Hacker-For-Hire to Livestream Deletion of Zuckerberg’s Facebook Page: REPORT

A hacker-for-hire has claimed he will delete Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s profile in a video live-stream on Sunday.

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According to a new report from Bloomberg, a 24-year-old Taiwanese hacker named Chang Chi-Yuan has posted on his Facebook page that he’ll begin a hack to delete Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page this Sunday at 6PM local time.

“Broadcasting the deletion of FB founder Zuck’s account,” the hacker said according to a translation by Bloomberg. “Scheduled to go live.”

“Security researchers” such as Chang regularly participate in “bug bounties,” or official programs in which companies pay hackers to find flaws in their websites. Rewards for such discoveries can be up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for critical bugs or flaws. These sort of discoveries then go through an official process in which they are researched by the company’s internal team.

“I don’t want to be a proper hacker, and I don’t even want to be a hacker at all,” Chang said in a recent post. “I’m just bored and try to dabble so that I can earn some money.”

Change is somewhat of a minor celebrity in Taiwan, explains Bloomberg. In the past, he has been a guest on talk shows to discuss his various hacking exploits and has made it onto Japanese messaging giant Line’s “2016 bug-hunters hall of fame” list. He has also made a number of unverified claims that he has carried out successful attacks on Apple and Tesla.

If Chang is successful, it wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Zuckerberg‘s Facebook page has been hacked. In 2011, a Palestinian security researcher discovered he could post anything directly onto any user’s profile, successfully posting a status update to Zuckerberg’s account, encouraging the founder to let users invest in the social media network and turn it into a “social business.”

The hacking event, assuming Facebook doesn’t put a stop to it, is scheduled to begin Sunday at 6PM local time. Globally, that translates to 3AM in San Francisco / 6AM New York / 11AM London / 12PM Berlin / 1PM Moscow / 3:30PM Delhi / 6PM Beijing / 7PM Tokyo / 8PM Sydney.

In related news, a new study has revealed the extent to which Facebook is furnishing advertisers with so-called “shadow” contact information to enable the targeting of ads via indirect means.