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History of COS and the Net
========================================================================== A Documentary History of the Church of Scientology and the Net VERSION 1.0 / April 17, 1995 Compiled by Deana M. Holmes (mirele@xmission.com) ==========================================================================
Compilation (c) 1995 by Deana M. Holmes.
The following is a documentary history of alt.religion.scientology. It consists pretty exclusively of posts from a.r.s. I had to be selective in what I included. But most anything else that a reader might want to know can be found on the major Scientology Web sites (see below).
GENERAL REMARKS:
The advantage of the documentary history format is that it presents the documents with a minimum of commentary. The disadvantage is that this document is LONG. So I have engaged in some selective choosing and judicious editing. With regards to choice of posts for inclusion here, I have for the most part stayed away from the affidavits that can be found on the various Web pages (referenced below). I've tried to stick strictly with a.r.s posts only. As far as the posts themselves go, I've only edited nonessential information from the headers. I have left intact the sender, date, subject, and message id number. The only exception to this is the cancel messages sent out by the CancelPoodle. Outside of this very limited editing, I have not done anything else to the posts.
If anyone has any additions or corrections to this history, please send them to me at the above e-mail address. I will consider these corrections and addtions and add any changes to the next revision, which hopefully will be posted to a.r.s about April 23, 1995.
WHAT THIS HISTORY DOESN'T HAVE IN IT:
o Court papers from various cases o Affidavits by various parties in various cases o Judicial opinions o SCAMIZDAT o Spam
All of this stuff can be found either on the Web, or ftp sites, or if you hang around long enough, the Scientology secrets will be posted again.
METHODOLOGY:
For the posts before February 13, 1995, I have relied on archived posts on various Web sites (see below). After that date, I have been keeping a private archive of all a.r.s posts which came through my site (xmission.com). This archive is approximately 30 megabytes in size.
HISTORY:
April 17, 1995--Version 1.0 release
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
I would like to thank all the people who sent me stuff for inclusion in this history. I'd particularly like to thank Ron Newman, for having his Scientology home page up and running. I highly recommend it:
<a href="http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/scientology/home.html">http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/scientology/home.html</a>
Another good source of documents and links is Bob (Da Sloth) Bingham's home page at <a href="http://www.sky.net/~sloth/">http://www.sky.net/~sloth/</a>
I'd also like to thank those who posted information to a.r.s and/or emailed it directly to me, particularly Jeff Jacobsen and Arnie Lerma. Also, Diane Richardson needs to be singled out for her above-the-call-of-duty postings of crucial court cases involving the CoS.
I'd also like to thank Jeroen Schipper for his beta version of ReadMail 5.0. This made finding posts so much easier!
************************************************************************** PART I--THE EARLY DAYS OF A.R.S (from the creation to the raid on Dennis) ************************************************************************** IN the beginning, God created the heavens... oops, wrong beginning.
In the beginning, alt.religion.scientology was newgrouped by "David Miscaviage." This was a forgery; the perpetrator of the forgery appeared later to claim his fame.
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> Path: rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!flag
> !miscaviage
> From: miscaviage@flag.sea.org (David Miscaviage)
> Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology.ctl
> Subject: newgroup alt.religion.scientology
> Message-ID: <80235@flag>
> Date: 17 Jul 91 08:06:31 GMT
> Control: newgroup alt.religion.scientology
> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
> Lines: 0
> Approved: miscaviage@flag.sea.org
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I first came on the Net in May 1993. Before that, I had been on GEnie, where Bob (Da Sloth) Bingham made a point of countering the local Scientologists on the Religion & Ethics BB. However, when prices went up for the pay services in the spring of 1993, I, like so many other refugees, emigrated to the Internet. A.r.s has been in my .newsrc since that time, if only because I had worked down the street from the local Church of Scientology in Austin, Texas, and after ten years of being asked to take a personality test, I wanted to understand the persistence of these people.
For the first year or so (mid 1993-1994), the action on a.r.s was pretty desultory. Brian Wenger would post the "official" Scientology FAQs on a regular basis, and there were discussions about e-meters, with Chris Schafmeister playing a prominent role in asking the Scienos probing questions about the device's inner workings. Homer Wilson Smith showed up towards the end of that period, the first Zonie I noticed who posted to a.r.s on a regular basis.
One thing that those new to a.r.s should keep in mind is that the daily volume in a.r.s was low--most days it was less than 20 posts. And the signal to noise ratio was pretty high.
Last summer, however, things began to heat up considerably. The following document was passed to Chris Schafmeister from a anonymous source: it indicated that the Church of Scientology had found out about a.r.s and was now going to attempt to "handle a.r.s".
[ed. note--can someone please provide me with an approximate date for this document?]
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Dear Scientologist,
As you know, there has been quite a bit of false and derogatory information going out over the Internet by a few detractors, squirrels etc.
The Church fired a project to collect up all this information, and we have been in comm with some of you already. We have obtained legal input on some of the messages that individuals have posted that could be libelous or in violation of copyright laws.
We have a plan of action that we are taking, to simply outcreate the entheta on these newsgroups (alt.religion.scientology and alt.clearing.technology), and get positive information to the general public on what Scientology is, our activities around the world, successes stories and LRH writings. There will also be some legal actions, which you will be further briefed on. Basically, as a group we will NO longer put up with our religion being criticized, harrassed and denigrated on the Internet.
As a first step, I want to thank those who have posted positive material and handled some of the entheta that has been posted. This is very much appreciated! Secondly, I would like to ask your assistance in getting each one of you to post positive messages on the Internet (at least once a week, more if you like), about Scientology.
We want to make these messages "high ground". In other words, don't get tempted into a two way comm with some l.1 jerk on the Internet. Ack him and continue to post POSITIVE and HIGH TONED messages that really explain what Scientology IS doing, how it helped you or a friend, community activities of the Church, Church expansion. It is easy to get into an opp term situation with the detractors over this system, but this doesn't necessarily communicate very well to the broad public who may read this.
There is an excellent issue by LRH which is PR Series 27, THE ENEMY LINE. In here, LRH says that you never forward an enemy line, nor do you get into just attacking. YOU COME UP WITH A BETTER CAMPAIGN OF YOUR OWN.
This should be applied whenever you post a message on Scientology, as we want to keep this on a theta, dissemination comm line to the broad public.
The Church of Scientology International is getting our own site onto Internet, and we'll also be posting messages regularly in there, so if you feel you are getting attacked by some detractor or jerk, let us know right away, and we can get you material to counter whatever is being said.
If you imagine 40-50 Scientologists posting on the Internet every few days, we'll just run the SP's right off the system. It will be quite simple, actually.
CSI will be e-mailing around various briefings and good news messages to individuals for posting also, so that you are getting new material to post. If you need material or want to get your material cross-checked with us for content, e-mail it (to this address for now, until CSI gets our own), and we'll get you the material you need.
The two newsgroups on the Internet are "alt.religion.scientology", and also "alt.clearing.technology" (which was set up by Homer Smith, a squirrel and declared SP). We need to fill up both of these newsgroups with positive information on the Church.
For those of you with access to America Online, you know there is a similar situation with Scientology being attacked on that system. So this would apply to this newsgroup as well (posting positive messages on Scientology).
The Planetary Dissemination Org (PDO) will be getting their own site onto Internet, which will be for the dissemination of LRH's works, WIS book, and other materials and campaigns. We intend to put these works onto laser discs, and utilize all the tools of the Internet to disseminate Scientology internationally.
This is very exciting, and will be a new era for computer users as regards the subject of Scientology.
Look for CSI's first posting very shortly. We WILL outcreate anything that is on there.
I would like to hear from you on your ideas to make the Internet a safe space for Scientology to expand into.
Thanks.
ML, Elaine Siegel Office of Special Affairs International
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Elaine Siegel, the writer of this document, mysteriously disappeared from view not long after this. Her disappearance was noted here on a.r.s, as well as in an article in the _St. Petersburg Times_ dated August 3, 1994. It's likely this article is the first mention of what would later be called the War between Scienotology and the Net.
After Elaine ceased to be a factor in a.r.s, Stu Sjouwerman came on the Net. He was quickly exposed as a "Field Staff Member," that is, a recruiter who receives a 15% commission from the fees paid by every person that he recruited into Scientology. After that exposure, and the needling pressure that came from CoS detractors, Stu disappeared (although he occasionally puts in an appearance now and then), but not before he posted the following to a.r.s:
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File: Black Hats
For Scientologists who want to know who are the purely negative, destructive posters & detractors, and/or so called "FreeZone" (who have taken Scientology-technology without authorization and started their own group) in this newsgroup, so that you can choose what to read and what not:
Abbreviations:
AS = Rabid Anti-Scientologist. Posts horrendous lies and negativity DA = Disaffected, is very critical SQ = Freezone, nickname "Squirrel", has taken Scientology tech and ran off on their own. Doomed to fail. CAN = Cult Awareness Network member or supporter. Posts extremely negative and slanted disinformation, 99% proven false. MUD= Some one who believes "Man came from Mud", critical.
The Gang of Black Hats in a.r.s. (not in any order)
1) rkeller@nyx.cs.du.edu: - AS, CAN - Rod Keller 2) schaf@socrates.ucsf.edu - MUD - Chris Schafmeister 3) rogue@ccs.neu.edu - AS - Rogue Agent 4) 40880@freenet.victoria.bc.ca - AS, CAN - Martin Hunt 5) homer@crl.com - SQ - DA - Homer Wilson Smith 6) jost@itd.itd.nrl.navy.mil - DA 7) mkdewolf@aol.com - DA - Mike de Wolf. 8) cultexprt@indirect.com - AS - CAN - Jeff Jacobson. 9) speaker@netcom.com - SQ - Allen 10) ladyv@crash.cts.com - SQ - DA Enid Vien 11) sloth@falcon.cc.ukans.edu - DA - Bob Bingham 12) an105662@anon.penet.fi - AS - DA - CAN The Squirrel 13) lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu - AS - Don Lindsay
I'm sorry if you expected to find yourself on this infamous list and you're not... :-) You can always send me a request to be put on...
stus@delphi.com
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Dennis Erlich said that he appeared on a.r.s in August, 1994. Like many others, I don't think I realized the threat that Dennis posed to the CoS until after his house was raided in February, so I didn't pay that much attention to him. However, I do remember saving the original copy of Dennis' "Body Raisins" article because it struck me as being both humourous and, at the same time, almost unbelievable. Dennis has reposted "Body Raisins" recently, so I will not do so here.
"Body Raisins," however, was a sign that things were changing on a.r.s. Instead of desultory chat on e-meters, Erlich's presence was animating things and opening up new areas of discourse. We were now discussing the affidavits that various people had filed in court cases, as well as past criminal acts (such as Operation Snow White) perpetrated by the highest levels of the Church in earlier years. Another item that detractors would needle CoS defenders on was a claim made in CoS literature that they had educated 1.5 million children in South Africa. Tony McClelland made a point of checking this story out, writing to persons in South Africa who would know about this, and basically debunked the story to the satisfaction of all save the Scienos.
All this entheta was not going unnoticed by the CoS. In the middle of September, 1994, an anonymous Scientologist posted the following to a.r.s. The liberal use of Scientology jargon screamed authenticity, and considering the current course of certain Scientology posters, in some respects this policy is still being followed:
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********************* Conspiracy to Handle ARS ************************** This religion I've been suckered into has gon far enough. I believe what they are conspiring to do is illegal, and I don't know what to do, because I'm scared:
Wednesday, September 14, 1994
HANDLING A.R.S.
Situation: The Internet is a potentially highly effective Planetary Dissemination tool. A particular section of the Internet (Usenet Newsgroup alt.religion.Scientology) was begun by an enemy of Scientology. Currently many CAN connected deprogrammer types and disaffected Scientologists, about 15 individuals, have made this Internet bulletin board a place to spread entheta about Scientology. They have vowed to take this false information and put it all over the Internet which according to latest estimates has over 20 million participants and is growing by 1 million people per month.
Data: Some public Scientologists, in their attempts to handle the entheta, have engaged in debates with the deprogrammers, in violation of policy. There are random efforts but no coordinated actions to terminate the a.r.s. situation. An on policy solution is needed to properly handle.
Policy: " THE DEFENSE OF ANYTHING IS UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK." LRH Ability Mag Article (page 47 Tech Vol. III)
References: 1.) HCOPl 5 April 1965, Issue I, HANDLING THE SUPPRESSIVE PERSON, THE BASIS OF INSANITY (OEC Vol. I page 990 through page 991 the first 6 paragraphs, page 993 #10, and page 995 the first 5 paragraphs)
2.) HCOPl 27 October 1964R, POLICIES ON PHYSICAL HEALING, INSANITY AND SOURCES OF TROUBLE (OEC Vol. I page 987 last 2 paragraphs)
3.) HCOPl 9 June 1975, PR SERIES 27, THE ENEMY LINE
4.) HCOPl 21 November 1972, PR SERIES 18, HOW TO HANDLE BLACK PROPAGANDA
PRIMARY TARGETS
1.) Someone to be responsible for the execution of this program
2.) Design a project Org Board.
3.) Read and understand this program.
4.) All project personnel to read and study the above references
VITAL TARGETS
1.) Arrange financing for this project .
2.) Ensure the use of debug tech to handle bugged targets.
3.) Get a sidecheck from Church terminals on this program.
4.) Ensure LRH Policy is followed in executing this program.
5.) Report bugs or security problems immediately.
" A VT would have to be to keep in the basic rule of not e*mailing [ie TNX] anything that you would be unwilling to have show up anywhere. Although this might be a nuisance at times, it is VITAL." Lee Holtzinger
OPERATING TARGETS
1.) Project I/C to arrange for a personnel I/C who will obtain volunteers 1A.) Establish a record of phone address and E*Mail address for each project member.
2.) Project I/C to appoint an operations I/C.
2A.) Project I/C to appoint a Legal I/C 2B.) Project I/C to appoint a Security Officer/EO
3.) Operations I/C to appoint 5 "posting I/C's". A.) Success Posting I/C
B) BPI Issues Posting I/C
C.) D/A Posting I/C D.) Satire/Humor Posting I/C E.) A.R.S. Board Reader I/C (Must be OT V or above) e.) I.) Ensure that A.R.S. Readers are rotated monthly
4.) Each I/C to gather or receive from personnel I/C from 3-5 section members.
5.) Each I/C to hat section members on the program and LRH Policies.
5a.) Each member to write sample posts for a pass before posting
6.) Each I/C to hat "posters" on Copyright and TM Scientology Policy Directive of 26 August 1982 Revised 17 February 1994 "UNDERSTANDING TRADEMARKSAND THE USE AND PROTECTION OF"SCIENTOLOGY AND DIANETICS.
7.) Personnel I/C to get the names of the Moderated Board Project Personnel.
8.) Moderated Board Project I/C to liaise with A.R.S. Project I/C. 9.) I/C to write an analysis of the project effectiveness after the first week of operation.
10.) Establish a "computer tech" I/C to make access to electronic libraries easy and to facilitate information flow. PRODUCTION TARGETS
1.) By September 25th. to have a minimum of 80 posts to a.r.s. all at once.
2.) To have no less than 50 posts per day to a.r.s. for the next month.
Stats: Number of on policy posts per day to a.r.s.
Gimmick: Let's get out the TRUTH about Scientology *******
(End planned Operation)
This kind of trickery must stop by the management.
-Scared ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.
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In late fall, Homer Wilson Smith, who runs a remailer from rahul.net, was contacted by the lawyers for Scientology and asked to remove a publicly-accessible archive of posts from a.r.s. The reason given by the lawyers was that materials copyrighted by the CoS were being archived by Homer. After some hemming and hawing around, Homer capitulated.
However, allegedly copyrighted materials continued to appear on a.r.s. Additionally discussion was getting a bit more pointed, and the few Scienos who had been online pretty much withdrew from the scene, in the face of the uncomfortable postings being made by detractors. It appeared to me that the CoS was going to abandon attempts to "handle" a.r.s, but that proved to be false.
Around Christmas 1994, the first forged cancels appeared. They came from Netcom accounts, and for the first time the a.r.s "problem" became a Net problem. In the past, there had been the occasional forged cancel, but nothing like what was happening now. The forger was first called the Cancelbunny because the activity kept "going and going and going...," resembled in name only the actions of the famous CancelMoose, and was not resolved by Netcom for a long time. The detractors of a.r.s who cared about cancels later began to call it the Cancelpoodle, in honour of David Miscavige, the putative head of the CoS, who was often referred to as "the poodle" by CoS dissenters.
One effect of the Cancelbunny/Cancelpoodle was that it finally forced Netcom to change the way it handled cancellations. However, many people on the Net, especially in a.r.s and alt.current-events.net-abuse were disturbed at the length of time it took Netcom to deal with this problem. (Contrast this with the very timely response from Delta Internet Services, below.) Because Netcom was so slow to respond, Homer Wilson Smith rigged up "Lazarus", a program that reported to a.r.s if an article previously posted to a.r.s had been cancelled and by whom. Lazarus was instrumental in alerting people to the problem of cancelled posts.
The following is a post typical of Lazarus.
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A LAZARUS EARLY WARNING ALERT v1.3 ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/lazarus/lazarus.log Wed Feb 15 20:33:32 PST 1995
The following post was canceled:
From: anonymous-remailer@xs4all.nl (Name withheld on request) Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:40:15 +0000 Subject: THE SECRET IS OUT 5 Message-ID: <199502151437.AA20098@xs1.xs4all.nl>
by this cancel message found in control:
rahul.net/news/news/control/462697
> Control: cancel <199502151437.AA20098@xs1.xs4all.nl>
The appearance of the Cancelpoodle was a sign of the kind of desperation
that had seized those in authority at the CoS, in that they were willing to
resort to bad netiquette to try and censor dissenting opinions. It was a
precursor of actions to come.
The Cancelpoodle hall of fame includes (in order of first appearance):
o harryj@netcom.com (Harry Jones)
o robocanceller@netcom.com
o mako@netcom.com (Michael Clark)
o student@netcom.com (John Palmer)
o bettyj@netcom.com (Elizabeth Jones)
The following is a typical cancel from the Cancelpoodle. This was a cancel
of a post by Martin Hunt. The assertion that materials in the post were
copyrighted were for the most part, false. Posts were being cancelled that
contained uncomfortable assertions on the part of the writer, or
discussions of allegedly copyrighted posts, but it wasn't until the
blasting of "SCAMIZDAT" on a.r.s and elsewhere in early April that the
Cancelpoodle was used to cancel posts that allegedly contained CoS
copyrighted materials. Even so, persons on a.r.s wished that the CoS would
prove their copyrights in court rather than use the Cancelpoodle to stifle
discussion.
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Just after the Cancelpoodle showed up, the CoS lawyers were turned loose on
the Net. The following letter was received by members of the cypherpunks
remailer list on January 4, 1995 from Thomas Small, one of the house
lawyers retained by the CoS. The purpose of the letter was to try and get
the remailers to stop anonymous posters to a.r.s from using their services.
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January 3, 1995
TO: INTERNET REMAILER OPERATORS
FROM: THOMAS M. SMALL
COUNSEL FOR RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER AND BRIDGE
PUBLICATIONS, INC.
I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), which
owns the unpublished, confidential Advanced Technology of the
religion of Scientology, and holds exclusive rights under the
copyrights applicable to the Advanced Technology materials.
I also represent Bridge Publications, Inc., which holds the
exclusive right to print, publish and sell various
non-confidential works by the founder of the Scientology
religion, L. Ron Hubbard, and to make and publish
compilations and derivative works of and from those works and
to enforce all rights in them.
It has come to my attention that there are two
alternate newsgroups on the Internet to which individuals
have been annonymously posting certain of my clients'
published and unpublished copyrighted materials, including
certain of the confidential Advanced Technology materials.
These confidential materials being posted were stolen from
my client. There is reason to believe that the materials
which are uploaded by these users may also be downloaded by
other users, and that these activities may be occurring
through the systems which are linked into the Internet.
The two newsgroups into which these materials are being
copied are alt.technology.clearing and alt.religion.
Scientology.
We request your assistance in dealing with the problem.
The spread of infringements and misappropriations by the
users will be lessened if you lock out from your systems the
two newsgroups involved, alt.religion.scientology and
alt.technology.clearing, limiting the potential for reposting
and downloading. It will then be easier to deal with the
intentional infringers through appropriate channels.
Both the uploading and downloading of these materials
constitute unauthorized copying and distribution of the
materials in violation of our clients' rights under United
States copyright laws and the law of other countries, where
applicable. Damages and an injunction against further
unauthorized copying and distribution may be obtained against
infringers and, all unauthorized copies and all materials and
equipment by which the unauthorized copies may be reproduced
can be impounded. Unauthorized disclosure of the
confidential Advanced Technology materials also violates
applicable trade secrets laws.
Action is being taken directly with the systems users
who we know are primarily responsible for these violations of
my clients' rights. We hope those actions will put an end to
the infringements by these users. We do {not} wish to
involve others in litigation. Unfortunately, however, such
actions will be unavoidable where there is contributory
infringement by those who knowingly induce or contribute to
the infringing conduct of these users by providing facilities
or systems that enable the direct infringers to infringe,
because we legally must take all actions to protect our
clients' property rights. Courts are holding such
contributory infringers liable. Two examples are: Sega
Enterprises Ltd. v. Maphia BBS, 30 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1921 (N.D.
Cal. 1994) and Playboy Enterprises v. Frena, 839 F. Supp.
1152 (M.D. Fla. 1993).
Recent proposed legislation regarding potential
liability of systems operators and others who provide
facilities or services, such as annonymous remailers, for
information passing through their systems has understandably
created concern on the part of systems operators as a
potential liability. We ask your voluntary assistance in
dealing with these known wilful infringers so that we can
both deal with the problem without legal hassles, and legal
liability can be confined to those who intend to create the
situation.
We ask that you confirm that you have blocked access to
these newsgroups through your remailer. If you are unwilling
to do so, we ask that you inform us as to the reasons for
your position.
Sincerely,
Thomas M. Small
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Apparently, the attempt to control the remailers was deemed to not be
enough for the Scientologists. The next appearance a CoS attorney was in
the Control group, when Helena Kobrin attempted to rmgroup a.r.s.
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Please confirm that you have removed this newsgroup from
your system.
Helena K. Kobrin
Counsel for trademark
and copyright owner
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Most sysadmins laughed at Helena Kobrin; indeed, her botched attempt to
rmgroup a.r.s may have actually caused some sysadmins to subscribe to the
group to see what was going on.
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From: dbd@panacea.phys.utk.edu (David DeLaney)
Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.religion.scientology.ctl
Subject: cmsg newgroup alt.religion.scientology
Date: 12 Jan 1995 02:20:37 GMT
Organization: Formerly U. Tenn. Knoxville/Physics Dept.; presently extremely di
s
Message-ID: <3f23ll$ii4@martha.utk.edu>
Sorry, kids; please carry out your harassment campaign against the
a.r.s newsgroup by other means. Cancellation is bad enough; rmgrouping out
of spite is Not A Good Idea, thanks. And while you're there, hkk, tell us
please who the person at Netcom that's cancelling other people's
messages in a.r.s is, why don't ya?
For your newsgroups file:
alt.religion.scientology He's dead, Jim
(alternatively:
alt.religion.scientology Discussion of the belief-system Scientology)
In article <hkkD29JJB.1GA@netcom.com> hkk@netcom writes:
> We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology
(3) it has the name
> "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is
(4) it has been and continues to be
> heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and
Dave "And next I suppose they'll say they've copyrighted the word
'Scientology' - L. Ron would be furious!" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney dbd@panacea.phys.utk.edu "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. Disclaimer: IMHO; VRbeableWIKTHLC
<a href="http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~dbd/">http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~dbd/</a>- net.legends FAQ <a href="/">/</a>CanterSiegelKibozeBait!!
--------------
Newsgroups: alt.config
From: davidg@netcom.com (David Guntner)
Subject: cmsg newgroup alt.religion.scientology
Message-ID: <davidgD29wzp.23v@netcom.com>
Organization: What a concept! :-)
References: <hkkD29JJB.1GA@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 03:43:00 GMT
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
This was very likely a forgery. The From: line is botched, and a Sender:
line is present.
netcom:$ egrep alt.religion.scientology <a href="/usr/lib/news/active">/usr/lib/news/active</a>alt.religion.scientology 0000027549 07508 y
Judging from 27,000+ articles received since it was created, this is not
a newly created group; it's been around a while. The reasons he gives
for requesting a rmgroup are most likely as bogus as the "address" he was
posting from.
The orignal article was:
> Xref: netcom.com control:923876
> Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
> Path: rahul.net!a2i!olivea!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!news.rain.org!news5.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!peernews.demon.co.uk!xs4all.nl!anonymous-remailer
> From: maco@netcom.com
> Subject: cmsg cancel <199502151437.AA20098@xs1.xs4all.nl>
> Message-ID:
> Sender: mako@netcom19.netcom.com
> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
> Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:40:15 GMT
> Lines: 3
>
> This message has been cancelled due to copyright violations.
>
> --
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
> Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
> Path: rahul.net!a2i!olivea!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!csusac!csus.edu!netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!nott!cunews!freenet.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!av282
> From: student@netcom.com
> Subject: cmsg cancel
> Message-ID:
> Sender: student@netcom20.netcom.com
> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 1995 02:17:46 GMT
> Lines: 1
> This posting has been cancelled because it contains copyrighted materials
^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
> Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.lotto.players,alt.lotto.players.ctl
> Path: uunet!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!hkk
> From: hkk@netcom
> Subject: cmsg rmgroup alt.religion.scientology
> Message-ID:
> Followup-To: alt.config
> Sender: hkk@netcom.com (Helena Kobrin)
> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 22:52:23 GMT
> Lines: 17
> Xref: uunet control:1568915
We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology
newsgroup from your site. The reasons for requesting its
removal are: (1) It was started with a forged message; (2)
not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name
"scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is
misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack
the Scientology religion; (4) it has been and continues to be
heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and
serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal
practices.
> newsgroup from your site. The reasons for requesting its
> removal are: (1) It was started with a forged message; (2)
> not discussed on alt.config;
Nonsense. One doesn't rmgroup active thriving groups simply because they
were "not discussed on alt.config", *especially* not several years *after*
they were newgrouped. You've got the wrong alt.* hierarchy here, methinks.
> misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack
> the Scientology religion;
So what's your point? Are you maintaining that nobody can use a trademarked
word? Are you maintaining that nobody can attack the Scientology religion?
Again, I think you have quite the wrong alt.* hierarchy here...
> serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal practices.
Um, I think you're seriously confused; this is alt.religion.scientology,
not alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.scientologists . "Trade secret violations"?
For a *religion*? I think you have the wrong United States of America here...
> Control: rmgroup alt.religion.scientology
> Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.lotto.players,alt.lotto.players.ctl
> Path: netcom.com!hkk
> From: hkk@netcom
> Subject: cmsg rmgroup alt.religion.scientology
> Message-ID:
> Followup-To: alt.config
> Sender: hkk@netcom.com (Helena Kobrin)
> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 22:52:23 GMT
> Lines: 17
>
> We request that you remove the alt.religion.scientology
> newsgroup from your site. The reasons for requesting its
> removal are: (1) It was started with a forged message; (2)
> not discussed on alt.config; (3) it has the name
> "scientology" in its title which is a trademark and is
> misleading, as a.r.s. is mainly used for flamers to attack
> the Scientology religion; (4) it has been and continues to be
> heavily abused with copyright and trade secret violations and
> serves no purpose other than condoning these illegal
> practices.
>
> Please confirm that you have removed this newsgroup from
> your system.
>
> Helena K. Kobrin
> Counsel for trademark
> and copyright owner