Anonplus was a social networking service developed by Anonymous.[1]
History
editIt was announced in July 2011, after Anonymous was banned from Google+ and all other Google sites.[2][3] The site was intended to be an open source and anonymous networking platform. Edward Moyer of CNET noted that at the time of its launch the site featured "often-awkward writing" and "amateurish typography and site design."[4]
According to an anonymous interview in Digital Trends, the project was not an official project of Anonymous as the developers' had distanced themselves from the group, despite close ties.[5]
On 21 July 2011, Anonplus was hacked by a rival group of hackers, apparently based in Turkey. AnonPlus's main webpage was replaced with an image of a dog wearing a suit, mocking the more normal Anonymous logo, and messages in Turkish and English.[6] Three days later, it was defaced a second time by the rival hacking group Syrian Electronic Army.[7] On August 8, 2011, another cyberattack was carried out against the site in retaliation for Anonymous' attack on the Syrian Ministry of Defense. Citizen Lab connected the attack to the Syrian Electronic Army, who had a history of attacking organizations critical of the Syrian government.[8]
The social networking site has since been abandoned.[9] The website was updated 13 November 2011 with a press release which mentioned that the project had entered an invite-only beta phase. According to this document, the project entered this beta phase on 5 November 2011. The document also explained that it had become a goal of the project to target censorship.[10] Since that point, the domain has expired and no mention has been made of the project on any social media outlets.[11]
References
edit- ^ "Anonymous Is Working On AnonPlus, a Facebook For Hackers and Non-Hackers Alike". Gizmodo. 18 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ Love, Dylan. "Hacking Group "Anonymous" Is Making Its Own Social Network". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ "Anonymous plans AnonPlus after being kicked out of Google+". Los Angeles Times. 19 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ Moyer, Edward. "Anonymous touts its own social network: 'Anon+'". CNET. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ "Exclusive: Inside Anon+, the world's first anonymous social network". Digital Trends. 20 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ "Hackers Hacked the Hackers' AnonPlus Social Network". Gizmodo. 21 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ "AnonPlus Hacked (Again) by Syrian Group". Hackmageddon. 24 July 2011. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
- ^ Keizer, Gregg (8 August 2011). "Syrian hackers retaliate, deface Anonymous' social network". Computerworld. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ @AnonPlus Twitter feed
- ^ Anon+ News (PDF), November 2011, archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2013, retrieved 21 November 2011
- ^ , June 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20160729072910/http://www.anonplus.com/, archived from the original on 29 July 2016, retrieved 19 June 2017
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