Needs Be Said

Those of you who are keeping an eye on the news have probably, by now, read where it has been stated that Anonymous has been staging dos attacks against Visa and Mastercard and a small number of websites that are actively opposed to Wikileaks' diplomatic cable dumps.

You should know that, first of all, Anonymous is not an entity with any semblance of cohesive or clearly defined leadership. Actually, anyone can claim to be "Anonymous." As is explained in the link above it is more an ongoing internet meme than anything else.

As a former member of the Church of Scientology, I've been very happy to see that Anonymous has taken on those purveyors or fraud full-on and have created what is now a campaign of cultural inoculation against the "Church" that is going on close to three years.

However because I am listed publicly as an "ex who has spoken out against," - a listing I am happy to be a part of - there is nothing about me that can claim to be "Anonymous," because I'm not. Technically I'd actually more associate myself with Project Chanology, which is a portion of / splinter from / aspect of / sub set to / different than / what is known as "Anonymous."

After the unrest in Iran where that oppressive regime began to control internet and other electronic media access and thus hampered the activities of the anti-government protest movement, Anonymous showed the dissidents how to get around it. But the part of Anonymous that did that was not always completely the same part of Anonymous which was dealing with Scientology.

Early on Project Chanology/Anonymous used dos attacks against Scientology websites but reversed themselves and, in fact, are opposed to the tactic; if only because a person doesn't have to do anything "illegal" to expose the cult - all you have to do is just talk about it and people will be all "wtf??"

It should be explained that the dos attacks against MasterCard and Visa et al were done because those entities disallowed contributions made online going to Wikileaks. It was not done to get anybody's info or anything like that, as far as I can tell.

And although I am in favor, so far, of Julian Assange's general outlook and utility, I am against dos attacks. I'm not sure how people do that, but if it isn't illegal it probably ought to be.

I can't answer for whatever part of Anonymous is responsible for the "cyberwar" and, though sympathetic to the cause, I'm not for the tactic.

Just to be clear, that "part" of Anonymous concerned directly with the cult of Scientology published a very informative explanation of the situation and you can read it here.

These kind of things have happened and will happen again, if only to demonstrate the fact that there simply is no centralized leadership in this shape-changing, amoebalike entity known as Anonymous. People have even done mischief in its name with the express purpose of blackwashing Anonymous.

We'll get back to my usual bloggy blather after this. I just thought it needed be said.

aka Robert S