Defense in Depth

After several days of Internet attacks by a group calling itself Anonymous, the Church of Scientology has responded with a comment about the posting of one of its videos. A response on Friday evening from the Church of Scientology did not address CNET News.com's specific request for comment on the denial-of-service attacks themselves. Instead, Karin Pouw, public affairs director for the Church of Scientology, focused on the leak of a Tom Cruise video on YouTube earlier in the week. The response reads, in full:

As the Church previously announced, the pirated and edited excerpts of Mr. Cruise were contained in an official Church event in 2004, an event attended by 5,000 Scientologists and their guests and further available for viewing in any Church of Scientology world over. Having presented these selective and out-of-context excerpts with the intent of creating both controversy and ridicule, nevertheless resulted in people searching for and visiting Church of Scientology Web sites as evidenced by "most searched for" lists of various search engines. Those wishing to find out the Church of Scientology's views and to gain context of the video have the right to search official Church Web sites if they so desire.

Dr. Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks has been looking at the technical side of the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks upon domain registered to the Church of Scientology International. In general he finds that while there have been a lot of DDoS attacks, the early ones were mild. They were, however, stronger than the DDoS attacks upon various Estonian sites last spring. As a protective measure, the Church of Scientology has since moved its domain to a more protected space.

Prior to the move, Nazario found that on January 19, there were 488 DDoS events, all of which appear to come from one IP address, "indicating," said Nazario, "that this is not a huge, broadly sourced attack (i.e. it may not have registered on other ISPs systems)." He also notes that the types of attacks he saw on Saturday were "common, garden-variety DDoS attacks."

Nazario's other findings include:

Maximum PPS rates seen: nearly 20,000 pps (packets per second), with an average attack size of 15,000 pps.

Maximum bandwidth seen per attack: 220 Mbps, with an average attack size of 168 Mbps. This is on the high side of an attack, but significantly smaller than the largest ones we commonly see nowadays.

Maximum duration of a single attack: 1.8 hours, which is on the long end of common, but the average attack lasted just under half an hour.

On January 21, the Church of Scientology moved its domain to Prolexic Technologies, a company that protects Web sites from DDoS attacks. Attacks against the site have increased, with a major assault on Thursday night at 6 p.m. EST.

Nazario says "I went looking and was unable to detect attacks against the Scientology Web site in particular. The new IP address of the CoS Web site is located within the Prolexic DDoS service network. It's difficult for (Arbor Networks) to detect these attacks in particular from the milleiu of DDoS attacks" inside the Prolexic service.

A group of vigilantes--calling themselves Anonymous, or Anon--are escalating their attacks against the Church of Scientology in what they consider to be Internet censorship by issuing new video challenges. In one video posted to YouTube, Anonymous addresses the many news organizations covering the war, stating that the group has been watching. While the individuals behind the effort generally support the coverage, they also severely fault the media.

"We find it interesting that you did not mention the other objections in your news reporting. The stifling and punishment of dissent within the totalitarian organization of Scientology. The numerous, alleged human rights violations. Such as the treatment and events that led to the deaths of victims of the cult such as Lisa McPherson.

This Cult is Nothing but a psychotically driven pyramid scheme.

Why are you, the news media, afraid of discussing these matters? It is your duty to report on these matters.You are failing in your duty."

Lisa McPherson was a member of the Flag Service Organization, a branch of the Church of Scientology, whose death in 1995 remains controversial. Although the Church of Scientology was initially held responsible, felony charges against it were dropped when the medical examiner ruled her death was an accident. A civil suit against the church by McPherson's parents was settled in 2004.

At one point in the video, Anonymous says, perhaps in response to its growing numbers of critics, "this is not religious persecution, but the suppression of a powerful, criminal fascist regime."

A request for comment from the Church of Scientology has not yet been answered.

On Friday, Anonymous also posted on YouTube a second YouTube video to the Church of Scientology, this time addressed to its many followers.

"Your religious beliefs are not wrong, like any other religion, and they are yours to keep. However beliefs should not come at a price. Not from your wallet or compromising your thoughts.

Those who have left feel a new life, a rebirth into true freedom. You can join them if you wish. You may not believe us. We ask of you one thing: Make up your own mind. That is a sentence of more profound meaning for you now than at any other time in your life."

Both videos continue a trend in using a computer-generated voice over stylized video. A Web site called Project Chanology continues to detail present and future actions by Anonymous and others.