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. Hausherr is also the author of a software utility, Xenu's Link Sleuth, which was praised in a 2002 PC Magazine article covering 70 web builder utilities.[1]
Tilman Hausherr | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Software developer |
| Nationality | German |
| Genre | Computer programming, Scientology criticism |
| Subject | Scientology, Relational database management system |
| Website | |
| xenu | |
Coined "Sporgery"
editHausherr is credited with coining the term "Sporgery" in the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, to which he is a regular contributor.[2][3] "Sporgery" refers to internet attacks that not only spam a forum with offensive posts but also misrepresent regular users by forging their names to the spam posts. The term is a blending of the words "spam" and "forgery".[3][4]
Website
editHausherr's website contains a large section critical of Scientology, including the "Scientology celebrities FAQ", as well as the "FAQ: Scientology in Germany" (2001).[5][6] He has also contributed updates on the activities of the Church of Scientology to the magazine Berliner Dialog, published until 2005 by the non-profit organization Dialog Zentrum Berlin e.V.[7] Hausherr was quoted in Religion Online as stating on his Web site: "Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially."[8]
In 1998, attorneys representing the Church of Scientology sent a letter to Hausherr, telling him to remove altered Scientology images from his Web site.[9] Hausherr had parodied copyright-protected images belonging to the Church including changing the Scientology "S" to a dollar sign, as well as elongating the nose of the president of the organization, an image intended to evoke comparison to Pinocchio.[9] In the course of the dispute Compuserve, which was hosting the pages and altered images, blocked his website for terms of service violations.[10] Hausherr defended his site, saying "It's just a page making fun of Scientology--it's a form of art. Parodies are allowed under German and U.S. law."[9]
References
edit- ^ "70 assists for a winning site.(WEB BUILDER'S TOOLKIT)", PC Magazine, April 23, 2002.
- ^ Attack of the Robotic Poets Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine, ZDNet, by Kevin Poulsen, May 06, 1999.
- ^ a b Højsgaard, Morten T.; Margit Warburg (2005). Religion and Cyberspace. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN 0-415-35767-5.
- ^ Rutter, Daniel (16 September 1999). "Gibbering clones the future of Usenet?" (Reprint with annotation). Australian IT. Retrieved 16 March 2007.
- ^ Kent, Stephen (September 2003). "Scientology and the European Human Rights Debate: A Reply to Leisa Goodman, J. Gordon Melton, and the European Rehabilitation Project Force Study". Marburg Journal of Religion. 8 (1). University of Marburg. doi:10.17192/mjr.2003.8.3725. Archived from the original on 29 June 2006.
- ^ Hexham, Irving; Karla Poewe (April 1999). ""Verfassungsfeindlich": Church, State, And New Religions In Germany". Nova Religio. 2 (2): 208–227. doi:10.1525/nr.1999.2.2.208.
Hudson, David., Scientology's "Holocaust" : Is Hollywood on the wrong side in Germany's "Church" vs. state furor?, Salon.com, February 25, 1997 - ^ Berliner Dialog Article by Tilman Hausherr, "Helnwein und Scientology"
- ^ Dawson, Lorne L.; Douglas E. Cowan (2004). Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. Routledge. p. 261. ISBN 0-415-97022-9.
- ^ a b c Macavinta, Courtney (29 January 1998). "Scientologists in trademark disputes". CNET News. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013.
- ^ Zehnder, Matthias W. (1998). "Extremismus im Internet" (in German). Birkhäuser Verlag. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
