Its unfortunate that they were not distributed via bittorrent and/or a tor hidden service. The files are large enough that downloading them with the "free download" option is a terribly long wait. I do not understand how this has so many upvotes after being up for such a short time. Have that many people actually downloaded the files already?
Does anyone have any guesses about the string at the end of the announcement? Is that something Anonymous normally does?
If you've ever met or known anyone into Scientology then you'd get why it has so many up votes this quick. I up voted before reading the emails because I know as I'm sure others do how important it is to expose their acts. But yeah, a torrent wouldve been nice but oh well.
Am I the only one who doesn't find this all that positive? I already think scientology is bad/evil/dangerous, and I think that illegally getting access to their secrets might make the opposition (us) look worse in the public eye. Everybody has dirty secrets, both sides, and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails. It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks. We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Idk, am I alone here? Am I wrong? I'm open to contrary opinions.
> and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails.
I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics. That by itself obviously does not excuse leaking them, but (again, as far as I can see) the emails do not contain much personal information.
> It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks.
I would probably agree with you if this was about any other organisation, but the CoS has a long, long history of suppressing information about them by any means, both legally and illegally. People who leave the church are routinely harassed and threatened to prevent them from talking about it. Judging from the past, they also do a lot of dirty business that, in my opinion, needs be be widely known.
Considering this, I think this might be a good thing. At the very least, I find it hard to blame the person leaking this.
> We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Even though US law probably doesn't apply here, you're almost certainly right about the legality of this. But, honestly, I'm not sure why we should care, we're not the part of the Austrian judicial system. I'm still somewhat ambivalent about the ethical status of this, but I think we should not conflate legality and morality here.
I doubt you're alone in that, and I don't think you're wrong. I can't help but feel a little glee at this and the dirty laundry that undoubtedly will be uncovered in the next couple of days. But it's a guilty pleasure. Behaviour like this just conflicts with the categorical imperative.
However I might change my tone if something really serious is uncovered here. I think whistle blowing is a good thing, and this seems like the next best equivalent. Of course, that is a ridiculous position to take, essentially giving any random hacker the license to read through random personal email and blow the whistle on demand.[0] So I guess that position isn't tenable, either. But I know it'd be hard to be critical of a hypothetical hack that revealed or delivered proof about illegal activities by certain groups, be it Scientology, large-scale financial stuff or neo-nazis.
A more responsible release would probably only include incriminating or otherwise extraordinary emails, preserving (sort of) the privacy of most people. But arguably that's so difficult and personally dangerous in case of large data hacks or leaks that it's equivalent of saying a responsible release isn't viable.
[0] As determined by them, but that problem applies to all kinds of whistle blowing.
You're not the only one. The "hacktivism" trend is not going to work out the way Internet activists want it to; instead, it's just going to associate legitimate advocacy with criminality (and, for what it's worth: advocating against a criminal conspiracy wearing the garb of a religion is a legit target for adversary).
What exactly is gained by targeting an organization already famously good at playing the victim game with pointlessly malicious Internet pranks? Nothing.
Slight assumption but I bet you're for having a police force, justice system and prisons. Consider that the police use oppression to fight oppression. The justice system uses professional liars to decide on people's life paths. Prisons are essentially cages for human beings. You likely already support fighting fire with fire.
I think you're right to be concerned. I think that in general it's not right to illegally access and distribute the secrets of "the other side", even if you're totally convinced of your own moral superiority to them. I don't think it's right for Democrats to hack into Republicans' emails, nor vice versa, and I don't think it's even okay when it's a group that most people find detestable (e.g. the British National Party, who got their emails hacked recently).
On the other hand, in this particular case I'm inclined to say "Fuck it, they're Scientology". But I'm aware that I'm on pretty darn thin ice, ethically speaking.
I just think it was a waste of time. I guess they had to find an easy target, and they probably did it for the lulz (which is a douche move, but it's their MO).
That's what I would have assumed, but many of them are actually written in (mostly hilariously bad) English for some reason. They also seem to be using quite a lot of jargon, which seems to consist entirely of English words or phrases.
I find it beautifully ironic - the statement "2.They are evil. They are dangerous. Everyone must know." from people who invaded privacy under the misguided belief they are fighting the good fight...
Two wrongs don't make a right. Grow the f*ck up - stand up instead of skulking in the shadows.
Strange? Someone's got a couple hundred of Euros in credit at the CoS bookstore, but should already own his full set of encyclopedias, considering that he's a Level 60 Warlock. So they're asking if he can donate that for some "charity" event about their popular "psychiatry is eeeevil" line of thought.
This should be brought to public attention but the public don't want to have to download 2.8 gb of data and filter through it. Someone has to do that first and make it easily digestible, highlighting the worst or most 'dangerous' emails.
Objections to Scientology are not (for the most part) based on their religious beliefs, but their practices and behaviors. They have a history of being aggressively litigious, similar to patent trolls[1], and have used frivolous lawsuits to harass critics into giving up the fight. There are also some indications that they're emotionally abusive to their members, and encourage them to cut off all contact to non-Scientologist friends and family. These allegations are difficult to substantiate, in part because the Church is so aggressive about quelling criticism.
In general, the Intarwebs regard Scientology as an organization that invests substantial financial and legal resources in limiting free speech on the internet. This is generally unpopular, regardless of who is doing it. The Church's status as a religious institution is largely immaterial to this perception.
[1] Very similar, actually. They claim copyright on their religious writings, and use that to sue people who release them.
Scientology is not regarded a religion everywhere. In Germany it is considered a cult instead and it is even on a government watchlist. As students we were warned about it in school.
EDIT: I was just looking at Scientology's (English) Wikipedia page and came across this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scientology_warning_leafle... . I though it would illustrate my point. Those are three government-issued leaflets with the title "Protect Our Democracy". One is on organized crime, one on Islamic terrorism and one on Scientology.
Fear and mistrust of Scientology has nothing to do with their beliefs. They are a secretive organization that seeks to protect itself at the expense of everyone else. They are the perpetrators of the largest infiltration of the US government [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White]. And while their actions today may be legal they are nonetheless still dangerous.
I would day almost every religion has dirty secrets, because with power over people comes evil actions. Scientology in particular has a bad reputation of engaging in particularly dubious activity though, as even a cursory inspection of their history will reveal.
What does this have to do with HN? We'd flag off posts about Scientology as irrelevant. So basically, this is at the top of the page as a celebration of hacking organizations nerds don't like. It's how we nerds do bullying.
And I think Scientology is probably a criminal organization.
Here's a writeup from an ex-member, who was pretty high up in the org at one point and saw most of what can be seen, describing his experiences since having left. Sure, the whole organisation is unlikely to be "evil", but most religious sects gave up this stuff a while ago. Try to imagine any vaguely normal religion doing this. In a time when people give Google or Microsoft a hard time for being evil, this redefines the term.
I still don't understand why they use this one click hoster, which have a waiting time and limited download rate instead of bittorrent. The files are large enough and I think enough people would seed it. Decentralization is an important point for such data leaks as well.
Well, anonymity over bittorrent is hard(er, at least), and that is probably the reason why the hackers didnt distribute the data in that way. But for us who didnt do the hack, distributing the files is not as bad to be caught doing.
So while the hackers release the data in an anonymus manner, we can easily create a torrent. I would be surprised if one didnt already exist, actually.
The issue people have with Scientology is not that it's "weird". It's that they are an organization created expressly as a kind of pyramid scheme designed to funnel money from its clueless members to its corrupt leaders, and that they will go great (and highly immoral) lengths to safeguard the structure of the organization.
All the weirdness -- the bogus science, the alien mythology, the extreme secrecy and protectiveness, the level hierarchy, etc. -- is merely a side effect of that goal. The mythology, for example, is the carrot, and the secrecy is the stick; they need the mythology because they need to feed some new knowledge (even if bogus) at each level, and they need the secrecy to make that knowledge desirable in the first place, both to members and to non-members.
Sure, all religions are "weird". But most religious organizations -- generally speaking -- genuinely have their members' best interests at heart. Scientology has no such concerns.
Can someone alert the relevant authorities of Germany. Yes, they may have already noticed this. But: Kann ein deutscher Sprecher mitteilen, Bundesnachrichtendienst und BfV.
[+] [-] dfc|14 years ago|reply
Does anyone have any guesses about the string at the end of the announcement? Is that something Anonymous normally does?
[+] [-] deno|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harshreality|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billpatrianakos|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batista|14 years ago|reply
Do you have to actually _wait_ for them to download?
[+] [-] MultiRRomero|14 years ago|reply
Idk, am I alone here? Am I wrong? I'm open to contrary opinions.
[+] [-] fjh|14 years ago|reply
I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics. That by itself obviously does not excuse leaking them, but (again, as far as I can see) the emails do not contain much personal information.
> It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks.
I would probably agree with you if this was about any other organisation, but the CoS has a long, long history of suppressing information about them by any means, both legally and illegally. People who leave the church are routinely harassed and threatened to prevent them from talking about it. Judging from the past, they also do a lot of dirty business that, in my opinion, needs be be widely known.
Considering this, I think this might be a good thing. At the very least, I find it hard to blame the person leaking this.
> We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Even though US law probably doesn't apply here, you're almost certainly right about the legality of this. But, honestly, I'm not sure why we should care, we're not the part of the Austrian judicial system. I'm still somewhat ambivalent about the ethical status of this, but I think we should not conflate legality and morality here.
[+] [-] morsch|14 years ago|reply
However I might change my tone if something really serious is uncovered here. I think whistle blowing is a good thing, and this seems like the next best equivalent. Of course, that is a ridiculous position to take, essentially giving any random hacker the license to read through random personal email and blow the whistle on demand.[0] So I guess that position isn't tenable, either. But I know it'd be hard to be critical of a hypothetical hack that revealed or delivered proof about illegal activities by certain groups, be it Scientology, large-scale financial stuff or neo-nazis.
A more responsible release would probably only include incriminating or otherwise extraordinary emails, preserving (sort of) the privacy of most people. But arguably that's so difficult and personally dangerous in case of large data hacks or leaks that it's equivalent of saying a responsible release isn't viable.
[0] As determined by them, but that problem applies to all kinds of whistle blowing.
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
What exactly is gained by targeting an organization already famously good at playing the victim game with pointlessly malicious Internet pranks? Nothing.
[+] [-] Produce|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evertonfuller|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] planetguy|14 years ago|reply
On the other hand, in this particular case I'm inclined to say "Fuck it, they're Scientology". But I'm aware that I'm on pretty darn thin ice, ethically speaking.
[+] [-] rsanchez1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raphman|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://pic.pwny.biz/x/ed_at_scientology.co.at/
[2] http://pic.pwny.biz/x/buchladen_at_scientology.co.at/
[3] http://blog.esowatch.com/?p=8247
(in German, of course)
[+] [-] dfc|14 years ago|reply
http://pic.pwny.biz.nyud.net/x/buchladen_at_scientology.co.a...
http://pic.pwny.biz.nyud.net/x/ed_at_scientology.co.at/
[+] [-] fjh|14 years ago|reply
That's what I would have assumed, but many of them are actually written in (mostly hilariously bad) English for some reason. They also seem to be using quite a lot of jargon, which seems to consist entirely of English words or phrases.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zekenie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vertis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jheriko|14 years ago|reply
Two wrongs don't make a right. Grow the f*ck up - stand up instead of skulking in the shadows.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] munchor|14 years ago|reply
This is one strange email...
[+] [-] mhd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eduard|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mutant|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quadrant6|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuvadam|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pud|14 years ago|reply
I am not defending religion or Scientology.
[+] [-] lmkg|14 years ago|reply
In general, the Intarwebs regard Scientology as an organization that invests substantial financial and legal resources in limiting free speech on the internet. This is generally unpopular, regardless of who is doing it. The Church's status as a religious institution is largely immaterial to this perception.
[1] Very similar, actually. They claim copyright on their religious writings, and use that to sue people who release them.
[+] [-] ma2rten|14 years ago|reply
EDIT: I was just looking at Scientology's (English) Wikipedia page and came across this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scientology_warning_leafle... . I though it would illustrate my point. Those are three government-issued leaflets with the title "Protect Our Democracy". One is on organized crime, one on Islamic terrorism and one on Scientology.
[+] [-] Supermighty|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NathanKP|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
What does this have to do with HN? We'd flag off posts about Scientology as irrelevant. So basically, this is at the top of the page as a celebration of hacking organizations nerds don't like. It's how we nerds do bullying.
And I think Scientology is probably a criminal organization.
[+] [-] richardw|14 years ago|reply
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showwiki.php?title=Gerry+Armstron...
[+] [-] token78|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shellox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fromhet|14 years ago|reply
So while the hackers release the data in an anonymus manner, we can easily create a torrent. I would be surprised if one didnt already exist, actually.
[+] [-] shellox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jackmoore|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maratd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lobster_johnson|14 years ago|reply
All the weirdness -- the bogus science, the alien mythology, the extreme secrecy and protectiveness, the level hierarchy, etc. -- is merely a side effect of that goal. The mythology, for example, is the carrot, and the secrecy is the stick; they need the mythology because they need to feed some new knowledge (even if bogus) at each level, and they need the secrecy to make that knowledge desirable in the first place, both to members and to non-members.
Sure, all religions are "weird". But most religious organizations -- generally speaking -- genuinely have their members' best interests at heart. Scientology has no such concerns.
[+] [-] aj700|14 years ago|reply
http://www.bnd.bund.de/EN/__Home/Startseite/startseite__node...
http://www.verfassungsschutz.de/en/index_en.html
A least one country takes the threat seriously.
[+] [-] pgeorgi|14 years ago|reply