FRG on W2K: No CoS

Anonymous Coward writes: "Germany pressured MSFT into removing the defrag tool in Win2k because it was developed by a software company whose CEO is a Scientologist. They were afraid there were security risks from using software from a Scientologist. No joke." The outcome of this bizarre and long-running story stemming from the interaction of Germany, Scientology, and programming, according to reader telstar, is that "Microsoft has decided that they would provide step-by-step instructions in German on how to uninstall this utility."

No joke?

Why should it be a joke?

What is wrong with fearing a Cult that has been shown to do very bad things. They allready intimidate and kill people. So what is wrong with fearing software from them?

www.xenu.net is a great resource of the evils of scientology

Well, this is an interesting dilemma...

I'm no fan of the CoS. I've read the stories. I know what they've done. I have a lot of trouble believing the "Church" bit, since they didn't start out that way and, at the time they prepended "Church of" to their name, said it was only "for tax purposes."

But still, this action leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Banning a piece of the software because the maker's CEO, who probably never so much as glanced at the code, is a scientologist and therefore a "security risk"? This seems a bit too much. Certainly it can't be considered more of a risk than any other closed-source software.

Or to put it another way, when one group uses Nazi-like policies to fight a group that uses Nazi-like policies, in the end only the Nazis win.
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Oh you good Americans, please allow us ur own poli

Criticism like this coming from a country that in the present:

* Kills innocents (death penalty)
* Does not follow international treaties
(2 German criminals were prosecuted in the US of A _after_ the International Court [including one US judge]
ordered a stop, becaues of violation of international treaties granting right to diplomatic help)
* Killed millions of indians, had slavery, has a war on harmless drug users
* Has the highest rate of people in jail of all "civilized" nations

Please moderate this down.

Anyways German courts have decided Scientology is not a religion. I tend to agree. Thus it does not have the same protection as e.g. Jewish, pagan , christian or any other religion or belief system.

German government _is_ a bit hysterical about scientology IMHO.

But that does not mean that your comparison to Nazi terror is in the least bit justified, get a life, buy a newspaper and stop smoking crack.

I hate this crap.

Re:But the CoS *does* infiltrate governments.

Speaking of "Fair Game," it appears I'm now flagged as a troublemaker by Slashdot. For the past four or so months, I've yet to gain an iota of karma for the posts that I've had moderated up -- and, in fact, I've seen a net loss of karma, because meta-moderation has smoked me a few times.

What happened? Oh, just that during the summer, I was particularly disappointed with the quality of Slashdot postings and the moderation system. I groused about it, quit being a moderator (I was part of the test pilot group, so I must have engendered some sort of respect at one time) and came within bits of deleting Slashdot from my bookmarks list.

I can only assume I've received a Taco bitchslap. How petty.

In the past week, I've posted twelve messages. Four have been moderated up and seven have generated follow-up replies. None have been moderated down. And yet my karma -- it's dropped at least three points, and perhaps five.

This wouldn't bother me, except that at some point I'm bound to fall below the +2 boundry, and will have no method of recouping the loss. I really don't give a flying fuck about accumulating gross amounts of karma, but I am a little cheesed that I've been excluded from the system, to my detriment.

Church of Scientology, coming soon to a Slashdot near you: fair game policies, chain-locker imprisonment, Operation Freak-out and Karma Exclusion -- whoo! What fun it is to run a private fiefdom!

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No CoS movies banned

As far as I know, no movie has ever been banned for reasons of Scientology in Germany.

However, CoS Germany tries again and again to use "their" movie stars as advertisement for their recruitment and both Tom Cruise and John Travolta openly advertised their CoS membership in interviews over here in the past. (Cruise has stopped doing so, but I read that for any interview, his management now insists on having no CoS-related questions and that every question must be sent to his press agent in advance...)

Anyway, since both CoS and the CoS-related stars use their movies for Scientology recruitment efforts, many Cruise- and Travolta-movies are not just seen as simple, mindless entertainment over here. The youth organization of the CDU (CDU is the conservartive of the two major parties here in Germany) has even picketed some of these movies, but back then, the German press thought that this was neither effective nor smartly done.

However, a script like "Phenomenon" (where Travolta turns into some kind of superman and does a few CoS-inspired nonsense) raises a few eyebrows over here. Movies with CoS-stars are always looked at for some potential subtext. If I am not mistaken, the German voice actor who used to dub Cruise in the past has given up this job because he was disgusted by Cruise's continuing CoS recruitment propaganda.

BTW, Battlefield Earth will appear as a video premiere in Germany. It seems that noone is happy about it, but a contract is a contract. It appears to me that the American release was also part of a contractual deal that forced Warner Brothers to do it, no matter if it was any good.

On the other hand, MI:2 was a huge success in Germany and while some critics mentioned Cruise's involvement with the CoS, it was no big deal for the audience.

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Alternative Defrag

Incidentally I've replaced the default W2k defrag tool with another free beer tool from:

http://www.oosoft.de/

I think its by a German company.

Re:Good news

What I'm curious about is whether the Germans ban any movies, since there are many CoS devotees in Hollywood. Are Travolta movies prohibited, especially "Battlefield Earth"? (Well, OK, you could ban that simply as a "crime against humanity") How about Tom Cruise films?

While it's well and good to make their stand against the CoS (given recent German history, I'll cut them some slack on the freedom of religion and association issues), but it seems like taking on M$ but not Hollywood is kinda questionable -- "Well, if we ban movies people will actually be upset -- they gotta have their MI2. But no one really cares about some defrag utility".

What other components are subcontracted?

What's suprising is that this would be contracted out. One would expect defragmentation to be written by the file system team. What other parts of the various Microsoft operating systems weren't written within Microsoft?

Also, remember how strongly Microsoft objected to the read-write version of NTFSDOS [sysinternals.com], because it "violated security" by reading and writing NT file systems from DOS. (The original read/write version was pulled under pressure from Microsoft. There's now a freeware read/write version, years later, but it's a different program. Microsoft didn't like those guys; they wrote NTCRASH [sysinternals.com], which found dozens of security holes in NT by generating random system calls.) So it's suprising to see something like file system defragmentation farmed out.

Re:Actually they're probably justified...

Their beliefs do not include ethics and/or morals of any sort that you would recognize

Actually, they do, but only for themselves. As far as they're concerened, we're just a bunch of supressives and jailers who all pay heed to the words of Xenu, who neutron-bombed the Earth several millions of years ago, and put us all in prison colonies. Know thy enemy, [xenu.net] know thyself, [slashdot.org] and victory [5c5c5cdev5cnull] shall be yours.

Actually they're probably justified...

Scientology is BAD NEWS. They will stop at NOTHING to discredit people who publicly criticise them. They will dig up any dirt, publish any accusation, go to ANY LENGTH to shut you up if you're a critic.

Trust me: running software written by a Scientologist IS a security risk. Their beliefs do not include ethics and/or morals of any sort that you would recognize. I don't remember this for sure, but I think they believe non-scientologists are essentially not human and thus it doesn't matter if they lie, cheat, or steal from them. If they put a trojan horse on your computer and Scientology can use it to further the causes of the church (ie, steal money from you), well, so much the better.

I don't know if the money and power have corrupted them enough yet (they certainly don't have far to fall) but it wouldn't surprise me if they simply started killing people who oppose them.

They are the most evil organization I have ever encountered in my medium-length life. Tread carefully around them. Their religion is morally bankrupt and corrupt to the core and the central leadership is deeply evil.

I would post this under my user account but I know for a fact they have long memories -- I'd rather not end up on any of their lists.

Tread carefully with anyone who supports scientology -- anyone who claims it is a wholesome outfit is almost certainly corrupt and not to be trusted.

Germany is RIGHT.

Thank GOD! Co$ is truly evil.

I am not the original poster, and yes, I am posting as AC, but this is why:

The Co$ is known for totally destroying and discrediting its critics.
Take this for example: The Co$ saw Prozac as such a threat (because they prey on the depressed and disenfranchised) that they took it upon themselves to launch a campaign against the drug both in the courts and by impersonating the inventor of the drug and doing many outrageous acts in public. It got so bad that the inventor of the drug (a woman, I forgot her name) was eventually locked up in a mental hospital until this whole shenannigan was uncovered. The Co$ is evil (even more evil than M$, believe it or not.) Time magazine had an article on the evils of the Co$ many years ago (around '91 or '92)... if you want more info on the current evils of Co$, check here [xenu.net]

Some background information

Some very good background information can be found in this c't article [heise.de] from last year.

Just some quotes:

• The CEO of Executive Software, Craig Jensen [scientologist.org], is an operating Thetan at level VIII (OT VIII), the highest level scientologists can achieve currently.
• Executive Software Inc. [execsoft.com] is a member of the Scientology umbrella organization WISE [wise.org] (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises).
• Guideline 1 of WISE says to "utilize the administrative technology in every business of the world". WISE further demands: "Conquer the key positions, the position [...] as companies' director of human resources, [...] as secretary of the director, [...]. The manufacturing plants, the trade centers, the counties, these are the places where we want trained scientologists."
• Scientology wants to extend the administration technologies in its enterprises, resulting in a total control of the employees, to government and society as well. Scientology engages espionage to systematically gather information about enemies and uses psychological intimidation. For this the organization is operating its own secret service called Office for Special Affairs (OSA).
• According to the Stuttgarter Nachrichten (German newspaper) strictly confidential material of the State Department ended up in the OSA headquarter in Los Angeles. At the end of 1997 the Foreign Office had created an internal strategy paper that investigated "Scientology Under the Aspect of German-American Relations". The State Department brought in the Federal Intelligence Agency to identify the mole. So far without any success.

bad appearances...

Now, I'm no fan of the tenets of CoS. But things like this coming from the German government also give me pause. I mentally replace "Scientologist" with "Jew" and I see something that could have happened 50 years ago if we had a software industry ... "We won't use software tools made by the Jews, you can't trust them or their software".

I am not saying that I think CoS is a legitimate religious organization. I don't. Admittedly, many religions tend toward greed or zealotry, but CoS walks like a cult, smells like a cult and quacks like a cult. Nevertheless, coming from the German government broad regulations and requirements of software or other consumer products based on the belief set or association of those who created them - well, it just doesn't ring very well in my mind. If you're not going to use software written by a Scientologist, or written by a crony of Bill Gates, that should be your own wacky individual choice to make. I don't think having the government try to muck around in it is a good idea, especially in a country like Germany, where there is a long history of cultural tendencies toward nationalism and racism.

I realize that in this case the result is instructions on uninstalling and not government action, but the government made the statement and did try to get involved, and that's enough to give me pause.

Scientology Intelligence Operations

I'm posting anonymouisly so I won't be harrased further by sceintology. I've been a critic, and have been harased by them. They've intercepted E-mails, bugged my phone calls, and how do I know this? they've brought printouts when they come talk to me. Although I have no proof, I believe they also inflitrated the computers at my place of business, 3 days after my incident with them, my main server lost its root nfs key (unusual for solaris to say the least ...) .

In the 1970's Scientology had a intelligence orginization called the "GO" Guardian Office, which infilitrated several government agencies and stole millions of documents from them in what they called "Operation Snow White". They were eventaully caught and 12 top officials went to jail.

Scientology is real, these are the crazy fucks your mother warned you about. They are no less then true evil.

I can guarantee the defragger is a trojan horse.

http://www.xenu.net

Good news

As an ex-scientologist news like this just makes me laugh with joy. Scientology is an evil cult whose goal is to take over the world and imprison or kill anyone who doesn't agree with them. Anyone who has spent any time in it can tell you that. Just look up the Fair Game PL. Scientology claims to be a religion but in fact the religious trappings it puts on are for PR and legal protection. It's no more a religion than Amway is. It's true nature is more like the Nazi party of the 1930's. If anyone could recognize this, its the Germans.

Many scientologists as individuals are decent honest people. Its unfortunate that they have made such a poor choice in remaining in the "church." I could go on all day long about them, but many others have already covered it and more eloquently than I could.

What is the difference between Scientology and Microsoft? One is an evil cult bent on world domination and the other was begun by L. Ron Hubbard.

But the CoS *does* infiltrate governments.

There will be a *flood* messages from cultists that attack the German government and/or mock the situation.

The reality is that the CoS actively infiltrates governments. It's part of their cult mandate: LRon himself wrote "The goal of the [CoS] Department [of Governmental Affairs] is to bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by a high-level ability to control and in its absence by a low-level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies."

Here's the internal CoS memo that ended up with the US IRS being infiltrated, a bijillion documents stolen, and ultimately the arrest and subsequent jailing of CoS members: [Infiltrate the IRS] [xs4all.nl]. It is, of course, worth noting that in the end, the IRS dismissed over a billion dollars in backtaxes and granted the CoS religious exemption status... in a secret, shady, wholly unprecedented deal.

[This document] [rickross.com] also provides some good insight.

The Greek government busted a CoS unit, and discovered [top-secret US military airbase maps.] [lermanet.com]

In Canada, the CoS stole confidential documents from myriad Ontario government organizations, when those organizations were investigating the CoS for various illegal practices. They CoS had operatives working in the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Metro Toronto Police, the Ontario Medical Assoc., the College of Physicians, the Cdn Mental Health Assoc., and even the Attorney General's office.

The CoS is also infiltrating businesses: it offers a "training package" which is no more than Hubbardology in business guise. There's a bit of a write up [over here] [rickross.com], and a bit of web-searching will dig up a lot more information about the repugnent tactics they use to abuse people to perform better.

Here are two great CoS information sites: [RickRoss] [rickross.com] and [Xenu.Net] [xenu.net] And it really takes no effort at all to use Google to dig up plenty of facts that will shock and astound you.

As evil organizations hell-bent on world domination go, the CoS is pretty much at the fore-front. Their adherents are fanatical beyond any rational thinking, their mandates to infiltrate governments, businesses and opposition groups is explicit and ruthless, and they have a pile of money.

Go do some web-prowling. The CoS is fascinating, scary and shocking. It's a better use of your time than surfing for goat pr0n!

[I'm probably now "Fair Game" -- which is kind of scary: in CoS words, I "may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."]

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Scientologists.

As far as Germany (and, frankly, I) am concerned, Scientology isn't a religion, it's a bona fide cult that engages not only in targetted litigation to silence its critics, but also in systematic violent repression of dissenters and, in some cases, murder. Ask them about what happens to people they identify as "repressives" some day.

This is analogous to protesting that something you were more or less compelled to buy (let's face it, you can't do business easily without buying much MS software) was developed by the Aum Shinrikyo, the Mafia or the Taliban.

I understand them.

Frankly, I do understand the German government's fears, although perhaps a bit exaggerated. I am truly glad that there is at least one government that dares fight CoS.

Why am I negative against CoS? Aren't they just another church? Not in my view. A few years back the CoS managed to get the Swedish goverment [chalmers.se] to break against the Swedish constitution, to preserve the "secrets" of the CoS Bible. They did this through one of their members, an american congressman.

This congressman wrote a very sharp and direct official letter to the Swedish government, threatening with all kinds of retributions unless they made a decision that was (and is) against the swedish consistution, namely to make the CoS Bible secret although it, through clever usage of Swedish law, had been made a public document.

The swedish government yielded to that threat, because the USA is a powerful nation. The congressman, when asked about the letter afterwards, could "not remember writing such a letter"...

Anyways, a "church" that powerful and defensive is not a healthy thing. Politicians that easily convinced to make official threats on account of their religious leaders isn't either.

So I can understand the German government. By making sure that absolutely nothing in official use is made by or (ideally) even influenced by the CoS, the risks of them overtaking (or perhaps rahter "affecting") important parts of the country's affairs is significantly lessend.

I only wish that the U.S.A. would take similar measures. After all, that's where the problem^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCoS originated.

/Viktor...

Re:bad appearances...

> Now, I'm no fan of the tenets of CoS. But things like this coming from the German government also give me pause. I mentally replace "Scientologist" with "Jew" and I see something that could have happened 50 years ago if we had a software industry ...

Ironically, that is the reason why Germans are very careful about organizations like scientology. Scientology's beliefs (which include reigning the world) are triggering the German government to act in order to PREVENT the same thing from happening again in Germany under the disguise of an organization.

In Germany, Scientology is under surveillance because it has engaged in criminal activity. It is regarded as a dangerous cult and not a church. While religious freedom is taken very seriously in Germany, cults are recognized to be a great danger.

A while ago, scientology ran a worldwide campaign with page-size newspaper ads, accusing the German government of prosecuting them like the Jews. This caused a great outrage among Jews living in Germany, even Ignaz Bubis, the former chairman of the jewish council [access.ch].

It scares me that an organization such as scientology still has so much acceptance as being legitimate, especially in the U.S.

First Hand Account of Scientology

For those looking for a first hand account of Scientology, one may be found here. [xenu.net]

-jerdenn

Re:Childish...

It's not just a 'religious affiliation'. Read the position papers and corporate goals of Executive Software, inc. They view their organisation as a tool specifically for funding and furthering CoS goals, i.e., full integration of the cult into world government and business. You want to talk about discrimination? When they opened their Hamburg offices, their only hiring requirement was that you be a member of CoS; computer skills were desirable, but not necessary.

They're also currently being investigated for corporate espionage by the German government. Even if I were for Scientology, this corporation is run by a 'religion' which has been declared illegal in a Germany, and by its nature refuses to separate its beliefs from its corporate practices.