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Business & Tech

Facebook Fallout a Hoax or is Your Privacy?

In the name of privacy, some members of the Hacker group 'Anonymous' threaten to shut down Facebook on Nov. 5.

Life as we know it is being threatened.  

For many of us, part of our daily routine is to update our status' and check on our "friends" through Facebook.  

But will our favorite social media outlet be destroyed?  And should it even matter so much? 

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Have we been duped into sharing personal information for government agencies to exploit?

And will Nov. 5 be a day to remember…again?

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Nov. 5 is an important historical date already.  In 1605, Guy Fawkes attempted to destroy the British House of Lords and the date of his efforts has become symbolic to groups seeking to take rebellious action and demonstrate their opposition to authority.

Such was the case with the dreadful Fort Hood shootings  on Nov. 5, 2009.

This summer, particularly this past July, the popular social network, Facebook, became the target of the famous hacker group, which calls itself simply "Anonymous." 

Just as the 2006 movie V for Vendetta borrowed the Nov. 5 date from for the climatic culminating unruly act of the disgruntled character, certain members of the collective hacker group Anonymous have selected the date for their mayhem.

"Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed," said the anonymous robotic voice on the group’s YouTube video that announces the plan to shut down Facebook

And just who is this group?

“Anonymous is a loosely affiliated group of activist computer hackers who got their start years ago as cyberpranksters, an online community of tech-savvy kids more interested in making mischief than political statements,” according to the New York Times.

But Anonymous has developed into a more serious and active collective effort, which began targeting and attacking large corporations and government agencies around the world in December 2010.

The hacker collective group has already attacked government websites and major corporations like PayPal, Sony, and Bank of America, so their threat should not be readily dismissed.

“You cannot hide from reality,” said the anonymous voice dubbed to sound alien.

The video, posted on July 16 under the account name FacebookOps, justifies the attack and calls for people of the world to think:

“Attention citizens of the world, we are anonymous.  We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows.”

According to the group, Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving covert access to security information firms so they can spy on people all over the world. 

 “If you’re a willing activist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill Facebook for the sake of your own privacy,” the eerie voice warns.

Additionally, the group claims that changing settings to secure privacy is all a delusion and that nothing on Facebook is private.

“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your 'privacy' settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you 'delete' your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time." 

While the notion that an organized mob of any kind seeks and is capable of taking down a part of our everyday lives might bring about terrifying disillusionment, the group does bring up valid concerns regarding the use of data collected and stored by Facebook and other online engines like Google.

“Facebook knows more about you than your family," said the voice.

Most online users don’t realize that each click of the mouse is tracked and can be traced by Google or anyone with rights to that information, like say, the government.

If you are a Gmail user, you may have noticed that as you write to your Aunt Sally asking for her crabcakes recipe, advertisements for crabcakes and restaurants serving them begin to appear in your windows.

Have you ever wondered why?

“Google uses cookies to improve your online experience, including the display of more relevant ads,” according to the Google website Privacy Center.

The site states that the cookie trail and said enhancements can be opted out of and the site provides instruction to do so. 

But can you really opt out of tracking when an anonymous ID is actually assigned to your browsing device?

According to Google, “To serve ads in applications and other clients where cookie technology is not available, we have engineered an anonymous ID by associating your device ID with a random, anonymous string of characters.”

And what if this information is being sold as the hackers believe?  Just who is viewing your data?  

“RT @AnonyOps: Google has an entire system dedicated to reporting their cooperation with governments. http://bit.ly/9r77Lm,” an Anonymous Tweeter posted.

Google does in fact have a Google Transparency page that explains its position on government requests for information.

“Transparency is a core value at Google,” is the first line on the page.

But the tracking does beg the questions, who else is using this information and for what purpose?

Of course, many experts believe the threat to shut down Facebook is a hoax and even the group, which does not have a designated leader, is not united on the effort. 

On Aug. 10, a member of the group Tweeted, “#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it.”

With this writing today, several more accounts of Anonymous members rejecting the plan have surfaced.

For the next few months, likely the Anons themselves will battle it out to decide if Facebook is to be saved for the users or attacked for its controversial data collection. 

But regardless of the validity of the threat and the efforts to stop it, one thing is for sure, most of us need to evaluate the time and information we share online in general, and especially with social networks like Facebook.

“One day you will look back on this and know what we have done here is right,” said the Voice. 

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