November 5 could be a very interesting day for a lot of people on the Internet. Today, the well known hacker group Anonymous issued a press release via YouTube that announced that on that date, it will stage a hack attack against Facebook. The social networking service has over 750 million registered users worldwide and has drastically changed the way people communicate and play on the Internet. However, Anonymous claims it will be staging the hack attack because the group has serious concerns with how Facebook allegedly uses the info from its worldwide user base.
In its press release, posted by the Village Voice web site, Anonymous makes some very serious allegations against Facebook. The group says; "Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria." Anonymous offers no proof of its claims in its press release and also claims that Facebook keeps the data entered by its users, even if that user decides to delete his or her Facebook account.
Facebook has yet to respond to Anonymous' specific threats and claims. However, the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in an editorial to the Washington Post in March 2010, has denied that Facebook will sell its user info to advertisers or anyone else. He's also said that users have control over how their personal info is shared.
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