Hacker Admits To Scientology DDoS Attack

lbwbl writes with news that a New Jersey man will plead guilty to one felony count of 'unauthorized impairment of a protected computer' for his distributed denial of service attacks on Scientology websites as part of 'Anonymous' earlier this year. From Wired: "He faces a likely sentence of 12 to 18 months in prison based on stipulations in his plea agreement, which also obliges him to pay $37,500 in restitution. ... Friday's case, in US District Court in Los Angeles, marks the first prosecution of an Anonymous member for a series of attacks against the Church of Scientology that began in mid-January. The secretive religious group strayed into Anonymous' sights after trying to suppress the publication of a creepy Tom Cruise video produced for Scientology members."

Comments

Re:This anti-scientology campaign is well meant

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous has from the beginning been a gathering of internet nerds who were mad/bitter at Scientology, majority of them it was over exposing readings that are copyrighted in their readings. Hence the copyright nazis from Slashdot and other open-source agenda driven websites have gone all out with trying to fight these guys.

Seriously though, there is a lot of effort to put down a group who nobody pays attention to and do not hurt anyone. This just seems nothing more than the Streisand effect. I live in Southern California and we have one of the Scientology centers down here, they are nice people who stand out in front when I have passed by them and the groups have grown in ridiculous numbers. Come on fear mongers, scientologist are one of the least threatening people in the world.

Why not go after cults like 'Heavens Gate', whose member have actually caused deaths(mass suicide) and there are still member who survived to this day trying to spread the word of that cult. There were actually a couple programmers who participated in that mass suicide and one of them worked for Novell.
Why not go after the 'Westboro Baptist Church' group who do far more offensive things?
Why not go complain about gang war fare that kills hundreds of people a year over nothing?

FUCK SCIENTOLOGY

[Anonymous Coward]

and fuck Islam, too. What kind of religion condones gouging out a young woman's clitoris in the name of purity? Ever heard of free will, you rag-headed cocksuckers? And fuck Yasir Arafat for wearing a Pizza Hut table cloth wrapped around his smelly head. Rot in hell, you double-talking sumbitch.

Re:Unauthorized impairment of a protected computer

[Miseph]

I'd take down his internet for a day and force him to do community service as an IT help desk worker. Once he has to be on the other end of a zillion phone calls with idiot users, he too will understand the pain he's caused some poor tech.

I'd also smash up the high school kids car (assuming he paid for it himself, and especially if it's a nice one) with a baseball bat. He can go back to riding the bus for a while, and maybe he'll figure out that breaking other people's property just isn't that amusing.

Sometimes, I think people just need to be reminded of the full ramifications implied by the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you... and bear in mind that they probably will and definitely should follow through.

Like how I believe the pro-capitol punishment Bush administration should be tried for treason (a capitol crime), just to see what their opinions are once it's THEIR necks on the line (literally).