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Now Scientology is under attack from a group of internet activists known only as Anonymous. Organised from a Wikipedia-style
website (editable by anyone) and through anonymous internet chat rooms, Project Chanology, as the initiative is known, presents no easy target for Scientology's lawyers. It is promoting cyberwarfare techniques normally associated with extortionists, spies and terrorists. Called distributed denial of service attacks, these typically involve using networks of infected computers to bombard the target's websites and servers with bogus requests for data, causing them to crash. Even governments find this troublesome.
Anonymous is also hoping to galvanise public opinion with a mass real-world protest outside every Scientology office worldwide on February 10th. But its best weapon may be ridicule. The group got going in reaction to efforts to ban an internal Scientology video of Mr Cruise that leaked onto the internet. The star appears to discuss his beliefs with a degree of incoherence and exaggeration that might lead some to question Scientology's effects on its adherents' sanity. A Scientology spokesman says it has been selectively edited. Several internet sites have taken it down after threats of lawsuits. But it keeps popping up.
