'Anonymous' Group Denies Planning Facebook Hack
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The hacker group that calls itself 'Anonymous' has denied it's targeting Facebook as it fights the federal shutdown of the file sharing site Megaupload and the push to give the US government authority to crack down on copyright infringement online.
"It is time to take action," says a computer-generated voice over pulsing techno in an ominous YouTube video.
After disabling the Justice Department's website and a number of big entertainment name dot-coms, this would be the biggest take-down yet for the hackers.
"Our first target: Facebook," the world's largest social network, with more than 800 million users.
"This will be enough to show them indeed that we are not playing." But Facebook has tens of thousands of servers far and wide to hold all those photos, videos, and status updates we make. "It is still possible to bring it down," the voice in the video says.
The video requests help at midnight on Saturday from the like-minded, "the people who want to take a stand against the government."
But a Twitter feed -- @anonops -- that has spoken 'officially' for Anonymous in the past says the group is not behind this call for an attack: "Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie."
Facebook was opposed to the now-shelved Stop Online Piracy Act and its cousin in the senate, so it's unclear why the site would be targeted. The video mentions the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement," a proposed treaty that has raised the ire of free speech and digital rights advocates.
