The hacktavist group Anonymous is said to be currently attacking Facebook. This is part of the response to the shuttering of Megaupload, the webs most popular file locker, on January 17 2012. Anonymous has been on a Denial of Service spree these last few days, causing service outages for a number of worldwide government agencies, companies and organizations that were implicated or condoned the Megaupload raids. The validity of the reports are questionable though.
So far the attack (if its actually happening) has yielded few results, Facebook was reported to be running slowly by a few twitter users. Some of the Facebook applications and games were also either slow or inaccesible. The DDoS attempt will probably be unsuccessful on a site of this size, as Facebook has numerous counter-measure to this type of harassment.
Because of the amorphous structure of Anonymous, it’s not certain that the attack is actually taking place. Some members or subgroups may be acting alone or may not have been able to drum up enough support from other members. Some anonymous mouthpieces on Twitter are claiming Facebook is under attack while others (like the one pictures below) are denying it.
Facebook’s connection to the Megaupload raids is not immediately clear, and some question why it is a target. The motivation is mostly to spread awareness about the harm of censorship and the ACTA bills. The anons posit that the recent pro copyright holder legislation that has been put forward around the world is not being met with enough public backlash and that they need a “wakeup call”.
Update 9:15PM EST
It looks like it was not Anonymous that caused the outage after all. Trolled indeed.
