Scientology Spamming makes news in New Jersey
Georle
Newspaper article on Scientology's spamming of alt.religion.scientology.
Good scope, and not too bad on accuracy, as such things go. Jon Noring gets
broad coverage. 'alt.religion.scientology' gets named four times :-))
The Star-Ledger is the largest of the New Jersey newspapers.
Emphasis and parentheses in original.
.............................................................
Star-Ledger, Friday, 5/31/96, section 1, page 5
New Jersey, USA
"Scientology posts lead Net activists to
mull limiting cherished free speech" by Kevin Coughlin
Advocates of free speech on the Internet may be facing their
toughest foe: Free speech itself.
Net activists claim that Church of Scientology members are
bombarding a popular computer bulletin board with thousands of
generic, pro-Church messages to drown out any critical opinions.
In argot of the Internet it's called "vertical spamming," and
it has some Netizens so worried that they're even suggesting calling
in the FBI - an astounding prospect, given the vehement opposition
of many Internet groups to any government regulation of the global
computer network.
"Free speech is free speech when it's not disruptive of other
free speech. What we're seeing is not free speech, but the abuse
of free speech," said Jon Noring, a long-time Netwatcher from Utah.
Noring fears other groups could adopt the Scientology strategy
to stifle the unfettered, no-holds-barred talk that has
characterized the Internet. He is circulating an electronic
petition to protest what he feels is at best a violation of
Internet etiquette, and at worst a disruption of electronic data
communications that he thinks may violate federal law. "It's like
ignoring Robert's Rules of Order and going into a public meeting
with bullhorns," he said of the spamming that he says began on
May 19.
Church of Scientology spokeswoman Debbie Blair yesterday
defended members' rights to free cyber-speech, while denying
any organized effort to swamp the Internet. "That's never been
condoned by the Church," she said.
"It's only a few hypocrites that would complain," a Church
statement said. "When they express themselves ... no matter how
vile or hateful their postings are, we acknowledge their right to
say what they want ... There has been so much false information
on (the bulletin board) that no one should complain about the
truth being posted."
The Church of Scientology is based on the philosophy of the
late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It counts among its
members Hollywood personalities John Travolta, Michael Jackson,
Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley and Chick Corea. The Church maintains
that certain sacred texts may be revealed only to a select few
members. It has sued the Washington Post, several "apostate
infringers" from the Internet's alt.religion.scientology newsgroup
and a number of Internet service providers for publishing such
tracts without permission. Preliminary court rulings generally
have sided with the Church.
David Post, co-director of the Cyberspace Law Institute at
the Georgetown University Law School, said he knows of no laws
prohibiting spamming. But any organized effort to discourage use
of a popular bulletin board "is a threat to free discourse on the
Net," said Post.
Noring and another Internet activist, Ron Newman, said
thousands of pro-Church postings began flooding the popular
Usenet discussion group alt.religion.scientology on May 19.
Usenet is the portion of the Internet dominated by electronic
bulletin boards where people exchange comments and replies on
virtually every subject imaginable.
A Scientology critic started the alt.religion.scientology
newsgroup in 1991. The newsgroup mushroomed into one of the
Internet's hottest, with up to 2,700 weekly postings from both
defenders and attackers of the Scientology movement. At one
point, the church tried to shut the newsgroup down by persuading
data carriers not to carry it. Those efforts failed.
Many of the recent postings begin in similar fashion: "Many
falsehoods and inaccurate statements regarding several aspects
of the religion of Scientology have been observed on a.r.s. ..."
Noring said pro-Scientology postings appear to be coming from
forged or bogus e-mail accounts.
Spamming itself is not new. An Arizona lawyer outraged the
Internet community in 1994 by sending thousands of electronic
ads randomly across the Internet. (In Net lingo, this was a
_horizontal_ spamming, spread across a wide swath. A _vertical_
spamming concentrates on a specific bulletin board or newsgroup.)
The lawyer's Internet service company crashed under the deluge of
electronic complaints, or _flames_, and tossed the lawyer off
its network.
Noring said e-mail leaked by former Scientologists indicates
Church members looked upon spamming as a propaganda tool two
years ago.
Responding to the alt.religion.scientology spammers has been
difficult, Noring said, because they present a moving target.
According to Noring, who runs an electronic publishing business,
the spammers change Internet service providers frequently and
sometimes use "anonymous remailers," third-party companies that
strip identifying information off messages before relaying them.
The Scientology battles at times have assumed a bizarre,
spy vs. spy quality.
Late in 1994, unknown culprits began forging cancel commands
that made postings vanish from the scientology newsgroup,
sometimes with the statement "canceled because of copyright
infringement." The Church has seized computers from the home of
a former member and has forced a Finnish remailing service to
cough up the name of a user.
--
Georle
Mike O'Connor
In article <4oo6rj$o...@newton.crisp.net>, s...@newton.crisp.net (Georle) wrote:
[...]
> Star-Ledger, Friday, 5/31/96, section 1, page 5
> New Jersey, USA
[...]
> Church of Scientology spokeswoman Debbie Blair yesterday
> defended members' rights to free cyber-speech, while denying
> any organized effort to swamp the Internet. "That's never been
> condoned by the Church," she said.
>
> "It's only a few hypocrites that would complain," a Church
> statement said. "When they express themselves ... no matter how
> vile or hateful their postings are, we acknowledge their right to
> say what they want ... There has been so much false information
> on (the bulletin board) that no one should complain about the
> truth being posted."
[...]
Is this the first official statement from the cult about the spam? -Mike
Zane Thomas
s...@newton.crisp.net (Georle) wrote:
>Newspaper article on Scientology's spamming of alt.religion.scientology.
Bwaaahahah!
Another BigWin[tm] for the church<spit>. Guess it's time to get ready
to introduce another round of newbies to the cult of spamitology.
ARS is growing daily --- readership now estimated at 8 million!
Zane
Xenu's Sister
On 31 May 1996, Georle wrote:
>
> Newspaper article on Scientology's spamming of alt.religion.scientology.
> Good scope, and not too bad on accuracy, as such things go. Jon Noring gets
> broad coverage. 'alt.religion.scientology' gets named four times :-))
>
> The Star-Ledger is the largest of the New Jersey newspapers.
Thanks for posting this! I'm not snipping any of it.
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Ram Samudrala
So how many here think that what CoS is doing is actually protected by
Free Speech? Further, how many think that calling in the FBI on the
part of the critics is being hypocritical?
I am not sure whether there're clear answers to either question, but I
can't say I support complaining to the FBI about CoS in this regard.
Jon Noring is quoted as saying: "It's like ignoring Robert's Rules of
Order and going into a public meeting with bullhorns"
I think we need louder bullhorns, or find a way to destroy their
bullhorns technologically. I don't support running to the authorities
and asking them to take away the bullhorns.
--Ram
m...@ram.org || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th
## (= Knuth God) ##
## 2C || !2C != ? ## Beep! - vi ##
scott goehring
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In article <4ou2qn$b...@hecate.umd.edu>, Ram Samudrala <m...@ram.org> wrote:
>So how many here think that what CoS is doing is actually protected by
>Free Speech?
yes, what they are doing is as much protected free speech as any other
posting to USENET.
>Further, how many think that calling in the FBI on the part of the
>critics is being hypocritical?
hypocritical and absurd. i am ashamed to be lumped in with the rest
of these bastard, and i believe a letter to the editor of this New
Jersey paper is in order.
>Jon Noring is quoted as saying: "It's like ignoring Robert's Rules of
>Order and going into a public meeting with bullhorns"
what Jon seems to have missed is that alt.religion.scientology is not
a deliberative assembly, and further that there is no body with the
authority to determine what the acceptable rules of conduct _are_ in
a.r.s. what gets posted and not posted, propogated and not
propogated, retained and not retained, is wholly and solely up to the
ISPs, acting individually and collectively.
the obvious conclusion is that if you don't like the acceptance,
distribution, or retention policies of an ISP, convince them to change
them. but keep in mind that any policy you suggest has to be fair,
impartial, and capable of being applied without prejudice, especially
toward protected minorities. :)
>I think we need louder bullhorns, or find a way to destroy their
>bullhorns technologically. I don't support running to the authorities
>and asking them to take away the bullhorns.
agreed.
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Rich Burroughs
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On 4 Jun 1996 02:02:48 GMT, sgoe...@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
(scott goehring) wrote:
> In article <4ou2qn$b...@hecate.umd.edu>, Ram Samudrala <m...@ram.org> wrote:
> >Further, how many think that calling in the FBI on the part of the
> >critics is being hypocritical?
>
> hypocritical and absurd. i am ashamed to be lumped in with the rest
> of these bastard,
[snip]
It must sting.
Good luck with the letter.
Rich
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Ron Newman
In article <gradyDs...@netcom.com>, Grady Ward <gr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In a new wrinkle, the pro-cult spam may very well be illegal:
>articles are being spewed forging the names of critics as the
>authors.
I've never seen this. Are you *sure*, Grady? Can you
post or email an example of this?
[posted/emailed]
--
Ron Newman rne...@cybercom.net
Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html