One of the more fascinating things going on webwards right now is the Anonymous vs. Scientology war. In a nutshell: anonymous hacker network wages PR and tech war on Church of Scientology. Their infoclearinghouse is at Xenu.net, you’re one-stop shop for creepy truths about scientology.
The opening salvo was a massive denial-of-service attack on Scientology servers (where you overload them with fake traffic so they can’t handle legit traffic), and the next big moment was today, Feb 10, a global day of in-person action outside Scientology offices.
Project Chanology has the scoop. Very small demos happened at Christchurch and Auckland, according to this page; other parts of the world are still waiting for the designated time to arrive as I write.
This is fascinating on lots of levels. One of them that appeals to me is how the Anonymous collective is perhaps the only organisation really capable of attacking Scientology. The Church of Scientology has some scary-smart people running its operations, and they are very skilled at making end-runs around legal systems and outmaneuvering attacks that come through normal channels. Some countries have had successes but it’s just plain hard to go for the throat – the Church of Scientology people have a long track record of very intimidating responses to unfriendly coverage by journalists, in particular.
Anonymous, however, isn’t reachable by any of the means the CoS can usually deploy. It isn’t a real organisation; it really is just a really big network of anonymous geek dudes. And that’s anonymous to each other as well – there are no real identities in play here. It is a group with no hierarchy, no structure, no social links, no membership. It is almost an anti-group.
The flipside of this, of course, is that Anonymous is so loose and amorphous that it’s hard for it to turn itself to real action. The Feb 10 demos are a case in point. In less than 24 hours it’ll be apparent whether Anon is a real force or just a worthy attempt; either way, there are big signs of the future to be read in what happens.
I hope Anon pulls it off, though I doubt they’ll manage much. Scientology is very, very screwed up and anything that starts hammering away at that is fine by me. (Also, Tom Cruise is gay, and his attempts to change his orientation led him to Scientology where he has convinced himself he is in fact straight. Doesn’t that explain pretty much everything about that guy?)
EDIT: pics are up from Sydney
EDIT 2: Account of London demo. Five hundred people? Whitechapel’s discussion thread is all worth a look actually.
4 thoughts on “Feb 10: Anon vs Lron”
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When I was 16, my history class did an assignment where we had to examine the life of anyone in recent history. I chose L. Ron Hubbard just because I thought it was weird that a sf writer had started his own religion. I read Dianetics, two biographies, and a short book called “The Scandal of Scientology” by Paulette Cooper.
I’ve been waiting for the rest of the world to catch up ever since. Google “Paulette Cooper” if you want to see just how far the “church” has been willing to go in attacking its critics.
I found out about Paulette Cooper during background reading on the back of the Anon protests. What they tried to do/did to her was ridiculous, but I think she’s doubtless just proud to have contributed to the evidence of insanity held against them.
Seen Tom Cruise’s Scientology-internal promo video? Basically 9 and a half minutes of him saying very poorly that he wants to help everyone as much as he can, because he’s a scientologist, and therefore an expert on the mind.
Michael: Wow. Hadn’t seen that. I love voiceover guy at the start and end.
Mostly, though, it is SUPREMELY WEIRD to see Tom Cruise dropping all the jargon terms. That’s what gets me the most. HE KNOWS ALL THE ACRONYMS. That’s a sign you’re in deep.