back to article Facebook scoffs at hacktivist stunt

Hacktivists took over control of almost 300 Facebook community groups in a bid to highlight concerns over how easy it might be for miscreants to hijack a shared interest group on the social networking site. Facebook said no hacking was involved in the attack, which it dismisses as a stunt. The Control Your Info group, on the …

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  1. Carter Cole

    losers

    ooooh they changed the names of some groups...

  2. david 63

    So...

    ... they assumed control of some groups that were effectively dead because no one was administering them.

    Whoopee-do.

    Where's the YAWN icon

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    GOOD IDEA.

    I, for one, charged out and stole a lot of bags from old women, just to show how easy it was, then torched a few cars and spit on a few by passers.

    This is just plain stupid, just because it's easy to do something wrong, doesn't mean you should, what's next ? are they gonna setup their own botnet just to show easy it was to spread a virus ?

  4. LaeMi Qian
    Headmaster

    Depends on your definition of 'Hacking'

    Leaving aside that we are actually talking about 'Cracking' and 'hacking' traditionally referred to the recreational alteration of software or hardware*, what exactly do people actually mean by the term?

    Does it require the exploitation of security weaknesses in a software system over the wire only? Is social engineering and target research to get or guess usernames and passwords included? (ie: is 'phishing' a part of of 'hacking' or a separate thing?) Is reading the password off the post-it note under someone's keyboard enough to count?

    Both sides are right and wrong depending on who's definition of 'hacking' you use.

    ----

    * I doubt the annoying change in meaning will ever go away - can anyone think of a new word to describe us old-school 'hackers'? Preferably one that doesn't sound dorky but also isn't so cool that Hollywood will want to make movies about not-it. ;-)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    ho hum

    I appreciate what they're trying to do - highlighting online security vulns isn't a bad thing - but this is pretty lame...

  6. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Oooh FailBook

    ZzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzz

  7. Andrew_F

    @AC 21:08 Re:"are they gonna setup their own botnet"

    The BBC already rented a botnet to show how easy it was.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/16/bbc_botnet_bought/

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    J required

    They hijacked, not hacked. For FB to say otherwise just looks stupid.

    And they're a bit behind the times really, this has been going on since last year. Just google for 'this group has no admin' or some such, and voila. You've wasted 5 minutes of your life achieving something pointless.

  9. JP Strauss
    Thumb Down

    Playground antics

    This is like finding an empty swing on the playground and claiming you have struck a blow for socialism.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Boo-Hoo

    I mean does anyone really care if "I will run naked through tescos if this group reaches 1hundred members" or "I Thought You Were Hot Until I Clicked on 'View More Pictures' or "Why Yes, I Do Frequently Burst Out in Song" Facebook groups get taken over!????

  11. Stevie

    4 LaeMi Qian

    You know that when every damn book on unix includes a chapterette on what the difference between "hacker" and "cracker" is (along with the mandatory six-page tree-killer on the history of Unix from the time of the separation of the weak and electromagnetic forces to the publication date of the book), the battle is already lost. No-one but a couple of dozen self-styled hackers worry about the fact that for all intents and purposes, the world thinks hacking is unauthorised effing about in someone else's computers, not well-intentioned (but usually still unauthorised) clever stuff. This "hacker/cracker" silliness is about as worthwhile as Xerox, Hoover or Kleenex trying to re-assert total control of their trademark name and about a zillion times less likely to ever be successful.

    Get over it.

  12. Stevie

    Bah!

    And then there's the Yahoo!Groups approach to the departing group owner - refuse to let ANYONE else take the damned thing over, no matter how long they've been a member or how often they petition the admin gnomes at Yahoo's secret control base at the center of the Earth.

    I call the resulting spam-riddled and thus member-abandoned wastelands "Tumbleweed Groups" because that's all you'll find in them. A great use of the company bandwidth.

    The "most senior" idea idea has merit, right up until you consider that the longest serving members of an e-group are usually the longest gone once anarchy reins, too. By the time the admin rights have percolated down to someone actually posting to that group, the lucky recipient will likey be the p3niz p1ll merchant you are trying to get rid of.

  13. Lord Lien
    Paris Hilton

    l33t

    1st facebook then the Pentagon....... WE ARE ALL DOOMED.....

    Paris because even she understands dry English wit... sometimes....

  14. Stoneshop
    Flame

    @Stevie

    "The "most senior" idea idea has merit, " -> most senior member that's been active in the last N weeks, to prevent admin rights passing to someone who's been gone for ages.

    But what are they trying to achieve? More reasonable policies? Hah. It's Mark "Bitch" Zuckerberg's playpen, by next Wednesday he'll have found another way to fuck up your privacy.

  15. Marvin the Martian
    FAIL

    Full frontal assault

    Puts one somehow in mind of Greece and Turkey, every few year they invade some rocks in the sea between them and energetically wave their flag for a few days. Not to the bemusement of anybody as the rocks in question are devoid of life.

    In their case however, the international community then scrambles to prevent an all-out war --- that kind of relevance doesn't threaten in this case.

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