Scientology is under attack from a hacker group. They've taken
down Scientology websites and posted a lot of scientology
"confidential" information online. A lot of that confidential
material has already been posted online before, however, the group
has released more recent stuff. I just watched the OT conference.
Damn funny. Basically they said "oh look, you know all the books we
sold you before? Guess what! They were wrong! But now we've fixed
them and you get to buy them all over again!"
Anyway, here's a news article:
"Anonymous" releases statements outlining "War on
Scientology"
The Internet-based group "Anonymous" has released statements on
YouTube and via a press release, outlining what they call a "War on
Scientology". Church of Scientology related websites, such as
religousfreedomwatch.org have been removed due to a suspected
distributed denial-of-service-attack (DDoS) by a group calling
themselves "Anonymous". On Friday, the same group [1] allegedly
brought down Scientology's main website, scientology.org, which was
available sporadically throughout the weekend.
Several websites relating to the Church of Scientology have been
slowed down, brought to a complete halt or seemingly removed from
the Internet completely in an attack which seems to be continuous.
The scientology.org site was back online briefly on Monday, and is
currently loading slowly.On Monday, the group released a video
titled: "Message to Scientology" on YouTube concerning their
intentions to attack the Church of Scientology. A robotic voice on
the video begins with "Hello leaders of Scientology. We are
Anonymous," and continues by explaining their motivations: "Over
the years we have been watching you, your campaigns of
misinformation, your suppression of dissent and your litigious
nature. All of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage
of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation the
extent of your malign influence over those who have come to trust
you as leaders has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore
decided that your organisation should be destroyed." The message
goes on to state that the group intends to "expel Scientology from
the Internet".
The "Message to Scientology" video was highlighted as the "YouTube
Video of the Week" by The Michigan Daily. Commenting on the video,
the piece The Michigan Daily states "if this video is any
indication, it seems like the assailants mean business." As of
Wednesday, the video had been viewed 324,147 times, favorited 2,293
times, and is currently YouTube's top third video of the day. In a
blog post on USA Today's website, Jess Zielinski wrote that it was
"not a shock that hackers hold a grudge against Scientology," and
in a followup post on another USA Today blog, Angela Gunn wrote
that "those of us who remember
the adventures of Operation
Clambake are fascinated to see this kind of thing flare up
again".
The viewpoints expressed in the video are echoed on the so-called
"Project Chanology" website, an open source of information and
direction for those within Anonymous, which talks of tactics such
as blackfaxing and prank calling alongside other "real-life"
methods of attack. The satirical website Encyclopedia Dramatica
also has a similar page devoted to "Project Chanology".
"Anonymous" released a statement on Monday in the form of a press
release, "Internet Group Anonymous Declares "War on Scientology":
"Anonymous" are fighting the Church of Scientology and the
Religious Technology Center". In the statement, the group explained
their goal as safeguarding the right to freedom of speech "A
spokesperson said that the group's goals include bringing an end to
the financial exploitation of Church members and protecting the
right to free speech, a right which they claim was consistently
violated by the Church of Scientology in pursuit of its opponents."
The press release also claimed that the Church of Scientology
misused copyright and trademark law in order to remove criticism
from websites including Digg and YouTube. The statement goes on to
assert that the attacks from the group "will continue until the
Church of Scientology reacts, at which point they will change
strategy".
The attack was reportedly motivated by the Church of Scientology's
attempts to remove a promotional video featuring Scientologist Tom
Cruise from YouTube. After the Church of Scientology lodged a
copyright infringement complaint with YouTube, the site took down
the video. The Tom Cruise video is still available on Gawker.com,
which has stated it will not remove the video "It's newsworthy, and
we will not be removing it."
Gawker.com discussed the actions of the "Anonymous" group, in a
post on Monday titled "Scientology vs. the Internet: Why Kids On
The Internet Are Scientology's Most Powerful Enemy". Gawker.com
briefly outlined actions of other anonymous users critical of
Scientology, including actions taken in the past by users of
YouTube, Digg, and YTMND "This isn't the only group of Internet
users unafraid of the intimidating cult; a whole range of sites has
turned the Church into a mockery by doing what mainstream
celebrity-coverage outlets wouldn't dare."
A poster on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.) was
critical of the actions by the "Anonymous" group. In a post titled
"Open Letter to Anonymous" Jeff Jacobsen, webmaster of
lisamcpherson.org, posting as "cultxpt" wrote that "It's
understandable that people get upset over the things the Church of
Scientology has done online and off", pointing out that the Church
of Scientology had "tried to shut down a.r.s.", and "spam our
newsgroup to this day". In 1999 "sporgery", a form of nonsensical
spam tactic, was used as an attempt to disrupt discussion on the
newsgroup. Previously in 1995 Helena Kobrin, an attorney for the
Church of Scientology, attempted to remove the a.r.s. group from
Usenet. Kobrin sent a rmgroup message which stated: "We have
requested that the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup be removed
from all sites". This later led to a declaration of war by the
hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow, and an increase in popularity of
the a.r.s site. This initial conflict came to be known as
"Scientology versus the Internet".
The post from Jacobsen went on to criticize the actions of the
"Anonymous" group, stating: "We're supposed to be the good people,"
and stated that contrary to the Anonymous group's tactics, "Our
weapons as critics are reason, evidence, argument, and free
speech".
On Tuesday, the founder of Operation Clambake, a non-profit
organization and website critical of Scientology based in
Stavanger, Norway, released a statement about the attacks by
"Anonymous". Andreas Heldal-Lund was critical of the "Anonymous"
groups actions, stating: "The author of Operation Clambake does not
condone such activity. Attacking Scientology like that will just
make them play the religious persecution card. They will use it to
defend their own counter actions when they try to shatter criticism
and crush critics without mercy." Heldal-Lund went on to emphasize
the right of all people and organizations to freedom of speech -
including the Church of Scientology: "Freedom of speech means we
need to allow all to speak - including those we strongly disagree
with. I am of the opinion that the Church of Scientology is a
criminal organization and a cult which is designed by its
delusional founder to abuse people. I am still committed to fight
for their right to speak their opinion."
