Anonymous denies Facebook attack

2012-01-24 10:44

San Francisco - A Twitter account linked to the hacker group Anonymous denied that the group had released a video calling on the public to launch a cyber attack on Facebook.

The tweet was distributed just hours after someone who claimed to represent the group posted a video on YouTube calling for a co-ordinated attack on the social networking giant Facebook on January 28, to protest plans to crack down on online piracy.

"An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the government of the United States," the video narrator says.

"While Sopa and Pipa may be postponed from Congress, this does not guarantee that our internet rights will be upheld."

At issue are the two anti-piracy bills which were delayed last week following unprecedented online protests.

The video called on supporters to download a tool that launches denial of service attacks on targeted websites, and said that if enough people joined the effort, it could bring down Facebook, even though it has over 60 000 servers.

But the call was swiftly rejected by the users of the Twitter account who in the past have spoken for the secretive hacker collective, raising the possibility that the Facebook video was either a hoax or supported by an Anonymous splinter group.

"Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie," the group tweeted from the @AnonOps feed.

The episode came just days after Anonymous launched a string of high profile attacks which brought down the website of the US Justice Department, CBS News and the Motion Picture Association of America in retaliation for the closure last week of the file-sharing service Megaupload.

- SAPA