I just wanted to say that i have had first-hand contact with "the anon", and there is no way that they are FBI. They are entirely too immature to be FBI. That is all.

ps-no, im not FBI. Im free mason.

Originally posted by cidrolls4s
ps-no, im not FBI. Im free mason.

Um, what has that got to do with the topic?

Very interesting thread. See RENDELSHAM FOREST INCIDENT.

I forget some times most people haven't a clue about us.

I will attempt to explain what anonymous, at this moment in time, is and roughly how it is organized. keep in mind this is simply my interpretation of how things are as there is no actual structure, the more anons you ask the more accurate your understanding will be.

basically we are a bunch of people who have decided to do, basically, the same general thing for the same general reasons. every anon acts alone, in that no one can tell you what to or not to do, but at the same time we operate by consensus, as per the previous statement if you disagree with the consensus you are not obligated to follow it, but if you stray too far from it, you will be disowned by everyone else, and your ability of effect the consensus will be lessened. the power of the personality is minimized, your personal history is not important, only what you are saying right at this moment. the origins of anonymous made a traceable personality imposable, currently there are personas in many of the forums, but oftine people use different names in different locations, again the idea is more important than the person presenting it (this shift from old anon is probably due to the massive influx of people from non-anonymous message boards, such as myself).

the Al Queda organization is somewhat close in terms of how the protests were organized. basicly there are two worlds in this regard, the local group and the global group, they are very closely intertwined, but there is a clear distinction. the global group mostly takes care of general methods, here was established the iron clad rule of "nothing stupid" stupid is a reference to bad ideas, ideas that would make us look bad, this would include hateful messages, and illegal activity. the global group is also largely responcible for information dissemination, and communication with other anti-scientology groups (ARS, OCMB, ect). the local group is primaraly focused around the specifics of a specific event, these would be the "cells" they exist only to provide information on a given target, help colect people from a given local, and give a date and time. specifics of a particular protest are organized here, but in general they follow the consensus of the global guidelines. here is where contacting of local authoraties is done, information on pre-raid staging areas, ect.

but, this is merely how the protests are organized, Anonymous as a whole is extremely hard to nail down. currently most people involved with Chanology are on the hub site eturbulation.org. but if this site goes down, another or several others will simply pop up elsewhere. there are no ranks there are no leaders, the guy who runs enturbulation is given thanks for going out on a limb but he has no special position of authority and has only a limited ability to direct things by locking/moving threads, makeing stickies, ect...

also important to know is there are two subgroups within Anonymous, these are often referred to as the "oldfags" and the "newfags" (cultural note, "fag" is used as a suffix to just about any adjective to refer to a person personifying said adjective) the oldfags are the people who set up the DDoSes and black faxes, the newfags are the people who swarmed in after seeing what the oldfags were doing and were instrumental in the sudden change of tactics from harassment to protests. while both groups are motivated buy the two goals of 1) wanting to help people and of 2) wanting to have fun (lulz), most oldfags place a much higher priority on 2 than 1, and the newfags simply consider 2 to be a pleasant side effect of 1. this division is more cultural than organizational. we all agree that the CoS is a dangerous organization that threatens our rights as human beings, and needs to the protested simply by virtue of the fact that is is so dangerous to protest it. we have a number of specific goals and we plan on continuing our fight until they are met and EPIC WIN is had by all!

[edit on 24-2-2008 by another anon]

just sayin. i wouldnt want people thinkin in a disinformation agent.

hmmm apparently now,

a loose-knit subculture of hacker children from 4chan and IRC, formerly known for not much more than defacing MySpace pages and other nuisance hacks/pranks

is classified as cyber terrorism and enough to make Anon be a high alert item. A war going on, and we're worried about protecting our blogs. Our tax dollars at work, ladies and gents. Only in America.

[edit on 25-2-2008 by nincompoop]

Originally posted by chromatico
*If* the NSA/FBI is behind this (pretty big if), they will not have to do much fishing to dredge up some pretty serious dirt on Scientology.

as a member of anonymous, I can guarantee we're not fed in any way.....frankly, I think most of us are afraid of legal people like that, considering the site and alot of our actions are grey area.

Hey i haven't been online for a few months now, but i got an update email in my inbox with the title of The "Anonymous" Scientology Protest is an NSA/FBI Fishing Expedition.

So i decided to log back on after months of not loggin in.

All i can say is that I know anon, I join them in their site once in a while, I know where they come from, i know where they plan this. They've been planning this for months now. They are a a group of people spread out in the world, there's much much more anons out there. I know their site. They are not the FBI or anything close.

They just do it for the lulz and the epic wins, also epic fails/phails , just like the New Zealand protest, which was an epic fail.

First off, how the heck does this topic have over 80 flags on it? That smells a little fishy in itself...

The topic creator does provide a good argument, and it is a possibility that the NSA and the FBI are manipulating Anonymous for their own gain. I mean, if I, a random person on the Internet, can steer Anonymous in a direction with just standard knowledge, you can imagine what an organization with many resources can do.

Simply put, Anonymous has many hidden triggers inside of them that are enforced on a daily basis. If you can combine these triggers successfully, you can pretty much have Anonymous do whatever it is you want them to do. It also many not be just the NSA and FBI controlling them -- the possibility of others controlling them does exist. In fact, there could even be a implied rivalry going on to see who can control most efficiently.

Nevertheless, my personal opinion is that Anonymous is not being controlled in this incident. Unless the Church of Scientology deliberately leaked out the Tom Cruise video in order to start (or continue) a program to stop Anonymous, I am pretty sure that Anonymous acted on his own.

Yes, the possibility of NSA/FBI involvement in this sudden "Anti-Scientology" rising from Anonymous could be true, but it is highly unlikely given the circumstances and timing the video was leaked.

[edit on 2/25/2008 by SonicInfinity]

I can't say how the majority feels, but yeah I personally feel too afraid of enforcement to participate in anything like DDOS since it's illegal and stuff, plus it's complicated to do anyway. I doubt anyone doing it would actually speak up, as they more exemplify what 'anonymous' is anyway. The way I look at it, my computer security is probably not top-line so odds are I've gotten trojaned and in some way my system probably participated in the same way 50% of the internet also has by being hijacked for such attacks, even though I have no way of knowing it.

I wonder if this is how some religious people feel, when they say god acts through them? Perhaps by thinking of this parable I am feeling too much emotion for my PC as if it were a personal extension.

The link to the terrorists of islam is interesting to explore, however one major difference I can think of is that they lack the same sort of communication and singularity-ish meme pooling that is behind Anonymous. Instead, they are recruited by a religion, and naturally receive memes, however instead of pooling with each other, they receive it directly from the Koran, and indirectly through media from major figures, and possibly undertones of dissatisfaction in oppressed places where Islam is dominant. However, since people are interested in religions pretty much everywhere, these trends of congregation would not specifically limit it from any location.

I think fundamentalists would benefit from meme pooling, but instead they are quite closed to criticism, some of them anyway, much like Scientology. It is not that religions are not open to it, some are, but those individuals who are not (and sects of religions that do not promote questioning or exploration) cut themselves off from 'sinful' meme-pooling, doubt, and assessment of the religion.

My first and perhaps only post here.

I have to admit that this was one of the most entertaining threads of nonsense that I've had the pleasure to read.

Take off the tin foil hats for a moment and really look at what anonymous is and what it's trying to accomplish. We are trying to end the Church of Scientology as it currently stands. We hold no ill will to individual members, other than the leadership. Our hope is to prevent others from joining the CoS and get those that are in the cult safely out.

Does anyone honestly think if this was a FBI/NSA/(insert letters here) operation, it would be so pubic? That it would be so sporadic and sudden? Heck, anon has yet to agree on a press release. This happened so fast, in a very "viral" way that we've only kinda sorta started to have a real theme beyond just being ticked off at the CoS.

Hard as it may be to believe, the vast majority of anon is just a bunch of folks who have only recently learned a great deal about the CoS and decided to act. The closest thing to leadership we have are the "old school" critics. However, even they are only considered as advisors. If anon doesn't agree with their advice, we don't adhere to it.

ETA: I had never heard of chan, /b/, anonymous, or the majority of the meme's they use until I started taking an interest in this movement. The chan folks are a bit crazy, but they do have a great sense of humor.


[edit on 25-2-2008 by anon too]

Originally posted by anon too
My first and perhaps only post here.

I have to admit that this was one of the most entertaining threads of nonsense that I've had the pleasure to read. ...

You cannot be closed to the possibility. It is highly unlikely, but do you have any proof to suggest otherwise?

The simply fact of the matter is that there is no way to prove either side at this point. If you want to believe that this happened randomly when that Tom Cruise video came out, like I believe, or if you want to believe that it, alongside other organized events, was put together by the NSA/FBI -- either one are fine. Unless solid proof comes up on either side, there is no definitive answer. All we can do at this point is speculate.

[edit on 2/25/2008 by SonicInfinity]

Oh please, even if it was first suggested and planted by FBI/NSA this doesn't mean that the will of the Anonymous isn't behind it.

Anonymous always has and always will act however it wants. Someone suggests something, they are anonymous and it might just snowball. This is what happened with project chanology. It doesn't particularly matter who suggested it because Anonymous will do what Anonymous wants. If this epic IRL raiding dies off then that is the will of Anonymous.

Can someone explain to me how a loose-knit subculture of hacker children from 4chan and IRC, formerly known for not much more than defacing MySpace pages and other nuisance hacks/pranks, suddenly takes a public stance on a socially complex issue? And part of the public stance of this "Anonymous" group involves the very un-anonymous action of public space protests.

I may be a newfag here, but you are a newfag to Anonymous if that is all you think Anonymous is. Now I came out and made myself partially unanonymous for this post, but oh well.

Take some time to find out what a group is about.

anon is not part or infuenced in any way by the government.

damn you and your conpiracies.

/thread