AnonFail: DDoS Attacker of Scientology Sites Pleads Guilty

Just what I like to hear!    This, from CNN:

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — A Nebraska man is expected to plead guilty next week to launching a cyber attack that shut down the Church of Scientology’s Web sites, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20, of Grand Island, Nebraska, was accused of participating in an attack orchestrated by a group that called itself "Anonymous."

The group led protests against the church in various parts of the country before announcing in January 2008 that it would launch a cyber offensive, said Robert Lopez of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Mettenbrink admitted in court that he downloaded software from an "Anonymous" message board and used it to launch "denial of service" attacks on Scientology Web sites.

In such attacks, hackers flood a target site with so much traffic that it is unable to handle the volume and slows to a crawl or crashes altogether. As a result, the site is then unavailable to legitimate users.

The group targeted the church after it forced Web sites to yank a leaked video of actor and church member Tom Cruise fervently making the case for Scientology.

The video was intended for attendees at a church award ceremony in 2004 where Cruise was being honored.

"We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we are the authorities on improving conditions … we can rehabilitate criminals," Cruise says in the video.

In 2008, the video was leaked online and widely ridiculed.

The church responded by threatening to sue Web sites unless they removed the clip. "Anonymous" then launched its attack.

As part of its offensive, the group asked Internet users to not only download the "denial of service" software from its message board, but also to place prank phone calls, post proprietary church documents online, and send black pages to church fax machines to waste ink.

The group posted a YouTube video that said it aimed to "expel Scientology from the Internet."

"Expect us," the video ended. The attacks targeted local and global sites of the church.

Mettenbrink is expected to plead guilty in federal court next week to a misdemeanor charge of accessing a protected computer with authorization. He agreed to serve a year in prison, Lopez said.

Mettenbrink’s is the second successful prosecution connected to the "Anonymous" attacks. Last year, Dmitriy Guzner of Verona, New Jersey, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for attacks on Scientology sites.

Anonymous said to “Expect Us” – guess they should have heeded the same message.