RFD: Time to kick some anti-scientologist ass?

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the Church of $cientology wars
until recently. Here's an executive summary for those who don't give a damn.

1. There's a gang of flamers (David Gerard, Jon Noring, Ron Newman, Rob J.
Nauta, and the like) who try to stop $cientologists from discussing their
religion on the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Most of them are
disgruntled former cult members and/or members of other similar cults.

2. The anti-scientologists have caused many cypherpunks anonymous remailers
to shut down via their egotistical misuse of them, viz. criminally posting
copyrighted Co$ writings to Usenet. They did it knowing that the Co$ is
likely to harrass the remailer operators, causing them to shut down and
depriving everyone of their services.

3. These harrassers are Usenet Cabal supporters, and they are sometimes
joined by initerant cabal enforcers such as Peter Vorobieff, who visit a.r.s
to lend a helping hand and to flame Co$.

4. Recently the anti-scientologists have asked me for a copy of my cancelbot,
and have been using it to forge cancels for scientologist posts on a.r.s.

Here's a typical anti-scientologist Usenet article lauding content-based
forged cancels:

]Path: ...!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!fun
]From: fun%/etc/HOSTNAME (David Gerard)
]Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.religion.scientology.xenu
]Subject: Re: Cancel Summary
]Followup-To: alt.religion.scientology,alt.religion.scientology.xenu
]Date: 5 Jun 1996 20:51:37 GMT
]Organization: Expert Marcabian Spam-Dodgers of the Universe
]Lines: 28
]Message-ID: <4p4s0p$h06@news.mel.aone.net.au>
]References: <SatJun1224302EDT1996@lightlink.com> <31b194aa.599605@news.clark.net>
]Reply-To: fun@suburbia.net
]NNTP-Posting-Host: athene.glasswings.com.au
]X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
]
]StarOwl (starowl@triskele.com) wrote:
]: On 1 Jun 1996 22:43:05 -0400, Lazarus <homer@lightlink.com> wrote:
]
]: >Thu May 30 00:48:49 EDT 1996  Lazarus V2.3
]: >lightlink.com/var/spool/news/control/1456170
]: >Article: 170077
]: >From: info@triskele.com (ARSE INFO SERVICEl)
]: >Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 13:22:08 GMT
]: >Subject: Bryan Wilson - In Conclusion.
]: >    Message-ID: <31a857ae.664540@news.clark.net>
]: >Control: cancel <31a857ae.664540@news.clark.net>
]
]: Great.  Even the parodies of spam get canceled.  :-/
]
]
]Well. This is actually GOOD NEWS. Because what it means is that there is at
]least one spam cancelbot on the case, as is eminently a wonderful idea for
]getting the hell RID of this shit ... in an entirely accepted and acceptable
]Usenet manner.
]
]If you can find the cancel, you can ask whoever zapped it to
]repost it I suppose, in such a way as to evade the cancelbot.
]
]Now what we need is MORE spam cancelbots on this material.
]
]
]--
]http://suburbia.net/~fun/scn/ -- if it doesn't work for you, email me.

The attached summary is substantially incorrect. I know some of the
"flamers" you mentioned, and their intentions are *not* to stop the
Scientologists from discussing their religion.

On the contrary, the Scientologists are trying to make it very difficult
for anyone to *criticize* the Church of Scientology or reveal some of
its more wacky teachings.

For more info --

  Ron Newman's web page on the Church of Scientology:
    http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/
  Dave Touretzky's web page:
    http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/

-Declan

  

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 8-Jun-96 RFD: Time to kick some
anti.. by Dr.Dimitri V. KOTM@bwalk 
> 1. There's a gang of flamers (David Gerard, Jon Noring, Ron Newman, Rob J.
> Nauta, and the like) who try to stop $cientologists from discussing their
> religion on the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Most of them are
> disgruntled former cult members and/or members of other similar cults.
>  
> 2. The anti-scientologists have caused many cypherpunks anonymous remailers
> to shut down via their egotistical misuse of them, viz. criminally posting
> copyrighted Co$ writings to Usenet. They did it knowing that the Co$ is
> likely to harrass the remailer operators, causing them to shut down and
> depriving everyone of their services.
>  
> 3. These harrassers are Usenet Cabal supporters, and they are sometimes
> joined by initerant cabal enforcers such as Peter Vorobieff, who visit a.r.s
> to lend a helping hand and to flame Co$.
>  
> 4. Recently the anti-scientologists have asked me for a copy of my cancelbot,
> and have been using it to forge cancels for scientologist posts on a.r.s.

"Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU> writes:

> The attached summary is substantially incorrect.

You mean, the anti-scientologists aren't massively forging cancels
for scientologits' posts on alt.religion.scientology using my cancelbot?

Or the anti-scientologists haven't caused most of the problems cypherpunks
remailers face through posting CO$ copyrighted material through them?

>                                                  I know some of the
> "flamers" you mentioned,

My condolences.

>                          and their intentions are *not* to stop the
> Scientologists from discussing their religion.

Then how come anyone who posts to a.r.s in support of the cult gets
harrassed by your acquaintances (flamed, mailbombed, etc)?

(Note: I'm not a Co$ affiliate and have exactly as much disdain for it as
for any other cult.)

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In list.cypherpunks, dlv@bwalk.dm.com writes:

> Or the anti-scientologists haven't caused most of the problems cypherpunks
> remailers face through posting CO$ copyrighted material through them?

> (Note: I'm not a Co$ affiliate and have exactly as much disdain for it as
> for any other cult.)

Am I the only one whose ironometer just pegged?
- -- 
           Roy M. Silvernail     [ ]      roy@scytale.com
PGP Public Key fingerprint =  31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54  13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6
                Key available from pubkey@scytale.com

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LD editorializes:

 > I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the Church of
 > $cientology wars until recently. Here's an executive
 > summary for those who don't give a damn.

Uh huh.

 > 1. There's a gang of flamers (David Gerard, Jon Noring, Ron
 > Newman, Rob J. Nauta, and the like) who try to stop
 > $cientologists from discussing their religion on the Usenet
 > newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. Most of them are
 > disgruntled former cult members and/or members of other
 > similar cults.

Actually, from my infrequent and cursory reading of a.r.s, it is
my impression that the antis are discussing their own views of
Scientology, not trying to prevent anyone else from discussing
theirs.  I would think all opinions related to Scientology would
be on-topic for a.r.s., both positive and negative.

 > 2. The anti-scientologists have caused many cypherpunks
 > anonymous remailers to shut down via their egotistical
 > misuse of them, viz. criminally posting copyrighted Co$
 > writings to Usenet. They did it knowing that the Co$ is
 > likely to harrass the remailer operators, causing them to
 > shut down and depriving everyone of their services.

Well, perhaps.  It certainly isn't very nice to post copyrighted
works via anon remailers.  At least not more than constitutes
"fair use" for the purpose of critical review (or hilarious
laughter, as the case may be).

 > 3. These harrassers are Usenet Cabal supporters, and they
 > are sometimes joined by initerant cabal enforcers such as
 > Peter Vorobieff, who visit a.r.s to lend a helping hand and
 > to flame Co$.

Nothing wrong here.  Flames are the thread from which the fabric
of Usenet is woven.

 > 4. Recently the anti-scientologists have asked me for a
 > copy of my cancelbot, and have been using it to forge
 > cancels for scientologist posts on a.r.s.

It should be noted that said Scientologist posts consist of
thousands of distinct little snippets from the Scientologist
Handbook and other similar tracts, posted as separate articles
from multiple accounts simultaneously.  This is clearly an
attempt to flood everything else off servers while staying clear
of the current definitions of Spam and Velveeta.

While Usenet tends to frown on content-based cancels, I find it
difficult to understand why the cancellation of thousands of
gratuitous posts duplicated amongst a large number of accounts
should be considered "content-based." Does participation in
a.r.s. ever legitimately require this level of posting?  It
shouldn't be too difficult to find non-content-based criteria for
cancelling this crap.

--
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $