We are anonymous inside the hacker world of lulzse

was totally into it. I wish we could get the same amount of participation as before.”
By the summer of 2008, Project Chanology was also suffering from infighting among organizers, and the number of participants in
physical demonstrations, which had been occurring monthly in major cities, was tapering off. Housh claimed that a blow to the fledgling
movement came that summer when a couple of Anons nicknamed King Nerd and Megaphonebitch outed #marblecake and the people in it,
labeling them “leaderfags” and prompting most of the people who started the organizational hub to leave. In the coming months, Chanology
wouldn’t so much wrap up as unceremoniously fade away. Many Anons were simply bored with Project Chanology, by any measurement
the longest and biggest series of attacks that Anonymous had ever initiated against a single target.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, meanwhile, was just getting started. Also by the summer of 2008, the FBI, or “feds” as Anons
referred to them, had managed to track down and apprehend two out of the hundreds of people who participated in the DDoS attacks on
Scientology. They would be the unlucky sacrificial lambs and the first of scores more arrests over the next few years. Anons had always
thought till now that they were immune to arrest, or well hidden from the authorities. One of the first to learn the hard truth was Brian
Mettenbrink, the bored college student who in January 2008 had left LOIC running in the background of his computer for a little too long.
“Brian.”
“Yeah?” Brian Mettenbrink was asleep on his couch in the basement when he heard the voice of his housemate calling his name. It was a
cool morning in mid-July 2008, six months since he had downloaded LOIC and taken part in the very first DDoS attacks by Anonymous
against Scientology. He barely remembered that weekend spent mostly in his dorm room. Since then, he had dropped out of his aerospace
engineering classes at Iowa State, moved into a large, pea-green house with a few friends in Omaha, Nebraska, and started looking for a job
to help pay the rent.
“There’s some men here to see you.”
He sat up. Bleary-eyed, Mettenbrink padded up the stairs and went to the door, wearing the plain t-shirt and shorts he’d been sleeping in.
Two men in suits were standing on the doorstep. They each took out a badge and identified themselves as FBI agents. They asked
Mettenbrink if he had time for “a friendly conversation.” Mettenbrink answered yes and invited them in. He still had no idea that this had
anything to do with DDoS attacks.
The agents walked through the arched entranceway of Mettenbrink’s house, their shoes clicking on the ceramic tile floor as they entered
the dining room, and sat at a wooden table. Mettenbrink adjusted the wire-rim glasses on his nose. He was more oblivious than nervous at
this point. The agents began asking him questions about the attacks last January and about Anonymous itself.
“What does Anonymous think of Scientology?” one of them asked. “What’s its stance?”
“I know Anonymous doesn’t like Scientology,” Mettenbrink said, telling them about the flurry of excited posts about a Scientology raid on
4chan and 7chan. “They were saying we should attack their websites.” Mettenbrink had been reading up on Scientology after the attacks and
added that the religion’s beliefs were “weird,” and that it charged people hundreds of dollars to be members.
“Were you involved in the DDoS attacks?” one of the men asked. Mettenbrink shifted in his seat.
“I was involved for a little bit,” he said. The computer he had used to run LOIC was now sitting downstairs in the basement.
“Did you…enjoy taking part in the attacks?”
“Yeah,” said Mettenbrink, thinking back to how dull he had found college. “It was fun. It was something new and interesting to do.”
“Did you know that your actions were a criminal violation?” one of the men asked.
“Sure,” Mettenbrink said, “I just didn’t think the FBI would be showing up at my door.” He stared at the two men. Mettenbrink had
known all along that using LOIC was illegal, but he had no idea it was a serious criminal offense. He believed the crime was as bad as
running a red light, the punishment akin to a speeding ticket or hundred-dollar fine. Later he would regret being so open with the agents.
The two men then told Mettenbrink that an FBI investigation had shown that an IP address used in the attacks traced back to Mettenbrink’s
computer. “Do you understand that?” they asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you know anyone from the group in real life?” one of the agents asked.
“No,” said Mettebrink.
The “friendly conversation” lasted about an hour, giving the FBI and, later, prosecuting attorneys representing the Church of Scientology
evidence to use against the hapless Mettenbrink. Later, the FBI would contact his old college to access his Internet records. Mettenbrink
didn’t hear from the FBI again for months, and it was a year before he truly realized, during a conversation with his lawyer, the seriousness of
his offense. “Do you have any idea how much monetary damage the Church of Scientology is saying you caused?” the lawyer had asked
during one of his meetings with Mettenbrink.
The young man thought for a moment. “I can’t imagine there was any monetary damage,” he said. All he’d done was help send a bunch of
spoof traffic to a website and slow it down for a couple days.
“They’re claiming one hundred thousand dollars,” the lawyer replied. Mettenbrink was stunned. He had attacked Scientology.org on a
whim, his weapon a tiny, freely available program he’d run in the background for three days while he browsed an image board. How could
that have cost someone a hundred thousand dollars?
Eventually, Scientology lowered its estimate for damages to twenty thousand dollars. Mettenbrink would have to pay it all back, but at
least it wasn’t a hundred thousand. Prosecutors representing the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles also called for a twelve-month jail
sentence, adding that a probationary sentence, or one that avoided jail time, “might embolden others to use the Internet to engage in hate
crimes.”
According to his sentencing memo, Mettenbrink had been given “every advantage in life,” coming from a close, “supportive” family in
Nebraska and parents who helped pay his way through college. He was also said to have “special skills” with computers and hardware. In
court, a lawyer representing Scientology used words like Nazis and terrorism when he described Anonymous.
On January 25, 2010, almost two years to the day he downloaded the LOIC tool, Mettenbrink pleaded guilty in a federal court to accessing
a protected computer, having agreed to serve a year in prison. He would be only the second person to be sent to jail for joining in an
Anonymous DDoS attack. In November 2009, nineteen-year-old Dmitriy Guzner of Verona, New Jersey, had been sentenced to a year and a
day in federal prison.