A Google Plus account by Your Anon News, a part of the hacktivist collective Anonymous, was banned from that social network as having content that violated Google’s community standards, according to Time magazine’s Techland blog. Your Anon New’s Google profile and Gmail was also cancelled.
Now, Anonymous has announced its intention of creating its own social network, AnonPlus.
AnonPlus
Placeholder content is already up at anonplus.com. The link to Anonymous’ developer forum for the service does not seem to be functioning.
Here is what Anonymous itself has to say about AnonPlus. (Typos and misspellings have been faithfully reproduced from the site itself.)
“(T)his lil info dump of a site is here simply to dispence info, soon the actual site will go up and you can begin to interact with it. This project is not overnight and will take many of those out there who simply want a better internet. We will not be stopped by those looking to troll or those willing to stop the spreading of the truth. One thing i would like to point out that this project is for ALL tpeople not just anonymous, this idea is a presstorm idea and only takes the name anon because of the Anonymity of the social network.”
They also said a number of other Anonymous accounts were “silenced” but did not specify which ones.
Anonymous has gained a reputation for hacking companies like Bank of America, which refused to keep Wikileaks as a customer. But it has largely turned its efforts to hacking government sites in countries like Tunisia.
Anonymous has recently been joined by the hackers from LulzSec, to form a new team called AntiSec. LulzSec only took a couple of months to cement their reputation, during which time they hacked domestic political targets, such as the C.I.A. and the U.S. Senate. After trouble started brewing, including arrests, LulzSec announced its dissolution and joined forces with Anonymous.
Questions for Anonymous
What AnonPlus will offer, other than a place where Anonymous itself can gather, is uncertain.
Here are a few questions for Anonymous.
- What features will the social network have?
- What is the timeline for its rollout?
- Who will host it?
- What kind of security will it feature?
- How anonymous will Anonymous’ network be?
- How will it secure and retain that anonymity?
- What guarantees will users have that it will not be shut down due to its connection with Anonymous?
- How will Anonymous insulate users and their information against being caught up in any shutdown of the site?
