Will Anonymous take down Facebook tomorrow?

David Heath
Friday, 04 November 2011 11:37

Your IT - Home IT

Back in August, Anonymous announced that they would 'destroy' Facebook on Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th).  That's tomorrow.  Will it happen and is Facebook prepared?

In mid August, the so-called hacking group Anonymous posted a video asserting that they would attack Facebook on November 5th - that's Guy Fawkes Day in Britain.

For those who may not remember, Guy Fawkes was the catholic who attempted to destroy the English Houses of Parliament (and all souls therein) due to their support of the Church of England.  It seems he was hoping to return England to Catholicism.  Fawkes was arrested in the basement of the House of Lords while tending to the barrels of gunpowder that had been hidden there.

Reports suggest that there was indeed sufficient gunpowder to achieve the desired outcome.

In support of this long-standing history of civil unrest, Anonymous announced an attack on the modern "people's house," Facebook.  In the video they state, "Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you want to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill Facebook for the sake of your own privacy."

One might wonder whether such a public announcement was a real or merely an idle threat.  However one might contemplate the possibility that should the plan be real, Anonymous may-well have planted the seeds of Facebook's destruction well before announcing their intentions.

Most observers seem to have laughed at the threat from Anonymous and moved on to the next potential tragedy, but what if it was real?  What if life as we know it (aka Facebook) ends, or is at least seriously impacted just as Anonymous has threatened.

Representatives of Facebook were contacted to provide information as to their level of respect for this threat and their state of preparedness, but no response was forthcoming at the time of writing.

For fairly obvious reasons, iTWire was unable to identify a credible representative of Anonymous in order to question them about the attack.