The Associated Pest

For those living in a cave for the last few days, a group calling itself Anonymous has formally declared war on Scientology. The group, a loosely affiliated band of ne’er do wells, wannabe hackers, and internet junkies have come together to fight a common foe. Let’s take a minute to catch up.

On January 17th 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology but edited and posted by someone else was leaked to YouTube depicting Tom Cruise as a loony. The CoS in typical fashion then issued a DMCA take down order to YouTube and had the video pulled. The ensuing attempt to take down every copy of the video online lead to the Streisand effect. In the end, the CoS failed miserably in doing so.

Since then, it’s been an all-out, one-sided battle by Anonymous. The campaign is apparently designed to enlighten members of the “dangerous cult” of many disturbing undercurrents hidden just below the surface. There have even been a series of videos released on YouTube by Anonymous, fatwa’s if you will.

Tactics employed by Anon have thus far been surprisingly coordinated and sophisticated. Project Chanology, the name of the campaign, has thus far consisted of a full gambit of netherworld digital trickery ranging from the benignly funny to the simply annoying. There have been prank calls posted to YouTube. Endless reams of black pages have been faxed to numbers known to be owned by the CoS. Secret internal church documents have been posted all over the internet. DDoS, or Dynamic Denial of Service, attacks against the CoS have crippled their website for a nearly week now. Some daring individuals have even “raided” church locations. More raids are being planned. There has even been some collateral damage in the war against Scientology. Today a school, ironically enough in the Netherlands, was unwittingly targeted by a DDoS barrage when Anon got their IP addresses crossed. No real damage was done, and the school’s website was back online swiftly.

Some critics have voiced their concerns over Anon’s tactics. Slashdot, a booming tech community, has erupted in discussion over the issue. Channel Register, the blog arm of the popular british tech site The Register, contemplates the effectiveness of Anon’s strategy. From the outset many have speculated that Anonymous’ attention span coupled with the juvenile nature of much of the “strategy” behind the “war” have doomed their cause.

Related Material

• Full Uncut and Unedited Tom Cruise Video
• CNN: Germany to Ban Scientology?
• South Park: What Scientology Actually Believes (video)
• Keith Olberman: Scientology vs South Park
• Sky News Report (video)
• NBC 11: Group Wants to Destroy Scientology (video)
• The Not Funny Video About Scientology
• BBC: Panorama - Scientology & Me (full video)

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