereby other companies can have access to these cross-domain cookies, and your data. That's why you see all these 'like' buttons everywhere. The only entities paying any attention to the things people like are facebook and other prying companies.

That is partly why facebook is worth $15billion.

Do they deserve to be hacked? Yeah, why not. In a way, they are hacking us all the time.
 
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  • #61
Well that's an interesting view point and I'm empathic to it. But I also feel strongly that some of these companies under attack are completely devoid of ethics.
Granted that in the 20th century fictional entities operating in the world of commerce were legally afforded the rights and attributes of flesh-and-blood human beings. Meaning that companies can do many things a person can within the legal framework (a bizarre situation IMO). Following that line of thought and considering a company to have other human attributes such as ethics and emotions leads to some startling conclusions. If you consider the psychological state of some companies you will see that they are despotic, sociopathic megalomaniacs. I feel if it were a flesh and blood person doing the things some of these companies do, some reasonable force to bring them in-line would be... acceptable.

Face book is pretty naughty i recon. They plant cross-domain cookies on everyones computer that record users data. These cookies then talk with other third party sites and offer up the users info so the third party site can tailor adverts for the market.

That is like going into a social networking public house (pub) and chatting with your friend about football. With the bar-tender then taking notes on your conversation and pinning a sign on your back saying 'potential football punter'.

See, facebook doesn't sell your data per se, but they do run a system whereby other companies can have access to these cross-domain cookies, and your data. That's why you see all these 'like' buttons everywhere. The only entities paying any attention to the things people like are facebook and other prying companies.

That is partly why facebook is worth $15billion.

Do they deserve to be hacked? Yeah, why not. In a way, they are hacking us all the time.

If you don't like it don't use it. Personally i don't have an issue with the targeted adverts, its down to me whether i click on the links or not.
 
  • #62
Moonbear said:
So are the riots in London. It doesn't make it right or effective, it just makes them another group of law-breaking thugs.

maybe. it's not destructive in the way rioters are, though. they're not beating up facebook employees or setting their cars on fire or smashing their servers. it's more of a nuisance. it may temporarily shut down business, but picketers on a sidewalk can restrict trade in that way, too.

sure, they're breaking the law, but these things tend to fall into a category that i think is closer civil disobedience.
 
  • #63
KingNothing said:
I don't know why people are celebrating this. Cyber-crime is still crime. What they are doing is wrong and unethical. Attacking the assets and digital property of a privately-held company just because you don't like what they do is completely immoral.

They also attacked military e-mail servers and numerous other government servers. They leaked thousands of *.mil e-mail addresses and passwords to the public just to cause chaos. Those are used by our soldiers.

Why anyone would support them in any criminal effort is beyond me.

Killing off all the Disney kids and their friends (Justin Bieber, Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montanah and what not) might very well be immoral or unethical. Or just plain mean.

The day this does happen though, be sure to find me firing up my arsenal of fire crackers.

(I jest...

...not? :p)
 
  • #64
The majority of Anonymous doesn't support this action, it's runs contrary to their general MO of protecting internet freedom. Of course, by it's nature, anyway can "claim" to do anything in the name of anonymous. From what I've been hearing, there aren't a lot of people in the hacker community who are taking this threat seriously, and they doubt the sub-group even really knows what they are doing (a ddos attack isn't going to work on facebook."To answer Evo's question, "Remember remember the Fifth of November."

It's Guy Fawkes day, and the Guy fawkes mask (used in V for Vendetta) is a symbol of Anonymous.
 
  • #65
Galteeth said:
To answer Evo's question, "Remember remember the Fifth of November."

It's Guy Fawkes day, and the Guy fawkes mask (used in V for Vendetta) is a symbol of Anonymous.
I don't think the majority of Americans know who Guy Fawkes is, so any meaning is lost on most people outside of the UK, IMO.
 
  • #66
Evo said:
I don't think the majority of Americans know who Guy Fawkes is, so any meaning is lost on most people outside of the UK, IMO.

Right, I don't think it's meant to be symbolic. Understand this kid didn't post this on one of the websites that are known to be organizational Anon websites. It's more like he just picked a day that he thought would be cool, and that day is sort of associated with anonymous. One of the ironic aspects is that if the media hadn't blown up this story, this person probably would have been ignored. Now though, cause it's become a news story, he might draw some followers who want to get in on the action.
 
  • #67
Galteeth said:
Right, I don't think it's meant to be symbolic. Understand this kid didn't post this on one of the websites that are known to be organizational Anon websites. It's more like he just picked a day that he thought would be cool, and that day is sort of associated with anonymous. One of the ironic aspects is that if the media hadn't blown up this story, this person probably would have been ignored. Now though, cause it's become a news story, he might draw some followers who want to get in on the action.
I had also heard that anonymous didn't approve of the threat.
 
  • #68
Well, hacking the site might not be legal, but it would make an awesome lightning rod for unhappy FB users to band together and boycott FB en mass.

I've just signed up to Google+. Hopefully I'll be able to keep tabs on my friends without
destroying everyone's privacy.
 
  • #69
Evo said:
I had also heard that anonymous didn't approve of the threat.

The "leaders" don't. It runs contrary to their generally vague mission of protecting internet freedom and opposing censorship. The thing to understand about Anonymous though is that it's not really an organized group per ce. While there are loose hacker affiliates and some semi-established precedents about how activities are organized, really, any mass action of people on the internet could be "Anonymous." The vast majority of people participating in a DDOS attack for example are just random people on the internet who follow Anonops tweets or heard about it on 4chan or something. It's really more the equivalent of a mob then the equivalent of AL-qaeda, so you can easily have splinter groups who do their own thing. A good example is Project Chanology, which is an anti-scientology group. While the initial actions were taken by Anonymous in response to Scientology trying to censor stuff on the internet that was unfavorable to them based on copyright clams, the people who show up and protest in Guy Fawkes masks are more traditional protestors who dislike Scientology for various reasons and may not even realize it has anything to do with the internet. For example, I met a guy in Austin who said he was part of Anonymous, and he wasn't even aware they were a hacker group. He was a Scientology protestor who didn't like the church for various reasons.

My point is it's a nebulous thing when you hear "Anonymous did that or Anonymous did that."
 
  • #70
DaveC426913 said:
Well, hacking the site might not be legal, but it would make an awesome lightning rod for unhappy FB users to band together and boycott FB en mass.

I've just signed up to Google+. Hopefully I'll be able to keep tabs on my friends without
destroying everyone's privacy.

Haha, that would be pretty funny if it was secretly Google behind it to get people to switch.
 
  • #71
Evo said:
I don't think the majority of Americans know who Guy Fawkes is, so any meaning is lost on most people outside of the UK, IMO.
A lot of younger Americans saw the movie, refreshing an awareness of GF.
 
  • #72
DaveC426913 said:
A lot of younger Americans saw the movie, refreshing an awareness of GF.
Not to mention that the female lead is pretty cute and engenders a lot of empathy regarding the conditions of her confinement.
 
  • #73
DaveC426913 said:
A lot of younger Americans saw the movie, refreshing an awareness of GF.
What movie?
 
  • #74
Evo said:
What movie?

V for Vendetta - the one Galteeh referenced - and you quoted - that started the whole discssion about Nov 5 bring Guy Fawkes Day.
 
  • #77
But I just created a Tribe on Facebook!~ :smile:
 
  • #78
DaveC426913 said:
V for Vendetta - the one Galteeh referenced - and you quoted - that started the whole discssion about Nov 5 bring Guy Fawkes Day.
He never said it was a movie, I thought he was referring to comic book game, nope never seen it, not my thing.
 
  • #79
Evo said:
He never said it was a movie, I thought he was referring to comic book game, nope never seen it, not my thing.
You might want to rent or borrow the DVD. It is well worth the time, which is something I can rarely say about movies these days.
 
  • #80
Evo said:
He never said it was a movie, I thought he was referring to comic book game, nope never seen it, not my thing.

Like MiB and countless other movies it was originally a comic book. Whether it is worthwhile or not is debatable, but its certainly not an obscure low budget film.
 
  • #81
wuliheron said:
Like MiB and countless other movies it was originally a comic book. Whether it is worthwhile or not is debatable, but its certainly not an obscure low budget film.

IMO, the movie wasn't that good. The comic, by Alan Moore (who also did the Watchmen, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentleman) is much better and more philosophically nuanced. But it certainly created some iconic imagery.
 
  • #82
I hope that someday they hack into Standards & Poors and other such institutions that play Russian roulette with the world's economies. Also they should attack FB sooner.
 
  • #83
Galteeth said:
IMO, the movie wasn't that good. The comic, by Alan Moore (who also did the Watchmen, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentleman) is much better and more philosophically nuanced. But it certainly created some iconic imagery.
I just read the wiki on it, a political movie with some really bad reviews, nope, not something I would be interested in watching.
 
  • #84
  • #85
Evo said:
I just read the wiki on it, a political movie with some really bad reviews, nope, not something I would be interested in watching.

Political movie? I suppose as a premise. What it really was was a dark superhero vigilante story. Like Batman but against Gotham City.
 
  • #86
DaveC426913 said:
Political movie? I suppose as a premise. What it really was was a dark superhero vigilante story. Like Batman but against Gotham City.
Or Zorro (think about it.)
 
  • #87
DaveC426913 said:
Political movie? I suppose as a premise. What it really was was a dark superhero vigilante story. Like Batman but against Gotham City.

turbo said:
Or Zorro (think about it.)
Ah, see according to the reviews, you were supposed to get the anti-government, anarchist message.
 
  • #88
Evo said:
Ah, see according to the reviews, you were supposed to get the anti-government, anarchist message.
Broadly, but that's not the appeal of the protagonist. The movie is more complex than that. I don't want to throw out any spoilers for people who might still have an interest in seeing the flick, but there is a lot more going on than anarchy and rebellion in a police state.
 
  • #89
turbo said:
Broadly, but that's not the appeal of the protagonist. The movie is more complex than that. I don't want to throw out any spoilers for people who might still have an interest in seeing the flick, but there is a lot more going on than anarchy and rebellion in a police state.

This going a bit off topic, but I would really recommend checking out the book. It's easy to find online.

Differences between the movie and book:

http://comics.ign.com/articles/696/696867p1.html
 

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