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Scientology Attacker Will Be Sentenced To Jail
OBG writes "A Nebraska native charged with taking part in a massive cyber-attack against the Scientology website will be spending the next year behind bars. 20-year-old Brian Thomas Mettenbrink will plead guilty to the charge of unauthorized access of a protected computer for his involvement in the denial of service attack, which was orchestrated by the online group 'Anonymous.' Mettenbrink's is the second successful prosecution connected to the 'Anonymous' attacks. Last year, Dmitriy Guzner of Verona, New Jersey, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for attacks on Scientology sites."
Not so Anonymous now by the looks of things...
Why do we bother traveling around the world to fight religious extremist terrorists when we can do it right in our own back yard? And then to put people in prison for it... Okay, I suppose Anonymous' activities probably caused some unintended network congestion outside their specific targets, but hey, I'll take "lag" over "DU syndrome".
"Now, at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir."
I've reloaded the site several times and let some of the movies play in the background but I still don't get why I should click on this link.
inb4 should have been behind over 9000 proxies.
As long as parents have the legal "right" to force their (property) offspring into organized religion, ethical people have the RIGHT to use force to oppose such religions.
The State and Capital depend on religion to keep people focused on social wedge issues so they don't question the fundamental power structures of our society. Poor Americans vote for tax cuts for the rich, ecological policies that will make the world unlivable for future generations, and imperialistic wars, all because the candidates supporting such insanity also pander to "faith" by attacking science and LGBTQ folk. Unfortunately, the most victimized sectors of the working class are also the most exploited by religion. Each generation passes the meme on to the next. We can only end this vicious cycle of enforced irrationality by attacking the source.
No Gods!
No Masters!
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I don't know that it's such a stretch to call them terrorists, really.
As I understand it, Scientologists use scare tactics to convince people that they are infected with ancient alien souls which are causing health complaints, and then take advantage of their victims' vulnerable (and gullible?) state to extort money.
That qualifies as terrorism in my book.
But if you're affecting millions of people, then yes.
Stop Scientology lies. There aren't a million in the cult world-wide.
That is because strong anonymity works best when keeping a low profile. Disruptive actions tend to leave a wide trail.
Wise Beard Man was right: The consequences of using illegal means in this conflict will eventually outweigh the benefit.
(Still, jail seems kind of disproportionate. Scientology has engaged in worse online censorship-fraud without even being fined.)
Just like you would get a "little bit" longer sentence if you beat up millions of people.
You'd get some badass bragging rights, though.
*whoooosh*
/.'ed these days are people hosting stuff off their home computers.
Sadly, the mad hordes of slashdot are not the force they once were - the only sites that get
I'd tell a UDP joke, but you may not get it. I'd tell a TCP joke, but I'd have to keep repeating it until you got it.
Everyone here on /. knows Scientology is evil. But why did Anonymous do something stupid with a denial of service attack? Now the Scientologists can say Anonymous is a terrorist organization, get rid of all its critics using the PATRIOT act and get some good PR too. The only way Scientology will be defeated is if there is some major internal schism or everyone realizes they're not the nicest religion out there.
(Still, jail seems kind of disproportionate. Scientology has engaged in worse online censorship-fraud without even being fined.)
Scientology has enormous amounts of money to ensure this remains the case.
You're missing the idea behind Anonymous.
We are not Anonymous because we hide our names.
We are Anonymous because our names mean nothing.
We are disillusioned mundane people who are nothing and mean nothing.
We are something only as a Legion.
We are fans of Fight Club, but without illusions, a leader or a purpose. And with more malice.
We are tired with the system, and break it when and where we can.
Our only powers are numbers, variety and unpredictability.
Losing one or two of us means nothing.
They try to give a name to the threat, by providing the name of one of the people behind the Anonymous. That's like trying to fight avalanche by removing two rocks from it and giving them names.
In some ways you can think of a person's brain as a computer.
When can we expect Scientology types to go to jail for fucking with peoples' heads?
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
As I understand it, Scientologists use scare tactics to convince people that they are infected with ancient alien souls which are causing health complaints, and then take advantage of their victims' vulnerable (and gullible?) state to extort money.
That qualifies as terrorism in my book.
Really? Most reasonable people would refer to these practices as "conning", "hustling" or maybe "extortion".
Can we save the moniker terrorism for when people arbitrarily gun down/gas/bomb innocent bystanders please?
And to put things in perspective, Scientologists claim you have an alien inside you causing health problems. Christians claim you're going to burn in the fiery pits of hell for eternity. Creepy cunning cult? Yes. Terruhrists? Nah, not really.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
He's not a good guy. He's ruining other people's properties to achieve a political purpose.
The people running www.xenu.net, which documents the cult's criminal behavior in candid detail, or who published "The Scandal of Scientology" or "A Piece of Blue Sky", now _they_ are good guys.
After all, the catholic church is probably responsible for more misery in africa due to its attitude to contraception than any other single institution.
All religions fuck with gullible and/or insecure peoples heads. How is scientology different?
Yet again, in the USA the more money buys the "better justice".
And the Co$ has gobs of money.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So, if I start a cult and force my members to kill people I see as a threat I'm absolved of punishment. But if I make your computer system go haywire for 10 minutes, I'm sentenced to jail time?
Well, [sarcasm]I can see how that's fair![/sarcasm]
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
I don't agree with Scientology at all, but if you('re stupid enough to) get caught DoS'ing their site you deserve to go to jail.
(Still, jail seems kind of disproportionate. Scientology has engaged in worse online censorship-fraud without even being fined.)
So if I murder Tony Soprano I should be punished less than if I murder your wife?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Wow, that's very poetic and all deep and shit. Tell me, oh nameless one, those two rocks who got stuck in jail...how do they feel about being nameless and being referred to as nothing? I think they'd disagree. You are only anonymous until you really piss someone off enough to come after you, then you are an individual hung out to dry.
Yes.
The attacks on Scientology are admirable, and have shown that there's at least one way to get under the Scientologist's skin.
But I think this might be the only value of Anonymous. Other organizations aren't so shaken by distributed attacks of this form, or those that are, have more harsh penalties. Scientology is different. They're evil, big and worldwide. They have secrets and a reputation built on secrets. They also operate within the rules of society. So while attacks like this will work on Scientology, or maybe other religious organizations, it'll fail mizerably if you target, say, the Hell's Angels.
The success has has increased the profile of the Anonymous concept so much that every 15 year old kid is secretly a "member" of sorts. The end result is that the membership is so corrupt with noobs that it couldn't do it again. So maybe not only are these kinds of organizations anonymous by nature, but one-time-use.
If you kill Hitler you should be punished as much as if you kill your wife?
See how it goes? That's why we have judges so that they can decide how hard a person should be punished.
The reason we have rule of law is so that everybody is treated the same. Of course it doesn't always work out that way in practice but I don't buy the argument that crime is excusable just because the victim of that crime happens to be unpopular.
If this person had committed a DoS attack against eBay or Barnes & Noble nobody would be batting an eyelash at the fact that he received jail time.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
His name was Robert Poulsen.
One of the more annoying displays of bias is to desribe the act you think should be more severely punished as what it is, and then describe the act you think should be less severly punished in terms of a series of constituent actions. Bonus points for effectively lieing about what actions make up a DoS attack.
A more apples-to-apples comparison would be "so if you tap someone on the back a few times, you'd probably get less jail time than refreshing a website a few times with a script".
Also, punishments for assault and battery vary widely with circumstances, so I'm not sure you can say that you'd get a lesser sentence without being a lot more specific.
Because the church of scientology is enormously wealthy, and has a lot of rich and powerful members, they successfully censor and defame Scientology critics over and over. The Church of Scientology has been subject of credible accusation of human trafficking, and has harassed critics of the church (see "Operation Freakout"). It has infiltrated government agencies (see operation snow white) for which several scientologists, including hubbards wife were conficted. Scientologists consider enemies of the church to be "fair game", by which they mean that attacks on opponents of the church fall outside Scientology ethics. For example, in "Penalties for Lower Conditions", Hubbard states that opponents who are "fair game" may be "deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.". Some months later Hubbard recinded this policy saying: "The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations. This [policy letter] does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.". Read the language carefully...
The church actively, aggressively, and very successfully courts celebrities, which gives the church a veneer of legitimacy, and successfully spreads their word. A non-violent, extra-legal attack like that by Anonymous can be seen as an act of civil disobedience, in which a large group of relatively poor and powerless (compared to the COS) individuals break laws in order to strike back at a more powerful institution which is enormously harmful. Presumably the main purpose of the attack is generating interest in the evils of Scientology, i.e. using extralegal means to combat their giant, well funded propaganda machine. Considering the well-document, harmful nature of the COS, I would assume that this is the reasoning of Dr. Evil.