PROJECT CHANOLOGY refers to a series of world-wide IRL protests denouncing the Church of Scientology. The name PROJECT CHANOLOGY is taken from the codename used to organize the first protest. It is written in all caps so that you understand exactly how important it is. PROJECT CHANOLOGY was sparked by Scientology's attempt to suppress several videos which were posted online in January of 2008. The most widely discussed of these videos was an homage to Tom Cruise that includes interview segments in which the actor explains why he believes in Scientology. The video is nothing short of amazing.
Overload the servers of every major Scientology web site as an immediate act of retaliatory censorship.
Counteract Scientology's attempts to suppress the videos (and other cult materials) by constantly reposting them.
Publicize the cult's well-documented history of employing suppressive and violent tactics to mask its illegal or immoral activities.
Despite widespread skepticism, PROJECT CHANOLOGY successfully organized several synchronized, world-wide, IRL protest against Scientology. The large attendance at these protests earned PROJECT CHANOLOGY coverage in old media sources. Media coverage peaked in late January and throughout February of 2008.
True to its history, the Church of Scientology identified and subsequently persecuted many protesters. The cult also lied in order to prosecute individual protesters, and fabricated press releases—complete with images taken from unrelated stories—in an attempt to portray the protests as violent.
Though PROJECT CHANOLOGY refers to a series of IRL raids, it has had a major impact on the online community. Most dramatically, it has seized the iconography of /b/'s Anonymous as its own, corrupting what was once an amorphous concept of soulless anarchy into a caricature of a bumbling, faceless Robin Hood.
The degree of PROJECT CHANOLOGY's success is debatable. Though the project motivated large numbers of people to protest, the protests did little to articulate the perils of Scientology. Most observers were likely distracted and confused by a large demographic of protesters who chose to dress like idiots and spout /b/ memes. PROJECT CHANOLOGY continued at the pace of roughly one IRL protest per month, until July 2008, when enthusiasm for the project waned to the point that IRL protests were no longer effective or sustainable.
The Development of PROJECT CHANOLOGY
On January 13 and 14, 2008, several video clips from videos produced by the Church of Scientology were posted to YouTube. The clips touted the benefits of Scientology. The most popular clip featured a psychotically intense Tom Cruise. By January 15, the clips had been removed from YouTube, as well as from most blogs and online newspapers that had mirrored it, on the basis of a copyright claim by the Church of Scientology. Gawker.com directly refuted Scientology's copyright claim, asserting that they would continue to host the clips as newsworthy items that were, therefore, exempt of copyright.
Meanwhile trolls, outraged at the cult's attempt to mask its effects, began to stir support for a massive raid:
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RESOLUTION Declaring that a state of war exists between the "Church" of Scientology and the Internet and making provisions to prosecute the same.
Whereas the "Church" of Scientology has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Internet and Society as a whole; and
Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the security and freedom of the Internet and its users; and
Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that Anonymous exercise its rights to self-defense and to seek out lulz: Therefore be it Resolved by Anonymous in /i/ and /b/ assembled,
That the state of war between the Anonymous and the "Church" of Scientology which has thus been thrust upon the Internet is hereby formally declared; and
That Anonymous is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire force of Anonymous and the resources of the Internet to prosecute war against the "Church" of Scientology; and
To bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of Anonymous are hereby pledged.
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—/i/NSURGENCY
Reactions, as always, were mixed:
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THIS IS MORE EPIC THAT ANYTHING I HAVE SEEN BEFORE....IF LEFT UNCHECKED THIS COULD UNDO THE VERY INTERNETS ITSELF, MANY ANONS MAY FALL BUT THEY WILL BE REMEMBERED
This is gay. I just want to fix my code and shoop things onto Dakota Fanning's face. Idiots....
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—Anon
1.16: PROJECT CHANOLOGY Commences
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I've been fax DDoSing with black pieces of paper taped together creating an infinite loop but they've recently blocked them from coming through.
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—anon
Starting on the 16th of January, Scientology's primary web site, Scientology.org, began to experience heavy DDoS and Gigaloader attacks. Many Scientology call centers were treated to the music of Rick Astley and pizzas and taxis were mistakenly ordered for Scientology buildings around the world.
Scientology's popularity skyrockets.
Y MY WEB SITE NO WERK?!?!
News from the front.
After the Scientologists websites initially went down the enemy responded with their own bandwidth attacks on the Insurgency Wiki, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and other sites where raid plains were documented. Unorganized denial of service attacks continued throughout the week, as organizers developed a plan for a massive synchronized attack on January 21 to be followed, a week later, by an IRL protest. The following timeline records the events of the period from January 16 to January 28:
1/18/08 - Raids continue, and Scientology.org remains down. Cloverfield debuts and sucks.
1/19/08 - Scientology.org remains down, along with the dianetics hotlines (1-800-367-8788) or (01342 318229).
1/20/08 - Scientology.org is up and down throughout the day. Media begins to take notice.
1/21/08 - Second Wave. An official declaration of war and message to Scientology are posted to YouTube. Media coverage of the announcement provides the boost needed to take down Scientology.org again. The amount of web traffic directed at Scientology.org increased to 18 times greater than normal, a third of which was redirects from BBC News.
Media coverage is surprisingly positive, and the general internet public is painted a picture of Anonymous as a group fighting for free speech. The coordinated denial of service takes down more than 20 Scientology websites at various points in the day.
1/22/08 --Splongcat attracts more attention to PROJECT CHANOLOGY when he claims to release secret Scientology OTIX documents. In retaliation, The Church of Scientology executes Heath Ledger.
1/23/08 - Anonymous has delivered, and real super-secret dox are released. Scientology moves the scientology.org website from it's own server farm to a secure data center owned by Prolexic Technologies, which specializes in DDoS-resilient hosting services.
1/24/08 - Scientology.org returns. Anon's activities are reported in Sky News and other old media.
1/25/08 - Splongcat claims to have the address of the Scientology.org web server. The address actually belongs to a server for a Dutch school. Splongcat is subsequently shunned.
Scientologist Retaliation
Scientology actively engaged PROJECT CHANOLOGY from its inception. Fortunately, they remained predictable and did what they always do: sick their evil lawyers on anyone and everyone who might be to blame.
3/15/08: The Ides of March—Operation Party Hard—IRL raids In reaction to the vast amounts of win on 2/10, Anonymous carried out a second IRL raid against the Church of Scientology, dubbed Operation Party Hard. Operation Chanology was extended indefinitely until such a time as Anonymous felt that victory has been achieved.
5/10/08: Battletoads Earth—Operation Fair Game: Stop—According to certifiably insane Church of $cientology leader (redundant much?), David Miscavage, Anonymous and their Project Chanology shenanigans are a massive Marcab Confederacy away team on a mission to create a Project Mayhem of sorts.
4/12/08: Operation Reconnect—Due to the massive amounts of win achieved at 3/15, Anonymous staged Operation Reconnect on 4/12, encouraging ex-Scilons and current Scilons alike to "reconnect" with their families.
5/10/08: Battletoads Earth—Operation Fair Game: Stop—"Battlefield Earth" is a movie based on a book written by L. Ron Hubbard starring closet homosexual John Travolta. "Battle Toads" was a game for the NES that took either a lot of practice, or a lot of cheating to beat. The Battletoads killed aliens and doesn't afraid of anything. On 5/10, Anonymous take to the streets and speak against the evils of the Church of Scientolgy's Fair Game Policy. Fair Game is basically Scientology's idea that they can retaliate against anyone that speaks against the cult. Tactics include stalking people, suing people, harassing people, framing people, posting memes on their myspace in order for them to be as LRH said "shuddered into silence" and "utterly ruined".
6/14/08: Operation Sea Arrrgh—For every Anonymous making things go right, there are one million Sea Org members who don't even know what right is. Our biggest challenges lie just ahead. Don't have plans for the next billion years? JOIN THE SEA ARRRGH.
