******************This is my first submitted article for the Spring '07 semester at Sonoma State. Hope you enjoy**********************
The church of Scientology made headlines recently after claiming copyright infringement when a scientology promo video containing Tom Cruise was found to be circulating around the internet. The video, which shows Cruise ranting about how great scientology is and how much he likes traffic accidents, was made public through numerous websites. In the video Cruise declares “we (scientologists) are the authorities on getting people off drugs” and much more. The church (if you can call it a church) promptly sent out litigious letters demanding the video’s immediate removal. Needless to say, many of the sites kept up the video.
After the video was inevitably posted on YouTube, the organization (church) lodged a complaint with YouTube demanding the video be taken down. The video was promptly deleted from the site. This did not fare well for a notorious group of hackers who go by the name “Anonymous.” This online group is well known for organizing digital attacks against organizations and individuals. They coordinate online and offline acts of terrorism that oddly enough seem rather justified in many cases. They organize themselves loosely out of the website 4chan.org. This site is an image board where anybody can post messages without the need for any type of registration.
Anonymous recently posted a message to scientology on YouTube. The video has since gained over 1.7 million views. In the video Anonymous says “We have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature,” “the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us.” The message goes on to say, “For the good of mankind--for the laughs--we shall expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.”
Many of you reading this may think this is a joke; a group of cyber nerds in their moms' basements actually doing damage to a multi-million dollar church? I can assure you it is very real and probably the most dangerous threat scientology has ever faced. Anonymous does not act within any moral or legal restrictions. They are online bad-asses and do this stuff for fun. Their chaos reigning techniques vary from prank calling your phone systems (sounds humorous until you a couple thousand voicemails from people threatening to kill you) to DOS (denial of service) attacks on your websites. A DOS attack basically shuts down the target website, forcing it offline.
I recently had the chance to speak with a member of this notorious group. He said that Anonymous sent out a number of envelopes containing faux anthrax to various scientology establishments around the United States. The fire department, bomb squads, police, etc were all called in. This resulted in many of the churches being closed. As well he said “We may already have several real-life attacks planned, at conventions and such.”
It seems Scientology just won itself a worthy opponent. An enemy that will fight dirty and never compromise; ideals that seem parallel to those of the legal sharks who represent Scientology. The question is, how exactly is scientology going to attack an anonymous enemy it cannot trace? Whatever their reaction, it better be quick, less they want the identities of their officials stolen and their bank accounts to suddenly zero out. Scientology has just strolled down the wrong alley and came across a group that ‘Does not forgive and does not forget’, as goes the Anonymous motto.
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