Hacker Group Anonymous Plan to Destroy Facebook on Bonfire Night

A group of hackers, collectively known as ‘Anonymous’ have vowed to kill facebook on bon fire night, 5 november 2011, reminiscent of the plot to bring down the Houses of Parliament and planned assassination of King James in 1605 by Guy Fawkes and his cohorts. As the children’s nursery rhyme ‘Gunpowder plot’ written about Guy Fawkes goes:

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Remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason, should never be forgot…

The most likely reason for the choosing of this date is from, Alan Moore and David Lloyd who made the date more memorable, when they used it in ‘V for Vendetta’, the comic book series they created (which was also later converted into a movie), where the main character ‘V’, whom runs around wearing a Guy Fawkes mask (something which has since become a symbol for anonymous protest aound the real world).

Recently, the Syrian Ministry of Defence, had it’s website replaced with one owned by the hacktvist collective, claiming that, come bonfire night (as the day is celebrated in the UK), we will destory Facebook, the medium of communication you all so dearly adore. It also goes into a shout out calling for other hackers “For the sake of your own privacy, join out cause.”

They have made claims of Facebook selling information to government agancies and bodies, as well as to people being spied on world wide with security firms being allowed clandestine access to information. emphasising on, as they put it, ’so called whitehat infosec firms, working for or on behalf of countries such as Egypt and Syria, and other such authoritarian governments.

Being antagonistic at best, and insensitive to all those caught up in the violence at worst, it’s mission statement has one line that points towards the events that have taken place in London and other major cities across England, “The riots are underway” states Anonymous.

One factor Anonymous should seriously take into account, is that, it did not work out to well for Guy Fawkes now, did it?, plus he did not advertise his intentions to the masses. But what’s the betting that if it does manage to succeed and take down Facebook, it will happen at 16:05 GMT (in honour of the year that the original attack on the British government happened).

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