Sporgery
Encyclopedia
Sporgery is the disruptive act of posting a flood of articles to a Usenet
newsgroup
, with the article headers falsified so that they appear to have been posted by others. The word is a portmanteau of spam
and forgery
, coined by German software developer and critic of Scientology
Tilman Hausherr
.
Sporgery resembles crapflooding, which is also intended to disrupt a forum. However, sporgery is not merely disruptive but also deceptive or libellous -- it involves falsifying objectionable posts so they appear to come from newsgroup regulars. The purpose is not merely to jam the forum, but also to sully the reputations of its regular users by falsely signing their names to offensive posts.
, an Internet newsgroup where people discuss the controversial belief system of Scientology. One of the various actions of the "war" between Scientology and the Internet involved various individuals who had posted more than one million forged newsgroup articles to the newsgroup, using the message headers (valid names and e-mail addresses) of articles written by Scientology critics and other legitimate posters, and appending to those headers the bodies of other articles harvested from racist
newsgroups. The result was to flood the newsgroup with over one million forged articles that made the other posters appear to be hateful "racist bigots." (Critics accused Scientology of planning and conducting the spam flood, but the organization denied this.)
The apparent intent of this attack was to render the newsgroup useless for discussion and criticism of Scientology. Another purpose may have been to lower the reputation of the posters so that people would not take their criticisms of Scientology seriously.
At the peak of this attack, the attackers had a total of six computers posting sporgeries into the newsgroup, dumping into USENET an average of 170 megabytes in 44,075 articles every month. From October 1998 to September 1999, a total of 1,462,390,911 sporgery bytes were detected: that figure does not include the sporgery which was canceled (deleted from USENET) before it could propagate. Just before the sporgery attack ended, the sporgery resulted in more than 90% of the newsgroup's traffic.
To accomplish the sporgery attack, the spammers used several methods to acquire Internet access. Open NNTP
servers were used when available, to such an extent that a great many had to be closed by their owners. When open NNTP servers eventually became scarce, open proxies
were used. These proxies allowed Scientology partisans to use someone else's computer hardware to sporge. Due to default security policies in many proxy server products at the time (late 1990s) being lax, many such proxies were available for abuse. Since that time, open proxies have become the most popular resource for other spammers to abuse, eclipsing open relays and other insecure hosts.
The third method used to acquire newsgroup posting access, and the method that was used the most, was to use volunteers to go out and purchase Internet dialup access from an Internet service provider
using a false name and address, and using cash or a money order. These persons were given a large amount of cash and air fare to fly to a city specifically to acquire Internet access for later use in sporging. One such volunteer, Tory Bezazian
, later left Scientology and confessed to performing this task, giving the names of the Scientology staff members who were allegedly in charge of the sporgery project.
The sporgery attack against alt.religion.scientology ended a few months after the name and address of one of the perpetrators was acquired by one of the victims, at which time the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
got involved. No indictments were made, nor were there any arrests.
, is used for discussion of spamming and other email abuse problems. A person or persons using the pseudonym "Hipcrime
" have attacked this and other groups with sporgeries, usually nonsense or Dissociated Press
text posted under random names of legitimate posters. Sporgery is also common in warez
newsgroups.
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
, with the article headers falsified so that they appear to have been posted by others. The word is a portmanteau of spam
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
and forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
, coined by German software developer and critic of Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
Tilman Hausherr
Tilman Hausherr
Tilman Hausherr is a German citizen living in Berlin, Germany. Hausherr is well-known among critics of Scientology for his frequent Usenet posts and for maintaining a website critical of Scientology...
.
Sporgery resembles crapflooding, which is also intended to disrupt a forum. However, sporgery is not merely disruptive but also deceptive or libellous -- it involves falsifying objectionable posts so they appear to come from newsgroup regulars. The purpose is not merely to jam the forum, but also to sully the reputations of its regular users by falsely signing their names to offensive posts.
Origins in alt.religion.scientology
The word sporgery was coined in the newsgroup alt.religion.scientologyAlt.religion.scientology
The newsgroup alt.religion.scientology is a Usenet newsgroup started in 1991 to discuss the controversial beliefs of Scientology, as well as the Church of Scientology, which claims exclusive intellectual property rights thereto and is viewed by many as a dangerous cult...
, an Internet newsgroup where people discuss the controversial belief system of Scientology. One of the various actions of the "war" between Scientology and the Internet involved various individuals who had posted more than one million forged newsgroup articles to the newsgroup, using the message headers (valid names and e-mail addresses) of articles written by Scientology critics and other legitimate posters, and appending to those headers the bodies of other articles harvested from racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
newsgroups. The result was to flood the newsgroup with over one million forged articles that made the other posters appear to be hateful "racist bigots." (Critics accused Scientology of planning and conducting the spam flood, but the organization denied this.)
The apparent intent of this attack was to render the newsgroup useless for discussion and criticism of Scientology. Another purpose may have been to lower the reputation of the posters so that people would not take their criticisms of Scientology seriously.
At the peak of this attack, the attackers had a total of six computers posting sporgeries into the newsgroup, dumping into USENET an average of 170 megabytes in 44,075 articles every month. From October 1998 to September 1999, a total of 1,462,390,911 sporgery bytes were detected: that figure does not include the sporgery which was canceled (deleted from USENET) before it could propagate. Just before the sporgery attack ended, the sporgery resulted in more than 90% of the newsgroup's traffic.
To accomplish the sporgery attack, the spammers used several methods to acquire Internet access. Open NNTP
Network News Transfer Protocol
The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications...
servers were used when available, to such an extent that a great many had to be closed by their owners. When open NNTP servers eventually became scarce, open proxies
Proxy server
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...
were used. These proxies allowed Scientology partisans to use someone else's computer hardware to sporge. Due to default security policies in many proxy server products at the time (late 1990s) being lax, many such proxies were available for abuse. Since that time, open proxies have become the most popular resource for other spammers to abuse, eclipsing open relays and other insecure hosts.
The third method used to acquire newsgroup posting access, and the method that was used the most, was to use volunteers to go out and purchase Internet dialup access from an Internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
using a false name and address, and using cash or a money order. These persons were given a large amount of cash and air fare to fly to a city specifically to acquire Internet access for later use in sporging. One such volunteer, Tory Bezazian
Tory Christman
Tory Christman is a prominent American critic of Scientology and former member of the organization. Originally brought up to believe in Catholicism, Christman turned to Scientology after being introduced to the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health authored by Scientology founder L...
, later left Scientology and confessed to performing this task, giving the names of the Scientology staff members who were allegedly in charge of the sporgery project.
The sporgery attack against alt.religion.scientology ended a few months after the name and address of one of the perpetrators was acquired by one of the victims, at which time the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
got involved. No indictments were made, nor were there any arrests.
Other sporgery attacks
Since the emergence of this technique of disrupting a newsgroup, a few other groups have been targeted this way. One, news.admin.net-abuse.emailNews.admin.net-abuse.email
news.admin.net-abuse.email is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to discussion of the abuse of email systems, specifically through spam and similar attacks...
, is used for discussion of spamming and other email abuse problems. A person or persons using the pseudonym "Hipcrime
Hipcrime (Usenet)
HipCrime refers both to the screenname of a Usenet user and software application distributed by, and presumably written by, this individual. The name derives from a neologism in the John Brunner science fiction novel Stand on Zanzibar....
" have attacked this and other groups with sporgeries, usually nonsense or Dissociated Press
Dissociated press
Dissociated press is an algorithm for generating text based on another text. It is intended for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage. The name is a play on "Associated Press".An implementation of the algorithm is available in Emacs....
text posted under random names of legitimate posters. Sporgery is also common in warez
Warez
Warez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...
newsgroups.
See also
- Newsgroup spamNewsgroup spamNewsgroup spam is a type of spam where the targets are Usenet newsgroups.Spamming of Usenet newsgroups actually pre-dates e-mail spam. The first widely recognized Usenet spam was posted on 18 January 1994 by Clarence L. Thomas IV, a sysadmin at Andrews University...
- Spamming
- Joe jobJoe jobA joe job is a spamming technique that sends out unsolicited e-mails using spoofed sender data. Early joe jobs aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the apparent sender or inducing the recipients to take action against him , but they are now typically used by commercial spammers to conceal the true...
- CleanfeedCleanfeed (Usenet spam filter)Cleanfeed is a spam filter for use with Usenet news groups. As well as blocking spam, it is also able to block binary image posts in non-binary news groups and HTML posts. It acts by looking for repeated patterns and duplicate messages, and is able to identify known spamming sites and domains...
External links
- The Attack Against ALT.RELIGION.SCIENTOLOGY Via Forged Article Flood (David M. Rice)
- Setting Up the Secret Accounts (Sporgery) (Tory BezazianTory ChristmanTory Christman is a prominent American critic of Scientology and former member of the organization. Originally brought up to believe in Catholicism, Christman turned to Scientology after being introduced to the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health authored by Scientology founder L...
)