Hacktivists Anonymous are up to their old tricks again, but this time they’re being a little bit more organised about things.
Last week saw a series of attacks including the website of tear gas maker Combined Systems, Inc., as well as a Federal Trade Commission web server that hosts three FTC websites. Anonymous claimed this hack in opposition of the widely protested copyright treaty ACTA, which its antagonists argue has the potential to curtail freedom of expression on the internet.
After the attacks last week, Anonymous left messages on each of the sites they’d compromised, stating every Friday will bring a new attack against government and corporate sites under the theme of #FFF, or Fuck the FBI Friday.
A member of Anonymous said that they are “sitting on dozens of unreleased targets,” and that this inventory of servers that they have already compromised could fill in excess of five months of #FFF attacks. He continued: “Yes, each and every Friday we will be launching attacks… with the specific purpose of wiping as many corrupt corporate and government systems off our internet.”
While some web users who comment on tech sites such as Mashable and Wired applaud the actions of Anonymous for standing up to the large companies and those would-be opposers of freedom of speech, others are not so sympathetic to the cause. One individual made reference to Star Wars by saying “I see the anons as the rebel alliance, sorta. As long as the government remains corrupt, I’m not gonna protest anon’s actions,” while another was more concerned over his own privacy or losing his data: “Yeah, they are harmless until it’s your data that gets lifted.”
If you are concerned that content you have spent months or years creating on social networks may be at risk, you can backup your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Viadeo accounts using SocialSafe, giving you peace of mind that you won’t lose your data.