A War on Scientology

For those of our readers that live under mounds of rocks and also, coincidentally, don’t happen to read the internets, a borderline hacktivism group called Anonymous has declared war on Scientology. Scientology, for the past 20 years, has been known for launching what they call "fair game" campaigns which are private investigations, harassment and lawsuits directed at anybody, but especially journalists, that dare call the cult a cult, or otherwise denigrate the Church.
Project Chanology began as an Internet-based protest against the controversial Church of Scientology by "Anonymous", a group described as "a disparate collection of hackers and activists".[1] Project Chanology also refers to a website of the same name, used by the group to chronicle ongoing and planned actions by "Anonymous."[2] Consisting of a series of semi-coordinated attacks known as raids, Project Chanology says it was formed in response to the Church of Scientology’s attempts to remove material from an exclusive Scientology interview with Tom Cruise from the internet. Coinciding with the publication of Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, the interview was leaked onto YouTube on January 16, 2008. The Church of Scientology stated that the video was produced to be shown to members of Scientology, and that the leaked version was a "pirated and edited" version taken from a three-hour event. [Wikipedia]
They do have a point though, being as they aren’t the only cult in town that believes weird superhuman s**t happened thousands of years ago. They have been successful in waging their war on journalism partly because of their business savvy, They copyright all of their religious doctrines and sue the crap out of anybody who dares to release it to the public. It keeps the church away from the unnecessary scrutiny that the church needs to avoid to carry out their… religious agenda(?).

Wow… you have to love FOX News’ take on the subject. Now this group, Anonymous, is generally known for being a bit wacko themselves, but it’s news and it’s the internet, so we’re reporting it. Probably the best most fair and balanced piece I’ve seen on Scientology is an A&E Investigative Report on the subject, which can be found in several parts on youtube. Check it out.
An online group of hackers has declared war on Scientology, vowing to attack the controversial religion’s Web sites and turn its adherents against it.
Already the group, which describes itself simply as "Anonymous," has released hundreds of pages of Scientology material for which practitioners would normally have to pay and claims to have slowed down or even temporarily closed Scientology Web sites.
The group says it was prompted to act after Scientology leaders recently tried to "censor" a widely distributed and mocked video of Tom Cruise, pictured at bottom. The video shows the actor — one of the most high-profile and outspoken adherents of Scientology — professing his love for the religion, laughing hysterically and claiming that Scientologists are the only people able to help save lives following a car accident. [LINK]
"The so-called Church of Scientology actively misused copyright and trademark law in pursuit of its own agenda," one Anonymous member commented in a press release this week.
"They attempted not only to subvert free speech, but to recklessly pervert justice to silence those who spoke out against them."
The Anonymous group later released a video in which a computer-generated voice outlines the group’s concerns with the Church. Only two minutes long and broadcast against a bleak, grey sky, the video quickly became among the most-watched on the Internet.
Interesante. Apparently they’ve managed not only to shut down the Scientology sites with DDoS attacks, but they also have gotten their hands on hundreds of pages of previously unreleased Scientology documents and released them on the internets. You can bet Scientology will be fighting back aggressively.

Posted: January 29th, 2008
at 11:19am by Black Ock
Categories: computers,too good to be true,web,weaponry,real life news
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