Politically motivated hacking crew TeaMp0isoN has teamed up with Anonymous in an attempt to storm the music charts.
The hacktivists fancy themselves as music moguls with plans to release a song by an unspecified artist that they are nonetheless convinced is bound to storm the charts. Proceeds of the unknown song - due to released via iTunes and YouTube - will go to charity.
Only the music industry can thwart this digital activism, the groups suggest, adding that if the entertainment industry gets in the way the the hackers will return to more traditional hacking tactics, according to a manifesto for the project.
Long have activists and revolutionaries turned to a song to get their message out. Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN have collaborated together to continue this tradition. We are going to take youtube and iTunes by storm and flood the song into the world around us, with proceeds going to charities that are actively striving to change it. Once this hits the charts, radio stations will by law, have to play it. Will they thwart the law to continue making sheep out of the people?Follow-up Twitter messages from TeaMp0isoN clarified: "The beat has been sorted and the artist is writing the song as we speak. #OpCensorThis is not hacking related, hacking will only take place if they ban the track from radio... call it Digital Activism."
If they censor the song we will attack the music industry and censor them instead.
Anonymous need no introduction. TeaMp0isoN is another hacktivist group, and sometime rival to LulzSec, most notable for defacement of the English Defence League website back in February and a BlackBerry Blog earlier this week. The BlackBerry defacement threatened to reveal the addresses of RIM employees should RIM turn over its BlackBerry Messengers logs to authorities looking to identify UK rioters.
In other hacktivism news, senior figures in Anonymous and LulzSec have distanced them from supposed plans to launch an attack on Facebook to coincide with the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November. "Thank you to my brothers at @anonops and @anonyOpsIndo for exposing the fact that #opFacebook is bullshit and does not exist," senior activist Sabu said via Twitter.
However other sources told El Reg that a faction of hacktivists are planning to attack Facebook, even though the majority of #antisec, LulzSec, @AnonymousIRC and others are against the idea.
The internal debate can be seen by following Twitter updates to the AnonyOps account.
The initial line was "#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it." This soon became "an Anonymous board meeting was held. We have decided to renounce #OpFacebook. That is all."
Meanwhile the more serious members of Anonymous are more keen to draw attention to a recent dump of 5GB of data related to a Brazilian investigation into corruption. The files are said to come from an investigation into corruption involving the CIA, the Brazilian telecom industry, Brazilian government, local financiers and multiple US corporations.
the link "dump" is not available?????