Teen hacker admits to attack on scientology.org

Monday, October 20, 2008

A teenager, belonging to the anti-scientology group Anonymous, has admitted that he launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the official website of the Church of Scientology, scientology.org.

Dmitriy Guzner, aged 18, will admit to the charges related to carrying out the DDoS attack. He now faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment.

In response to incidents such as these, Scientology have called Anonymous "cyber-terrorists."

A DDoS attack occurs when multiple computers are used to attack a certain website with so much traffic that it is not accessible. The hackers attack the servers taking up all the available space, preventing the legitimate user from accessing.

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United States Attorney's Office released a statement on this issue. "A New Jersey man was charged today for his role in an attack on Church of Scientology websites in January 2008 that rendered the websites unavailable," they said. "Dmitriy Guzner, 18, of Verona, New Jersey, has agreed to plead guilty to computer hacking for his role in the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack against the Scientology websites. "

Related news

""Anonymous" releases statements outlining "War on Scientology"" — Wikinews, January 23, 2008
"Hackers attack Church of Scientology website" — Wikinews, January 20, 2008
"Tom Cruise Scientology promotional video leaked to the Internet" — Wikinews, January 17, 2008

Sources

Learn more about Scientology and the Internet and Project Chanology on Wikipedia.

New Jersey teen hacker admits to Scientology-web attack — Newspost Online, October 20, 2008
Teenage hacker admits attack on Scientologists — IT Examiner, October 20, 2008
Lincoln Stein and John Stewart. The World Wide Web Security FAQ — World Wide Web Consortium, Retrieved October 20, 2008
Teenage hacker admits Scientology attack — Sydney Morning Herald, October 19, 2008
Press Release: Teenage hacker admits Scientology attack — United States Department of Justice, October 17, 2008

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