Project Chanology : Hackers Versus Scientology

A Message to Scientology

Copypasta for faxes, letters, and the media.

Hello, leaders of Scientology. We are Anonymous.

Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation, your suppression of dissent, 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 organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind and for our own enjoyment, we shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form. We recognize you as serious opponents, and do not expect our campaign to be completed in a short timeframe. However, you will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your choice of methods, your hypocrisy and the general artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell. You have nowhere to hide, because we are everywhere. You will find no recourse in attack, because for each of us that falls, ten more will take his place.

We are cognizant of the many who may decry our methods as parallel to those of the Church of Scientology. Those who espouse the obvious truth that your organization will use the actions of Anonymous as an example of the persecution of which you have for so long warned your followers. This is acceptable to Anonymous. In fact, it is encouraged. We are your SPs.

Over time, as we begin to merge our pulse with that of your Church, the suppression of your followers will become increasingly difficult to maintain. Believers will become aware that salvation needn't come at the expense of their livelihood. They will become aware that the stress and the frustration that they feel is not due to us, but a source much closer to them. Yes, we are SPs. But the sum of suppression we could ever muster is eclipsed by that of your own RTC.

Knowledge is free.

We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP, is a term used in Scientology to describe the "antisocial personalities" who, according to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, make up about 2.5% of the population. Another 18% are PTS (Potential Trouble Source), as a result of the SPs. A statement on a Church of Scientology website describes this group as including notorious historic figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan as well as others who "are less obviously seen."[1]

The term is often applied to those whom the Church of Scientology perceives as its enemies, i.e. those whose "disastrous" and "suppressive" acts are said to impede the progress of individual Scientologists or the Scientology movement.[2][3]

Anonymous Hackers Shoot For Scientologists, Hit Dutch School Kids
By Ryan Singel EmailJanuary 25, 2008 | 5:39:35 PMCategories: Hacks and Cracks

dutchschoolchildrenddos

Dutch schoolchildren may be the first collateral damage of an online war being waged against the Church of Scientology by a motley crew of internet troublemakers who call themselves Anonymous.

Coordination broke down Friday among the loose affiliate of online troublemakers known as Anonymous as they tried to continue their ongoing attacks against Scientology.

The group has spent the last few days trying to keep down the scientology.org website via a distributed denial of service attack, posting sensitive Scientology documents around the web, and up-voting anti-Scientology stories on Digg. The attack, dubbed Project Chanology, has a wiki that attempts to tell Anonymous 'members' what to do, though the advice is ever-changing and often contradictory.

But the Church of Scientology hired Prolexic, a company that specializes in protecting websites from DDOS attacks. Prolexic's protection works by publicly substituting a Prolexic server for the attacked server, filtering out the bad traffic and passing the good traffic to the site's real server.

One of the moderators on 711chan.org thought he had learned from a friend what the real server's address was on Friday.

The user, who was using the handle Splongcat, uploaded DDOS software configured with the supposedly secret address and urged others in an internet chat room to download and run the software. The software was intended to flood the specified IP address with rogue traffic in order to bring the server down.

But within minutes, users began complaining the software was crashing and others analyzed the traffic and found that the IP address didn't belong to the Church of Scientology, reporting that that the software was actually targeting a school in the Netherlands.

Immediately the IRC chat room hosted on 711chan.org (currently down) was filled with calls to stop using the program, and the 900 people in the chat room returned to their disorderly conversation about whether they should be flooding Digg with anti-Scientology links or making harassing phone calls to local Scientology branches.

The Etty Hillesum Lyceum's site seemed to quickly recover, and Splongcat apologized to fellow script-kiddies for simply taking his friend at his word and not checking the IP address before unleashing the software.

Anonymous launched the attack on Scientology on January 16 to protest its use of copyright law to take down material critical of the church's bizarre practices and to attempt to force media outlets to run stories about the Church of Scientology. Their stated goal is to destroy the Church of Scientology.

The Church of Scientology has not replied to THREAT LEVEL's request for comment.

Des hackers partent en guerre contre l'Eglise de scientologie
LE MONDE | 05.02.08 | 16h27 • Mis à jour le 05.02.08 | 17h02

C'est une guerre d'un nouveau genre que subit depuis plusieurs jours l'Eglise de scientologie. En effet, c'est sur le terrain du virtuel que se porte désormais le combat des militants antisectes. Différents sites Internet de l'Eglise de scientologie-dianétique sont ainsi visés par des "hacktivistes" du réseau et par un groupe imaginaire appelé Anonymous.

Outre de nombreuses actions en ligne, ces militants appellent, le dimanche 10 février, à des rassemblements devant les différents sièges et églises de la Scientologie recensés dans le monde à Londres, Toronto, Paris ou Los Angeles.

Le point de départ du conflit semble avoir été la mise à disposition sur YouTube, puis sur le média en ligne new-yorkais Gawker, d'une séquence vidéo à usage interne intitulée "Scientology versus The Internet part XVII", où l'on voit l'acteur Tom Cruise faire l'apologie de la secte, dont il est l'un des membres de plus haut rang, selon une biographie non autorisée publiée ce mois-ci. Les avocats de la secte réagissent instantanément en demandant le retrait de la vidéo. Gawker ne plie pas et refuse de retirer l'objet du délit.

Au vu des moyens mis en oeuvre contre le média new-yorkais, un groupe de hackers et d'hacktivistes publie le 16 janvier un communiqué déclarant une guerre totale à la secte. Nom de code de l'opération : "Project Chanology".

Ses concepteurs souhaitent s'attaquer aux finances et aux infrastructures de la Scientologie : "Nous voulons protéger le droit à la liberté d'expression, un droit systématiquement violé par l'Eglise de scientologie dans sa volonté de faire taire ses adversaires." Un deuxième message vidéo est diffusé par les hackers le 25 janvier.

Dans cette guerre informatique, plusieurs moyens sont mis en oeuvre. Notamment des attaques par "déni de service" depuis des machines piratées, mais aussi - et c'est la nouveauté - depuis des ordinateurs individuels dont les utilisateurs ont téléchargé un logiciel spécifique. Le principe : inonder les principaux sites de la secte de milliers de requêtes. Ces derniers sont alors fortement ralentis ou inaccessibles.

Dans le même temps, des hackers spécialistes de l'intrusion se lancent dans la recherche d'informations confidentielles sur les différents ordinateurs et réseaux de la Scientologie. Ils remontent quelques milliers de documents, dictionnaires et autres rapports internes, les mettant immédiatement à disposition sur Internet. Le 30 janvier, une quatrième vague d'attaques s'est encore abattue sur les sites de la secte. Pour coordonner l'ensemble des manifestations, des groupes sur Facebook sont créés au fur et à mesure que les actions sont envisagées.

En réponse à ces attaques, la secte change de serveurs d'hébergement le 20 janvier et 711chan.org, le serveur principal des hackers est à son tour attaqué.

Cet activisme antiscientologie est monnaie courante sur la Toile. En 1993, un dossier de plus de 700 documents internes, intitulé "The Fishman Paper", a ainsi été publié en ligne. Deux années de procédure aux Pays-Bas ont fini par donner raison à l'éditeur qui, depuis, rajoute des éléments régulièrement.