Episode 64✦2008
IRC — AnonOps: The Night They Planned Chanology
June 17, 2026
From Lurk More
*** Log opened Fri Feb 01 2008 23:17:04 UTC
*** Channel: #marblecake (invite-only, 37 users)
*** Topic: "OPERATION CHANOLOGY — if you are reading this in court,
hi, we are not an organization" — set by `gregg` (12 hrs ago)
<gregg> ok so the youtube video hit 2 million views
<gregg> in three days
<n0hat> yeah we know
<n0hat> we made it
<gregg> you made it in windows movie maker with stock footage
of clouds and a text-to-speech voice that sounds like
stephen hawking's GPS
<gregg> and it has two million views
<n0hat> its called PRODUCTION VALUES
<aLTerego> are we actually doing this
<aLTerego> like for real
<gregg> doing what
<aLTerego> the scientology thing
<aLTerego> because last week this channel was planning to order
200 pizzas to tom cruise's house
<aLTerego> and now the plan is "systematically dismantle the
church of scientology in its present form"
<aLTerego> those are different levels of commitment
<n0hat> the pizza thing was ALSO a good plan
<lulzcannon> ok can we focus
<lulzcannon> here is the situation
<lulzcannon> the video said we would "expel scientology from the
internet." that's the easy part. ddos their websites.
fax black pages to their offices. order the pizzas.
whatever. standard /b/ ops playbook.
<lulzcannon> BUT
<lulzcannon> a bunch of people are now saying we should do
REAL WORLD PROTESTS
<lulzcannon> like. outside. where the sun is.
<n0hat> absolutely not
<n0hat> we are ANONYMOUS
<n0hat> anonymous people do not go outside and stand in a
line holding signs
<n0hat> that is the opposite of anonymous
<aLTerego> ok but hear me out
<aLTerego> scientology has been doing terrible shit for decades
<aLTerego> operation snow white. operation freakout. the fair
game policy. lisa mcpherson. they infiltrated the
IRS. the actual IRS.
<aLTerego> nobody stopped them because nobody could organize
against an organization that sues everyone who
criticizes it
<aLTerego> you cant sue anonymous
<aLTerego> there is nobody to serve papers to
<gregg> this is the most idealistic thing anyone has ever
said in a channel that was planning pizza deliveries
72 hours ago
<lulzcannon> ok real talk
<lulzcannon> if we do protests, we need to protect people's
identities. scientology literally hires PIs to
follow critics. they photograph everyone at
protests. they find out where you live.
<aLTerego> masks
<n0hat> ...what kind of masks
<aLTerego> guy fawkes masks
<aLTerego> from v for vendetta
<gregg> because of the epic fail guy comic
<aLTerego> yes
<gregg> we are going to adopt our operational security
protocol from a stick figure comic about a man
who fails at everything he attempts
<aLTerego> the mask is cool though
<n0hat> the mask IS cool
<lulzcannon> ok i have to say something and nobody is going
to like it
<lulzcannon> if we do this — real protests, real organization,
real opposition to a real institution — we stop
being trolls
<lulzcannon> trolling is catch and release. this is not catch
and release. scientology does not release.
<lulzcannon> we are talking about picking a fight with an
organization that destroyed the life of a woman
named paulette cooper because she wrote a BOOK
<lulzcannon> a BOOK
<lulzcannon> they forged bomb threats in her name. they sent
agents to befriend her and report back. they ran
a YEARS-LONG operation to drive her insane.
<lulzcannon> and we're going to stand outside their buildings
in guy fawkes masks from a movie based on a comic
about a terrorist
<lulzcannon> and they're going to photograph us and try to
identify us and follow us home and do to us what
they did to every other critic they've ever had
<lulzcannon> and our plan for dealing with that is: masks from
party city
<n0hat> yes
<aLTerego> yes
<gregg> yes
<gregg> also the mask thing is going to work because there
are going to be THOUSANDS of us. you can follow
one person home. you cannot follow a thousand
people home.
<gregg> strength in numbers is a cliche because it is true
<lulzcannon> this is insane
<lulzcannon> i say this as someone who was in the channel when
we raided habbo hotel
<lulzcannon> we blocked a swimming pool in a children's game
<lulzcannon> now we are declaring war on a church that owns
buildings on six continents and has a navy
<lulzcannon> THEY HAVE A NAVY
<n0hat> we have the internet
<aLTerego> and masks
<gregg> and the knowledge that we are legion, we do not
forgive, and we do not forget
<lulzcannon> we are a hundred and twelve people in IRC channels
who were trolling tom cruise last tuesday
<gregg> a hundred and twelve people who cannot be sued,
cannot be intimidated, cannot be followed home,
and who have demonstrated — repeatedly — that they
can coordinate precision operations against targets
with a thousand times their resources
<gregg> the habbo hotel raids were a proof of concept
<gregg> this is the deployment
<lulzcannon> ...
<lulzcannon> ok
<lulzcannon> if we're doing this, we're doing it right
<lulzcannon> february 10. worldwide. every scientology org we
can get people to. masks mandatory. no violence.
no property damage. bring cake. literally bring
cake, because nothing says "we are here to
dismantle your church" like showing up with
frosting and candles.
<n0hat> wait
<n0hat> we're going to protest the most litigious
organization in america
<n0hat> by standing outside their buildings wearing
anonymous masks
<n0hat> holding birthday cake
<n0hat> for their dead founder
<lulzcannon> yes
<n0hat> this is simultaneously the stupidest and most
beautiful thing i have ever been part of
<gregg> welcome to anonymous
<aLTerego> welcome to anonymous
*** `Chanology_planning` (~anon@unaffiliated) has joined #marblecake
<Chanology_planning> who is in charge of the february 10 protests
<gregg> nobody
<aLTerego> nobody
<n0hat> nobody
<lulzcannon> nobody
<Chanology_planning> ...how does that work
<gregg> excellently, it turns out
*** Log closed Sun Feb 03 2008 23:58:17 UTC
*** SUPPLEMENTAL: February 10, 2008 — Post-Action Report
Protests held simultaneously at Scientology facilities in:
- 108 cities
- 17 countries
- 6 continents
- Estimated 7,000-8,000 participants worldwide
Participants wore Guy Fawkes masks purchased from party supply
stores, Halloween costume shops, and Amazon.
Several protest sites had birthday cake.
The Church of Scientology photographed every protester they
could. They could not identify any of them.
Nobody was in charge. It worked excellently.
This log is a reconstruction, not a transcript. No complete IRC log from the planning sessions of Project Chanology has been published, and the channels were not systematically archived – because the people in them were not thinking about history. They were thinking about cake and masks and whether you could sue someone who does not exist.
But the documented facts are these: the “Message to Scientology” video was uploaded on January 21, 2008. It used text-to-speech audio and stock footage. It reached millions of views in days. The protests on February 10, 2008, drew thousands of people in over a hundred cities across seventeen countries. Nobody was in charge. The Guy Fawkes mask came from an Epic Fail Guy comic. Several locations did have birthday cake.
The thing that cannot be reconstructed from any log is the moment – and every account agrees it happened, though nobody agrees on exactly when or where – that the people in the IRC channels realized they were no longer trolling. They were doing something that used the same infrastructure as trolling, the same coordination mechanisms, the same anonymity, the same refusal of hierarchy – but the output was not lulz. The output was a global protest against an organization that had been abusing its critics for decades, organized by people who could not be identified, led by nobody, and funded by whatever a Guy Fawkes mask costs at Party City.
The schism Chapter 8 documents – between “for the lulz” and “we are legion” – begins in this log. It was never resolved. Anonymous never decided what it was. It could not decide, because there was no it to decide. There was only infrastructure and the people who used it, and different people used it for different things, and the thing that made Anonymous ungovernable also made it undefinable. The IRC log is the format that captures this best, because IRC is conversation without identity – text on a screen, no avatars, no profiles, no history. You are your words and nothing else. And in this channel, on this night, the words changed from “order pizzas” to “bring cake to a protest at every Scientology building on earth,” and nobody voted, and nobody authorized it, and it happened anyway.
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