Scamizdat
   HOME
*





Scamizdat
Scamizdat, a portmanteau of the words scam and samizdat, was the name coined by Grady Ward to a series of articles containing the writings of the Church of Scientology, both confidential and non-confidential, that were anonymously posted to the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology in 1995. Scamizdat was a major feature of the Scientology versus the Internet controversy, and the true identity of the person or persons responsible is still unknown. The Scamizdat articles were wholesale copies of articles, books, and confidential briefings to which the Church of Scientology claimed copyright. As the articles were posted via anonymous remailer, it was not possible to determine the true identity of the poster or posters. In 1996 the Religious Technology Center, the arm of the Church of Scientology responsible for policing its intellectual property, sued a critic named Grady Ward, alleging that he was responsible for Scamizdat. Grady Ward William Grady Ward (born April 4, 1951) is an Americ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Grady Ward
William Grady Ward (born April 4, 1951) is an American software engineer, lexicographer, and Internet activist who has been prominent in the Scientology versus the Internet controversy. Biography Grady Ward created the Moby Project, an extensive compilation of English language lexical resources, and in 1996 released it to the public domain. One of its components, Moby Thesaurus, has more than 2.5 million synonyms and related words, making it the largest thesaurus in the English language as of early 2006. Previously, Ward was known for compiling and distributing a public domain version of the complete works of William Shakespeare, ''Moby Shakespeare'', which has been credited as being the most widely distributed works of Shakespeare in the world. In 1993, his publisher, the Austin Code Works, was investigated for the export of strong cryptography; the US government at the time treated cryptographic software above a certain strength as the legal equivalent of munitions and restrict ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Scientology Versus The Internet
There are a number of disputes concerning the Church of Scientology's attempts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet, utilizing various methods primarily lawsuits and legal threats, as well as front organizations. In late 1994, the organization began using various legal tactics to stop distribution of unpublished documents written by L. Ron Hubbard. The organization is often accused of barratry through the filing of SLAPP suits. The organization's response is that its litigious nature is solely to protect its copyrighted works and the unpublished status of certain documents. Various critics of the Church of Scientology have characterized the organization as a confidence scam and say that these secretive writings are proof, or that they contain evidence that the organization's medical practices are illegal and fraudulent. Scientology has been convicted of fraud in the courts of several nations, although not those of the United States. Others have said t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Scientology And The Internet
There are a number of disputes concerning the Church of Scientology's attempts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet, utilizing various methods primarily lawsuits and legal threats, as well as front organizations. In late 1994, the organization began using various legal tactics to stop distribution of unpublished documents written by L. Ron Hubbard. The organization is often accused of barratry through the filing of SLAPP suits. The organization's response is that its litigious nature is solely to protect its copyrighted works and the unpublished status of certain documents. Various critics of the Church of Scientology have characterized the organization as a confidence scam and say that these secretive writings are proof, or that they contain evidence that the organization's medical practices are illegal and fraudulent. Scientology has been convicted of fraud in the courts of several nations, although not those of the United States. Others have said ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsGarner's Modern American Usage
, p. 644.
in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word, as in ''smog'', coined by blending ''smoke'' and ''fog'', or ''motel'', from ''motor'' and ''hotel''. In , a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying s. When portmanteaus shorten es ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual reproduction was widespread, because most typewriters and printing devices required official registration and permission to access. This was a grassroots practice used to evade official Soviet censorship. Name origin and variations Etymologically, the word ''samizdat'' derives from ''sam'' (, "self, by oneself") and ''izdat'' (, an abbreviation of , , "publishing house"), and thus means "self-published". The Ukrainian language has a similar term: ''samvydav'' (самвидав), from ''sam'', "self", and ''vydavnytstvo'', "publishing house". A Russian poet Nikolay Glazkov coined a version of the term as a pun in the 1940s when he typed copies of his poems and included the note ''Samsebyaizd ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Church Of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, business, or a new religious movement. The movement has been the subject of a number of Scientology controversies, controversies, and the Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgements as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative Scientology as a business, profit-making business. In 1979, several executives of the organization were United States v. Hubbard, convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a U.S. Federal Court. The Church of Scientology itself was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a decision upheld by the supreme Court of Cassation (France), Court of Cassation in 2013. The Scientology in Germany, Germa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States. Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution. Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered "territorial righ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Anonymous Remailer
An anonymous remailer is a server that receives messages with embedded instructions on where to send them next, and that forwards them without revealing where they originally came from. There are cypherpunk anonymous remailers, mixmaster anonymous remailers, and nym servers, among others, which differ in how they work, in the policies they adopt, and in the type of attack on the anonymity of e-mail they can (or are intended to) resist. ''Remailing'' as discussed in this article applies to e-mails intended for particular recipients, not the general public. Anonymity in the latter case is more easily addressed by using any of several methods of anonymous publication. Types of remailer There are several strategies that affect the anonymity of the handled e-mail. In general, different classes of anonymous remailers differ with regard to the choices their designers/operators have made. These choices can be influenced by the legal ramifications of operating specific types of remailers. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Religious Technology Center
The Religious Technology Center (RTC) is an American non-profit corporation Letter by the Internal Revenue Service to Flemming Paludan, Regional Director, Danish Tax-Office, Washington, D.C., USA, December 22, 1993 that was founded in 1982 by the Church of Scientology to control and oversee the use of all of the trademarks, symbols and texts of Scientology and Dianetics. Although RTC controls their use, those works are owned by another corporation, the Church of Spiritual Technology which is doing business as L. Ron Hubbard Library, registered in Los Angeles County, California. While exercising authority over the use of all Dianetics and Scientology materials, RTC claims that it is not involved in the day-to-day management of the Church of Scientology; that role is assigned to a separate corporation, the Church of Scientology International (CSI). According to the RTC website, "RTC stands apart as an external body which protects the Scientology religion and acts as the final ar ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

SFGATE
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate" as it was known at launch was the first large market newspaper website in t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions and other controlling bodies. Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship.https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship "What Is Censorship", ACLU When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of his or her own works or speech, it is referred to as ''self-censorship''. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Critics Of Scientology
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or government policy. Critical judgments, whether derived from critical thinking or not, weigh up a range of factors, including an assessment of the extent to which the item under review achieves its purpose and its creator's intention and a knowledge of its context. They may also include a positive or negative personal response. Characteristics of a good critic are articulateness, preferably having the ability to use language with a high level of appeal and skill. Sympathy, sensitivity and insight are important too. Form, style and medium are all considered by the critic. In architecture and food criticism, the item's function, value and cost may be added components. Critics are publicly accepted and, to a significant degree, followed because of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]