Banned from Google+, Anonymous creates Anonplus

[Trail]

http://www.techspot.com/news/44721-anonymous-gets-banned-from-google-creates-anonplus.html

Google has reportedly banned a handful of Anonymous members from Google+ (it's not exactly clear how many accounts were shut down). The hacktivist group likened Google's actions to the stories of activists being banned from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as governments blocking various websites using Internet censorship tools. As a result, Anonymous has decided to create its own social network: Anonplus, located at anonplus.com.

Currently, the site has only been announced. At the bottom left hand corner, it says "Revision :0.1 Alpha." While this version number is meant to indicate that the site is still very early in development, it's not a social network yet. There is no way to sign up or interact. Currently there's just one webpage with the Anonplus name, the motto "Social Networking Anonymously," and the heading "Welcome to Anonplus.com the Anonymous Social Networking site."

The only link is to the Dev Forum, which uses the Zetaboards forum software, and isn't even on the anonplus.com domain name. There are four subforums set up: The Logic, The Interface, General Chatter, and Staff Postions. At the time of writing, the forum already had over 100 registered members.

http://static.techspot.com/fileshost/newspics3/2011/anonplus.jpg

This initiative is an odd one because it jibes with what Anonymous is all about: getting things done anonymously. Still, it is technically possible to build a social network that doesn't share anything with anyone unless you specifically give it permission to. In fact, Anonplus will probably not encourage sharing information like your full name and location. Either way, the goal appears to be to build a social network where you can say and do anything you want.

"This is one social network that will not tolerate being shut down, censored, or oppressed - even in the face of blackout," an Anonymous spokesperson wrote in a statement. "We the people have had enough…enough of governments and corporations saying what's best for us - what's safe for our minds. The sheep era is over. The interwebz are no longer your prison."

AnonPLUS dev forum (http://s13.zetaboards.com/anonplus/index/)

[Mad Hatter]

If I understand correctly the modus operandi during the current revolutionary phase allows anyone to put forward and argue the case for aiming at a particular target. If the reasoning resonates with you then you can join/donate your machine to the botnet for the duration of the exercise. Less popular ideas attract less grunt and so are more likely to fail.

With enough people involved, using say an encrypted peer to peer virtual private network arrangement, TPTB would have to have the ability to monitor 95% of all switches on the web simultaneously to have any hope of pinning it down. Difficult even for them...

We could quite likely be witnessing the embrionic state of an attempt at building a real web based democracy. Assuming of course that post the revolutionary bit web access is made available for everyone on the planet, we would for the first time ever see a working example of what the inventor of democracy had in mind, such has always been one of the promises of the web.

As it's inventor pointed out some 2000 years ago it will still suck as it is based on mob rule but a true implementation of the idea has never happened and it surely has to beat the crap out of the demockery we currently put up with!!

Of course there maybe quite a few who will have problems adjusting to a free for all in the arena of free speech but they should remember it was restrictions on the flow of ideas that got us in this mess to start with.

cheers