LulzSec threatens Facebook

[Emcomus]

AUGUST 9, 2011
LulzSecurity threats to shutdown Facebook November 5th
http://remingtonsworld.com/profiles/blogs/hackers-threaten-to-shut-down-facebook

A group of anonymous hackers is threatening to shut down Facebook on November 5th of this year.
The group, LulzSecurity, has released a video declaring that Facebook is a threat to people's privacy. It also alleges that Facebook is selling private information to government agencies.
In the video, it says "Kill Facebook for the sake of your own privacy".
"Facebook is giving clandestine access to firms to spy on people from all around the world."
"Facebook knows more about you than your family."
"Deleting your Facebook account is impossible. Even if you delete your account, all your personal information stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time."
The group, branded as cyber terrorists, claims responsibility for shutting down the US Central Intelligence Agency's public website, as well as the attack on Sony's PlayStation Network.
The attack on Sony raised the ire of millions of gamers worldwide as the network got shutdown after a massive amount of confidential information was leaked.

In April of this year the “Play Station Network” (PSN) was hacked exposing over 75 million accounts with personal data. Although no illegal credit card activity was detected, consumers were told to change their passwords and private information.

APRIL 26, 2011
Sony PlayStation Network Shut Down 'Indefinitely' Following Attack
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/sony-playstation-network-down-ps3_n_853695.html

LulzSec is believed to have 6-12 members, a couple which are currently being investigated by British police. This group of young hackers have mastered many of the latest forms of Internet Programming including Python. They have already attacked and shut down many government entities, and broadcast stations; like the CIA, FOX, PBS, and SONY PLAYSTATION. I would think that Mark Zuckerberg would probably shut down his network before jeopardizing his accounts. Yet this brings up some important facts:

1- Seeing that Lulz Security has 75,000 infected servers on the Python system; SOMEONE has to be financing them, after all they have been around for a least a year now.

On 24 June 2011, The Guardian released leaked logs of the one of the group's IRC chats, revealing that the core group is a small group of hackers with a leader Sabu who exercises large control over the group's activities. It also reveals that the group has connections, though is not formally affiliated with, Anonymous. Some LulzSec members had once been prominent Anonymous members, including member Topiary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec

Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a group initiating active civil disobedience and spread through the Internet while staying hidden, originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

2- Who still puts up private profile information on Social Networking sites? Perhaps some limited data like: age, city, country, photos, names, etc – but other then that, no financial or business transaction, At least I would hope people are more tech savvy since the evolution of our worlds instant, electronic, communication technology.

3- Although these hackers are powerful, they do these attack's to draw attention to their cause, not get rich.

Fair Use Rules

 

[surfingdemon]

Hacker Plot to ‘Kill Facebook’ Is All a Terrible Misunderstanding
http://gawker.com/5829659/hacker-plot-to-kill-facebook-is-all-a-terrible-misunderstanding

The internet is quaking with the news that the hacktivist collective Anonymous plans to "destroy" Facebook on November 5th. We spoke to the Anonymous member who was there at the start of "Operation Facebook," and he told us the whole thing is a misunderstanding that's spiraled crazily out of control.

CNN reported this morning on an Anonymous-branded video which threatened to "kill Facebook" for privacy violations. In the video, a computerized voice foretells of a Facebook armageddon on November 5th—that's Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates the 1605 plot to blow up the British House of of Lords: "Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed," the video says. Facebook is now girding itself for an assault. Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan told CNBC that "We take every one of those threats seriously."

Hacker Plot to 'Kill Facebook' Is All a Terrible Misunderstanding After a stunning burst of media coverage, a number of popular Anonymous twitter accounts and news sources distanced themselves from Operation Facebook, claiming it was a hoax. But the truth is more complicated than that. It turns out there once was an Anonymous "Operation Facebook." It was dedicated not to destroying the site but raising awareness about its privacy practices. The current panic springs from some overeager hacktivists and media stumbling over the remnants of that abandoned operation and spinning it into a dastardly plot to destroy Facebook.

An Anonymous member named Speakeasy laid the whole story out in a document posted to Pastebin today. In an IRC chat today, Speakeasy said that "Operation Facebook" was launched months ago by him and about 10-20 other people in a room on the Anonymous chat server. However, their goal was not to "destroy" Facebook. The main purpose was to "bring awareness to Facebook keeping data even after you delete an account," Speakeasy said. (Facebook saves your personal information and continues to use it for data mining even if you delete your account.)

The group planned a two-pronged approach: They would 1) urge Facebook users to delete their profiles on November 5th as protest and 2) develop their own, privacy-friendly social networking alternative to Facebook. But in Mid-July Speakeasy and his buddies got bored of Operation Facebook and decided to shut it down. They turned the early code for their social network over to another group, Anonplus, and that, they thought, was that.

But they forgot to clean up after themselves, and the abandoned scraps of Operation Facebook became fodder for rumors of a spectacular attack against Zuckerberg's baby. See, the Operation Facebook kids had started a crowdsourced document to plan their protest; when they disbanded, everything was deleted from the document except for a single line warning Facebook that it would "never forget" November 5th—the date that had been floated for the mass account deactivation.

The chat room was left, empty except for a link to this cryptic threat. Eventually some Anons stumbled on the empty room and rumors started circulating about Operation Facebook. Speculation ranged from physical attacks on Facebook's server to some newly-discovered exploit that would bring the site crashing to its knees. Someone made a video about this new, destructive Operation Facebook—Speakeasy says they don't know who—media outlets picked up the video, which now has more than a million views. Now Facebook is slated to be destroyed by year's end.

Speakeasy is boggled by how the failed protest has spiraled out of control. "The whole thing is a massive cluster**** and i feel responsible, so can someone sort that shit out?" he implores in his Pastebin document. "An attack on Facebook would be ridiculous," he explained in our chat. "Even if it succeeded, Facebook has a lot of users, and we want to help people, not hurt them."

The Operation Facebook saga shows the strength of the internet's collective Facebook death drive. Time and again, the mere hint of a Facebook apocalypse sends everyone into fits of titillated faux-terror. It also shows how Anonymous is driven as much by media attention as any internal hive mind. After the frenzy of news reports and blog posts, the old Operation Facebook room is filled with more people than ever. Only now they're tossing around outlandish ideas for attacking Facebook and its users, instead of planning a 'peaceful' protest. Operation Facebook might be back—for real, this time.