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The RIAA now has resorted to other means of enforcing their copyrights than normal lawsuits, they have opted instead to inject illegal photos into popular music torrents. More news at 11.

On a more serious note, that is exactly what the Church of Scientology did to one of the earliest anonymizers (based in finland). Worked, to.

The Wayback Machine thing sucks, as do so many other Scientology actions against the net, but frankly I'm a little more concerned about how Scientology's actions affect people's rights out in the non-virtual world.

This is an organization that has framed critics, including journalist Paulette Cooper, who was indicted for sending bomb threats which, in reality, Scientology had sent to themselves. Scientology also attempted to frame Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares (for hit-and-run), U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman (for solicitation and drug use), attorney Michael Flynn (for cashing a forged check), BBS operator Tom Klemesrud (for battery), attorney Graham Berry (for child molestation and battery), author Russell Miller (for murder), and former Scientologists Martin Hunt (for Internet posts; his report of the police officer's visit didn't mention what was being alleged about the posts) and Gene Allard (for grand theft - Allard won a 1974 malicious prosecution suit against Scientology).
Numerous instances of making false reports to police have been reported.

This is an organization that has seen 11 top-ranking executives go to jail in the U.S. for infiltrating government offices to steal and plant documents. In the similar Canadian trial, three Scientology executives and the Toronto church organization itself were found guilty of similar crimes.

The FBI raids in the late 70s turned up evidence of the frame-ups of Cooper and Cazares, along with evidence that Scientology had infiltrated numerous other government offices, such as the California Attorney General's office, as well as newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, law offices like Sidley & Austin, and other organizations, such as the Clark County Mental Health Agency. A Scientologist on the San Diego police force was fired for passing police information to Scientology.

A typical response from Scientology spokepeople is "that was years ago." (We never did that, and besides, we don't do it anymore.)

Well, there were five frame-up attempts that I can count in the past 3-4 years (Keith Henson, successfully framed and now a fugitive in Canada; Mark Bunker, acquitted; Bob Minton, acquitted twice but now apparently extorted into testifying for Scientology; Jesse Prince, hung jury).

There are also disturbing signs that Scientology is continuing to infiltrate government offices and businesses. A motion was filed just a couple of weeks ago alleging religious discrimination in the case of a woman who was fired from the Greenwich Housing Authority after Scientology management systems were introduced and employees were required to attend Scientology courses, paid for with thousands of dollars in public money, and the EEOC recently took action in a Texas case in which employees at a dental office were fired after refusing to attend Scientology classes. The Sacramento News & Review did a story not long ago about a publishing house that uses Scientology management techniques, run by Scientologists Dennis McKenna (who, as a Scientology spokesman, defended what Scientology did to Paulette Cooper) and Don Pearson (who gave extensive Scientology training to Allstate employees until management finally stopped it); the company, eRepublic, publishes a magazine on the use of technology in government (and another on the use of technology in education) and consults to governments on technology issues. The magazine includes ads for business training - never mentioning that it teaches Scientology principles - offered by people like Arte Maren - long-time Scientologist, co-conspirator in the 70s government infiltration case, and trainer in the Greenwich Housing Authority case.

I'm concerned that people confronted by Scientology training in the workplace don't know their rights. I hope the EEOC will vigorously defend people who are being illegally subjected to Scientology training at work - and I hope journalists will keep a closer eye on Scientology's continuing infiltration in government and business.

Kristi
Scientology Lies

What is the it about the cult that causes geeks everywere to keep tabs on them?

Scientologists and their lawyers took to the internet well ahead of the curve - see this (outdated) webpage that details Scientology's online activities between 1994 and late 1996. Extrapolate the trend from there to get an idea, look around www.xenu.net, etc. to confirm it.

This happened to one of my mother's friends several years ago. Not only was he sued, harassed, and threatened, the CoS strongarmed several anonymous remailers and ISPs to unlawfully release information so they could trace the usenet postings back to him. Pretty dirty shit, I believe they even went as far as harassing his son. more information can be found here, it is amazing the lengths that these science fiction drones will go to in order to keep their "religion" so secret.

For me, one of the saddest events in internet history, was in 1996 when the church of scientology managed to get anon.penet.fi closed. Back then it was a very popular and widely used (and pretty much the only one) anonymous remailer, with hundreds of thousands of users all over the world.

The events leading to it's closing can be read at :

The Church of Scientology vs. anon.penet.fi

and at the Penetron site itself :

Penetron

The shutdown hit newsgroup posters worst, since especially many *.support.* posters were using the service (for obvious reasons). At the time there weren't really any other semi-anonymous web based email/news providers, and it took a long while until some other similar, much smaller scale, services appeared.

These days, it's hard _not_ to find a way to post/email more or less anonymously, but back then, anon.penet.fi provided an invaluable service, and the stupid courts here in Finland let the scientologists to destroy it all.

This explains the Net's recent reaction to the Helena Kobrin letter (she was the Scn attorney who put the article on the Net requesting the shutdown of a.r.s.); obviously a number of people saw this as a threat to free exchange of information on the Net, rather than an attempt to shut down a source of MISinformation about Scn. (Just my two cents' worth.) This may also make it difficult for the Church to establish a working relationship with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which I will discuss below.

alt.religion.scientology (abbreviated a.r.s)

Here's the newsgroup that REAL Scientologists have grown to love to hate. It was started by some CAN people to spread entheta about Scientology and is currently our biggest PTP on the Net. Due to the general entheta content (a large number of entheta articles are regularly posted to it by a number of confirmed SPs) and to reliable reports that squirreled OT materials have also been posted here, it is strongly suggested that Scientologists who are not at least New OT V case level NOT read this group - doing so may be hazardous to your case. (OSA is taking steps to handle this, including getting regular theta posts placed in here - I know; I'm one of the posters. I post to a.r.s. but do NOT read it.) If you wish to help clean up this group, contact Buz Cory at buzco@dorsai.org for details.

disclaimer: im not a crypto freak, nor really a privacy either, so i might not know what im talking

As you describe it, its ofcourse clear that the way you describe it can be used to link people to other people but still the conversations between them can and will remain private.

Anonymous remailing took a bellypunch when anon.penet.fi got "invated" by scienlogists so its not as well used as it might have been before.

But...

HavenCo has recently started to host anonymous remailing. While there's a clear warning on the sites main page:

• HavenCo operates an anonymous remailer for customers of HavenCo and the general public. No warranty express or implied is given as to the security of this remailer.

Considering this to the fact whats the business "catch" of the Havenco i hardly doupt that there will be any way for any parties to retrive sender/receiver information without physically executing "man-before-and-after" type of attack. (Which might be really hard to execute)

Anyway, The best thing with cryptographic tools is that you are on controls. 128bit key is a laugh. One not make a key of 4096 bytes or hell, triple that. I would like to see that goverment computer farm which can cruch a bruteforce attack against that kind of cryptokeys.

1. Church of Scientology International v. Fishman and Geertz

2. Church of Scientology vs. the Net

3. Scientology Court Files

4. Scientology Cult Attacks XS4ALL

5. Scientology v. the Internet

(Found via Google and Yahoo!)

Scientology vs the Net

Scientology's lies

Operation Clambake

Sure all of these sites are opinionated and maybe even slightly propogandish, but they all have links to court cases, documents and accounts. And these are just the first three non-scientology sites found by a quick search on Google. The AC just didn't want to have to do your homework for you.

W

Let us not forget how Interpol was manipulated into raiding anon.penet.fi, simply to reveal the identity of an individual posting "copyrighted" material on usenet. The link

Actually, I believe that if the individual obtained the evidence illegally, it will not be permissable in court. I seem to remember this from a case involving a reporting and the Chiquita Corporation. I think the reporter had a tape of phone conversations that supported his case, but unfortunately, the tape was obtained by breaking into a Chiquita office, and was therefore ruled inadmissable. I'm not 100% sure on this, but that's how I remember it. The type of case might have had something to do with it as well. I think the reporter was investigating some of Chiquita's business practices. Chiquita came off looking pretty evil, and probably would have had a serious problem if the tape had been admitted as evidence.

Just found the article.

http://www2.thecia.net/users/rnewman/ chiquita

I would argue that it is hard to comment or report upon something without actually viewing what it is that is to be commented on. So even those posters who merely posted the entire document could be said to be furthering disscussion on the document.

At least one 9th Circuit judge disagrees with you. Judge Ronald M. Whyte, who is also the judge in the Sun v. Microsoft case, ruled against H. Keith Henson for doing precisely this--posting the entirety of a short document on a Usenet newsgroup to discuss its ramifications. A Wired article discusses this. It was Henson's contention that the document, NOTS 34, demonstrated illegal practice of medicine by the Scientology cult.

Judge Whyte was roundly criticized in a Wall Street Journal article for "Pecksniffian literalness" and for having "turned copyright law on its head."

The document, NOTS 34, is discussed, along with many other such documents, at Dave Touretzky's NOTS Scholars Page, and a description of the earlier parts of the trial is at Ron Newman's old page while the jury trial for damages is transcribed at Sten-Arne Zerpe's page. Incidentally, Judge Whyte dismissed trade secret claims in this litigation based on Internet distribution, as well as similar claims in other cases.

Criticising people for criticizing Scientology betray a lack of knowledge os the CoS's history. The CoS is one of the most anti-fredom-of-speech groups in the world. Voice the slightest criticism of the group on the internet (such as this site) & be ready for hassles like you've never seen before.

I believe in freedom of religion-- if you want to join a cult, I'll tell you my opinion of that group, but in the end, it's your decision to make, noot mine. But the CoS is a special case. Until they give up there policies of intimidation & coercion (see Scientology vs. the Internet), they are fair game for any & all public criticism.

If you'd like some more info on Scientology's actions in the past you can look at http://www.thecia.net/users /rnewman/scientology/home.html. I find them to be a rather disgusting group of people actually. If a Scientologist reads this I'd be interested in whatever reasoning they can provide for their behaviour.