“Remember, remember the 5th of November”

“Remember, remember the 5th of November,” is the age old nursery rhyme which retells the story of a groups of conspirators’ plot to attack and blow up the House of Parliament in the seventeenth century. The conspirators were eventually captured and executed, and the and the government stated Nov. 5 a day of thanksgiving and remembrance. Eventually it changed into Guy Fawkes Night, Guy Fawkes being the most infamous of the conspirators. Later on it turned into Fireworks Night.

Today, the hacktivist group Anonymous celebrates in a very different fashion by hacking the websites of major companies and organizations, hoping the public will remember, remember the 5th of November. The tradition of hacking is done in tribute to the upcoming Guy Fawkes Night and the anarchy ideology Fawkes advocated for. Antivirus software company Symantec, NBC, along with Australian government websites and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, along with others were targeted with hacks. The Jimmy Fallon show, Saturday Night Live and Lady Gaga as well as PayPal were experiencing problems.

Anonymous and hackers declared their iniatives on Twitter all proudly beginning with the Anonymous “press arm” statement, “Preparing #OpVendetta Remember, remember 5th of November.” At 10:30 p.m. ET on Nov. 4, Anonymous Press tweeted, “The Twitterverse goes mad wondering what #Anonymous will do next on this 5th of November since we already started out with a bang!”

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