Hackers Take Out Scientology Web Site
Well, it looks like the war is on. The Church of Scientology's attempts to squash circulation of a video of Tom Cruise last week seem to have been the final straw for a group that calls itself "Anonymous." According to a recent report in Wired, the cryptically-named organization recently stated that its main goal is to destroy the leadership of the Church of Scientology.
The first public salvo was launched over the past couple of days as a group of hackers claiming affiliation with Anonymous took down the home page of the Church with repeated distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. DDOS attacks flood target servers with requests, so that they become overwhelmed with data and shut down. This results in a site that doesn't work, which is exactly what visitors to the Scienology Web site experienced during the attack. The attacks flooded Scientology's Web servers with as much as 220 megabits per-second, which security experts claim is a mid-sized attack.
While this attack is not the largest of its kind ever seen, it does show some level of organization, "It's not just one or two guys hanging out in the university dorms doing this," said Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks. The church has since moved its site to servers run by Prolexic Technologies, a company that specialized in protection from DDOS attacks.
From Wired (via InfoWorld)
Related Links:
- Scientology Goes After Blog for Posting Video of Tom Cruise
- 20-Year-Old Arrested for Estonian Cyber Attacks
- Al Gore's Blog Hacked





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Comments
89
Subscribe to commentsBobJan 30th 2008 9:22AM
I don't agree with Scientology but I also do not agree with Christianity, what the hackers did was wrong but like anyone else they do what they think is right, Christians are a good example of this after all does it not say in the Bible that God gave man free will and will not interfere with it but yet all the "Christians" do just that and shove thier beliefs down everyone elses throat and as far as calling Scientology a Cult you are right it is but so is Christianity and all other religions here is the wikipedia definition of "CULT"...look it up
In traditional usage, the cult of a religion, quite apart from its sacred writings ("scriptures"), its theology or myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of impiety. Cult is literally the "care" owed to the god and the shrine. The term "cult" first appeared in English in 1617, derived from the French culte, meaning "worship" or "a particular form of worship" which in turn originated from the Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship," originally "tended, cultivated," also the past participle of colere "to till". Thus in French, for example, sections in newspapers giving the schedule of worship at Catholic churches are headed Culte Catholique; the section giving the schedule of protestant churches is headed culte réformé.
By extension, "cult" has come to connote the total cultural aspects of a religion, as they are distinguished from others through change and individualization. Well-known global cults include Islam and Christianity.
AnnJan 30th 2008 10:32AM
Oh DEE, You need de-programming Hon............
KayreeJan 30th 2008 12:00PM
Top Reasons Some Scientist R Dumb
1)You believe that there is no creator and that the earth just formed out of no where. What is before no where....what caused nowhere to exist?
2) You believe than man evolved from monkeys/apes...Whey aren't monkeys/apes still evolving into men..when was the last time one did?
3)You spend countless minutes typing on this board defending other religions that you yourself don't follow or believe in. Why don't you believe in any of them?
4)You have all of the answers(so you think) but you are never satified thats why you study s many religions seek answers but never able to find truth
5)You follow scientology a figment of L Ron Hubbards drug induced dreams....go to youtube and type in L Ron Hubbard.
EzJan 30th 2008 12:22PM
Dan says:
This website is a fucking hive of idiocy.
Dan pretty much sums it all up.
EzJan 30th 2008 12:23PM
Kayree says:
Top Reasons Some Scientist R Dumb
1)You believe that there is no creator and that the earth just formed out of no where. What is before no where....what caused nowhere to exist?
Which is about as plausable and unprovable that there is a magic white light being that has always existed and decided (on a whim?) to create a universe that completely spins around humans to keep him entertained since he has refused to get involved for the last 2000 years.
But yeah..thats more believable than sharing 98% of a chimps DNA composition.
2) You believe than man evolved from monkeys/apes...Whey aren't monkeys/apes still evolving into men..when was the last time one did?
Please educate yourself on how evolution works. How ignorant can you be to make the above statement.
3)You spend countless minutes typing on this board defending other religions that you yourself don't follow or believe in. Why don't you believe in any of them?
Who cares what he believes or doesnt believe. Its his personal decision to believe, not believe or what to believe in.
4)You have all of the answers(so you think) but you are never satified thats why you study s many religions seek answers but never able to find truth
I have more respect for a person that is actively seeking, learning and using the brain that "god gave him" (lol), than I do for a lemming that spews out half memorized crap from a manual translated countless times and that was written 2000 years ago.
5)You follow scientology a figment of L Ron Hubbards drug induced dreams....go to youtube and type in L Ron Hubbard.
You follow a figment of a bet that 12 fishermen made 2000 years ago.
disclaimer: I am not defending scientology as I think that they are a bunch of idiots. However, any religious fanatisism is bullcrap.
AnonymousJan 30th 2008 6:19PM
First of all, Anonymous would like to remind you that we are NOT attacking the BELIEFS of Scientology. We are not saying their beliefs are evil or somehow wrong. In fact, we could care less what you believe. God is a very personal thing, and we know better than to tell people our version of "the truth".
Neither are we attacking the FREEDOM OF SPEECH of Scientologists. Any Scientologist is welcome to share his or her views, just as anyone else is. I understand how taking down an organization's website could be misconstrued as an attack on CoS's freedom of speech, but this is simply not the case.
The truth is that your rights (including your right to freedom of speech, thought, and religion) END at the moment when they infringe upon someone else's rights. Scientology has a history of a "fair game" policy, attacking anyone who does not agree with them in various ways with their vast resources. They have forced abortions on their members above their private navy, SeaOrg. They have even been responsible for the death of at least one confirmed member (google Lisa McPherson) through their irresponsible practice of therapy. They have numerous human rights abuses on their record. For more information, I direct you to http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/. If you think that website is biased, keep searching. Everywhere (except sites maintained by Scientologists) there is well-documented evidence of the crimes of CoS.
Ask yourself, what kind of religion forces you to PAY for a truth they claim will make your life happier, better, richer? What kind of religion then uses that money to enact lawsuits against detractors and give commissions to their higher-ups? The answer is, religion doesn't do that. Beliefs don't do that. Beliefs in the hands of evil, greedy people do that. Scientology is more corporation than religion. There is absolutely no reason for them to be tax exempt. Do they worship any type of deity, as most religions do, or are they just hawking bad medicine to the vulnerable?
These are questions that must be answered. Scientology must not continue its abuse of human rights. If it continues, the war will never end until the organization is gone. Allowing them freedom to continue their money-grubbing pyramid scheme because "they have freedom of speech" is equivalent to allowing skinheads to beat up blacks just because "that's their personal belief".
dalepropesFeb 1st 2008 10:16AM
Why don't i give a crap about any of this junk?I am just a man, born of a man and woman.I live and will die sooner or later like every other creature on this earth.I have joy and pain i expect no more or less from life..enjoy what you can while you have it.Semper Fi..out
james williamsonFeb 3rd 2008 1:18PM
This is just a violation of free speech by the hackers and I don't know why AOL would condone such conduct by sensationalizing it. I think these guys have some sort of phobia going on. They can't seem to stand new philosophies that actually help people and teach them to think for themselves.
AldridgeMay 5th 2009 4:30AM
"The first public salvo was launched over the past couple of days as a group of hackers claiming affiliation with Anonymous took down the home page of the Church with repeated distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks." http://www.vxcb.com This is great news.