Scientology Attacker Will Be Sentenced To Jail 354
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."
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so Anonymous now by the looks of things...
Heroes, not criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Now, at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir."
Re:everyone click on this link: (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:1, Insightful)
More importantly, though, if you justify acts of violence by saying "oh, they're extremists" or "oh, nobody likes them," then perhaps next time you'll be in the group that gets acted out against. Just because Japanese-Americans weren't popular in World War II doesn't mean that anyone would have had the right to act violently toward them. Scientologists aren't popular because their beliefs are corny or stupid, or because the "church" engages in fraudulent practices and is known to abuse members; that doesn't mean that individual Scientologists are religious extremists or bad people any more than the fact that Osama Bin Laden is a Muslim means that all Muslims are terrible people. Scientologists are just a popular group to hate right now.
Seriously? (Score:2, Insightful)
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!
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:1, Insightful)
Wrong. SciFags ARE extremists. They are dreaming of a society where ONLY SciFags have any human or civil rights. A society where the law is replaced by a Hubbard book, a society where everyone worships a picture of Lafayette Ron Hubbtard, a society in which opponents gets kicked into prison camps. They see themselves as a new, a superior human race (homo novis), and all non-SciFags are crap.
That's a Nazi culture in it's purest form.
And every SciFag supports and wants that, making himself guilty therefore.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientologists aren't popular because their beliefs are corny or stupid, or because the "church" engages in fraudulent practices and is known to abuse members; that doesn't mean that individual Scientologists are religious extremists or bad people. Scientologists are just a popular group to hate right now.
The fact that they do it under the guise of religion and get tax breaks and perks because of being a religion is what is offensive. I'd have no problem if they called themselves the L. Ron Hubbard science fiction fan club, but to do it while not paying taxes and while enjoying protected status as a religion makes no sense.
Re:Terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Justice (Score:4, Insightful)
But if you're affecting millions of people, then yes.
Stop Scientology lies. There aren't a million in the cult world-wide.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it should be wise to separate Scientologists in two kinds. The first are the "officers" of the "church", akin to the priest in catholic religion.
IMHO, those are the ones who are engaging in fraudulent and misleading activities. The second type are the "followers"; my belief is that this is desperate and naïve people whose despair has gotten to the point that they choose to approach to this scamming community.
The problem is that the CultoS are so good at what they do that people really follow their orders of "not seeing your family forever!!" and other stupid orders.
Is like the "Flagellants" Christian groups who think hurting yourself is going to help you improve your image against God. Officers who promote this are assholes, followers who put their trust in the officers are naïve, weak and need help.
Re:Justice (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:everyone click on this link: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sadly, the mad hordes of slashdot are not the force they once were - the only sites that get
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping in mind that Scientology's attack is based on instilling fear in their victims, why do you consider calling them "terrorists" a stretch? Scientology isn't just unpopular, they're criminals. Their "religion" is a tax evasion scheme for rich members and Scientology preys on the weak and gullible with a classic scare tactic where the cure is always just one more (costly) step away.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
... ethical people have the RIGHT to use force to oppose such religions
Ah, well, that is where it gets problematic, isn't it? There is no universal, objective standard for "good ethics", and in extreme cases we have people such as the terrorists of all denominations, who feel they have the ethical right to kill innocent bystanders "for a higher truth". Evil is evil, even if you use the excuse of a good cause.
Of course I understand the sentiment - it is galling to see a large organization like Scientology, that is considered a criminal organization in many countries, get any sort of victory, however small. But we are only as good as our deeds; and a crime is still crime, even if it is committed against criminals. This is the price you pay for being good.
And anyway - criminals like Scientology are always going to win if you play by their rules and fight them with their own dirty methods; they have much more experience in that game.
Re:Seriously? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
[...]
Poor Americans vote for tax cuts for the rich, ecological policies that will make the world unlivable for future generations, and imperialistic wars,
Sounds like you belong to one of those liberal/environmentalist cults. Since you're trying to oppress (even if legal and morally right) someone, I as an "ethical person" have the RIGHT to use force on you? What's the criteria?
Why exactly did Anonymous do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
(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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do the phrases "hellfire and brimstone" and "eternal damnation" ring a bell?
unauthorized access of a protected computer (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course any law that gives religious organisations tax breaks is offensive on it's own. Organisations should simply be taxed on profits -
regardless of their motives.
Re:An (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Has anyone jailed the pope yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
While the messenger to which you're replying is ineed, hm, "overboard passionate", your critique of some of his points isn't as solid as you might think...
Taking it...no, not to the absurd at all, explain to me why we have laws against child labour. How do they harm the family? Or, other way around, why people are so obsessed with dismissing sexuality of their teen children?
"Right" of parents to do things is not an absolute. You ned to find better argument than that.
Religion with which you are likely most familiar with does actually much more rightous thing than not proposing tax cuts for the rich - it promotes, as one of its basic virtues, disregard of material wealth. Which is of course completelly ignored by most of its adherents. There's importatnt lesson here - what religion claims and what it actually does, promotes are two different things. That it accepts generous, relatively speaking, donations from the rich and doesn't condemn them does ring a bell...
And Catholics promote spread of HIV by disregarding scientific evidence that "abstinence sex ed" is not effective. Heck, you even have priests advising against proved effective measures. Yes, that's "only one thing", right now (Vatican seems to be reconsidering its position regarding condoms)...but acceptance of science generally evolves over time to avoid having religion in a position of ridicule and contempt.
I do hope and expect that more and more people will find other means to fill that existencial void (though, ironically, that requires IMHO being actually more convinced in the continuation of your being after you cease to exist, more than in the case of most "faithful")...and hey, we might even help with that.
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ethical people generally are not hyperbolic idiots or religious or anti-religious fanatics, therefore do not assert a right to use force to influence people's religious beliefs.
Yet again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet again, in the USA the more money buys the "better justice".
And the Co$ has gobs of money.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
People can believe whatever they want. But face it, few freely choose their religion. Most just go about beliveing whatever their parents foisted on them.
We need to acknowledge that we live in a society. We no longer live in hunter gatherer tribes. Two parents are not longer sufficient to raise a child. It take a whole society. Whatever material and ideas that the parents give to their offspring, they got from the larger group. Whether we like it or not, child rearing is already a part of mass society. We need to stop allowing parents to use the violence of restricting necessities (affection, food, shelter) to indoctrinate youth into religion. Young people are given the choice: have faith in some crazy shit, or give up your whole support system. We need enough public social support for youth (food, personal care and relationships, shelter, education, etc) in order that they be free to disobey their crazy parents.
Then we will see quite the revolution!
Unfair? (Score:4, Insightful)
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]
Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:4, Insightful)
(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?
Re:Seriously? (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no universal, objective standard for "good ethics"
Sure there is. It's pretty concise, in fact: "don't be a dick". That's all. If you want to, you can derive this as a corollary of the golden rule ("treat others the way you want to be treated") and use the golden rule as your ethics instead, but in the end, this is what matters.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:3, Insightful)
His name was Robert Poulsen.
Re:Why exactly did Anonymous do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, yes... they can smear the reputation of Anonymous. I think the phrase someone once coined for that was 'pissing into an ocean of piss'.
Re:Justice (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:We are Anonymous. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do the phrases "hellfire and brimstone" and "eternal damnation" ring a bell?
Only when I think of the Southern Baptist and extremism churches I have visited. Not all churches or sects use fear and terror to spread a message or control their constituency. In fact, some of the more popular churches I have been to used a more, 'Brave New World,' method to keep their constituency faithful. By preaching love and happiness and flowers and feely-goody candy they shoot their followers full of addictive endorphins every Sunday and have, thus, convinced a large swath of people that they have been touched by God's hand and should spread his message with bias.
Of course, those are the other extremes. Something that I think a lot of slashdotters fail to take into account regaridng modern religion (especially the major three Abrahamic religions) is that the mass majority of churches (Christian churches at least) and their followers do not fall into the typical, 'wide-eyed, irrational, holy rolling, evolution hating, close minded idiot' stereotype that is so fun to group the Jesus freaks into. In fact, most of the churches I attended while growing up and surveying throughout high school and college had a pretty consistent, reasonable routine to them:
1) "Good Morning."
2) Play some fun music and sing and dance (kind of weird unless, you know, you pay attention to the activities of most folk in the shower).
3) Preacher says, "Don't be a dick this week. Perhaps you should apologize if you were a dick last week."
4) More music.
5) The end (usually accompanied by donuts or other goodies).
That's really it. I am not saying that religious zealotry is not a problem...it really is. However, I think it is disingenuous to paint the mass majority of religious folk, at least in the United States, as a bunch of unreasonable nut job terrorists. When it comes down to it, I think Christianity and Islam and Judaism's original laws were drafted from the essential doctrines of, "Don't be a dick," and, "Don't be a dumbass." Unfortunately, the relative common sense place of these laws at the time they evolved (~2,000 years ago) caused widespread adoption, even by some political institutions (The Roman Catholic Church), and were, thus, corrupted over time by the promise of power and elitism.
It's a sad evolution to be sure, and trying to maintain a 2,000 year old doctrine without evolving it to modern society's needs (as in, science, homosexuality, etc.) is foolish. However, I think that tragedy comes more from a few corrupt and douchey individuals at the top, than some widespread terrorist conspiracy to keep the, 'sheeple' in line while making a grab for power.
But, as always, feel free to disagree.
Re:Has anyone jailed the pope yet? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think most higher-ups in the catholic church at least believe in their own crap, I'll give 'em that.
Scientology seems to be more of a concerted effort to extort money from gullible people.
Re:Has anyone jailed the pope yet? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, the pope also decrees that sex outside of marriage is also a sin, so obviously they're not really following the teachings of the pope, are they? Seems to me that if you have no issue having sex, then you shouldn't have issues wearing a condom. I'm inclined to doubt the prevailing wisdom that Catholics, and the pope, are responsible for the AIDs epidemic in Africa.
Disclaimer: I'm an agnostic, so don't take this as promotion of organized religion. I just don't like scape-goating.
Re:Has anyone jailed the pope yet? (Score:2, Insightful)
In Catholicism, having sex for ANY reasons other than creating a child is a sin. That is why they are not supposed to use condoms. In a fully Catholic ordained sexual situation it ONLY can be sex between a married couple who are were both virgins before getting married and doing the dirty with the intent of creating a child. Most likley this does not account for the cases where AIDs is spread, unless they recieved AIDs from a non-sexual way to begin with, which would not have been prevented by condom use.
That said most Catholics don't follow the rules very close including the one about condom use. In addition Cathoilics account for less than 50% of African Christans and less and 17% of the overall population, so I don't think the Pope can be held responsible for the AIDs epidemic by any reasonable means.
Re:Has anyone jailed the pope yet? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Attack the attacker" isn't a characteristic of the Catholics. Nor is harmful health care - mental & physical. Nor are bogus DMCA takedowns, breaking into & wiretapping the IRS, organized fraud, harassing opponents into bankruptcy, require "disconnection" from non-religious family/friends, funnel donations from poor to rich celebrities, or attacking believers in independent organizations.
Re:Heroes, not criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
In their delusion, Scientology censorships are just their ways of fighting criminals to protect their "religious freedom".
Just like how Islamic Fundamentalists (Taliban) abuse their freedoms of social control and power to take a way social freedoms of the societies they oppress.
Terrorists or freedom fighters both have a tendency to take away freedoms.
In that regard, Scientology is no different than any other terrorist organization.