It may seem like I’m crying wolf here, but Anonymous have threatened to shut down Facebook (again). Last year there was talk – and nothing more – of an attack to bring down Facebook on November 5th, but given the recent escalation of events surrounding the SOPA and PIPA, as well as the Wikipedia blackout, maybe it’s time to take notice. Oh, that and the fact that Anonymous are effectively supplying digital weapons to anyone who wants to help them in their ‘cyber-war’.
A video uploaded to YouTube yesterday, claiming to be in the name of the hacker network states the intentions of Anonymous, but asks for the help of the general public. In the video, the distorted voice says that Facebook has over 60,000 servers, although it is still possible to bring them down with some civilian participation. The voice goes on to tell willing supporters how to download a Low Orbit Ion Canon (LOIC), which was the tool used to successfully bring down the Department of Justice website last week, and then explains how they can use it to help Anonymous bring down Facebook.
Due to the number of Facebook’s servers and the sheer volume of requests that they deal with on any normal day without incident, it will take a coordinated attack of some magnitude to cause a problem. The video states that “Operation Global Blackout” is ongoing”, but tells those who want to use the LOIC that the time to do it will be 12am on January 28th 2012, however no timezone has been specified.
Will they? Won’t they? This isn’t the first time Anonymous – or indeed someone posing as Anonymous – has threatened to take down Facebook, so I’ll conclude with my usual ending to blogs of this nature: if you are worried about losing all of your cherished memories, you can back up your Facebook account with SocialSafe.
As with the boy who cried wolf, eventually people stopped listening to him, and we all know how that one ended. But with a target at high-profile as Facebook, I think we can all agree that at some point or another there will be a serious attempt to bring it down, it’s just a matter of whether or not it is successful.