Slashdot Mirror
Griefers Assault Epileptics Via Message Board
An anonymous reader tips us to a story up at Wired reporting on what may be the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on victims. Last Saturday, griefers posted hundreds of bogus messages on the support forums of the nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation that used JavaScript and strobing GIFs to trigger migraines and seizures in users. For about 3% of the 50 million epileptics worldwide, flashing lights and colors can trigger seizures. "'I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts,' says [an IT worker in Ohio]. 'I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't move and couldn't speak.' ... Circumstantial evidence suggests the attack was the work of members of Anonymous, an informal collective of griefers best known for their recent war on the Church of Scientology. The first flurry of posts on the epilepsy forum referenced the site EBaumsWorld, which is much hated by Anonymous. And forum members claim they found a message board thread — since deleted — planning the attack at 7chan.org, a group stronghold."
Why did they go through all that trouble? They could have simply redirected 'em to Myspace.
Newbie griefers pretending to by Anonymous are caught posting from IP addresses associated with Scientology.
If the past 15 years of strobing pages, CPU gobbling animated backgrounds, looped 'all keys disabled' rickrolling with an endless supply of modal dialogs weren't enough to convince you, perhaps this should be.
Flash, you're next.
Is that true?
Obviously you were just in the wrong newsgroups.
Next thing you know, someone claiming to be part of Anonymous will be posting pictures of pizza on weightwatchers forums, and pictures of beer on the AA forums.
Man, I thought I was 1337, but it seems those days are gone. Great, now what am I going to do when my dad finds out I don't understand the internet anymore?
Given how trivial it was to conduct this attack,
Did someone forget to disable the [img][/img] tags on their PHPBB forum?
To be fair, imagine what Slashdot would look like if you could post images.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
You can't take the sky from me...
These aren't the real Anons. And no true Scotsman wears underwear beneath his kilt.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Normally, I would say that's an interesting theory, but come on. Anonymous doesn't need any help in that department.
I don't feel guilt. I understand why I should, but...
Don't fret about it. Guilt is no more than a built-in pro-active self-preservation thing. It's an internal warning bell that lets you know that when your civilized neighbors catch up with you, they're going to beat the shit out of you, or maybe even kill you. Don't worry about ignoring it, it's not there for anyone else's benefit.
It is scary, real, and a major force on the rise.
The proper way to say this is:
"They LAUGHED at me when I was [born deformed/dismissed from my university post/lost the vote 434,555 to 1], but soon, when my [super Internet weapon/fiendish subversive plot/giant mutated killer penis clone] is finished, THEY'LL BE SORRY!!"
*cries*
You can't take the sky from me...
Are you effing kidding me? Discredit Anonymous?
Have you ever BEEN to 4chan or 7chan?
no true Scotsman wears underwear
I once had an american female soldier ask me about this when our territorial (reserve) unit was in the USA. She was very pretty, so I told her...
To disable animation in lynx you go to ... uh... carry on.
How many Scientologists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
If the lightbulb spends enough money, it will eventually be told that it is already screwed in, everyone else is just too blind to see it.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I like how you roll.
Congratulations on the serendipitous pwnage. If you ever feel like getting similar lulz, Google for the OCA, which (if it wasn't the test you got) is the standard Scilon "free personality test".
The test itself is bogus. Typical test takers end up with 7 bars representing some mumbo-jumbo about their personality, and if a lot of them are low, why, you're obviously having some troubles in $lowest_bar, but giving the Scilons your life's savings can help you with that! (If all of them are high but not perfect, why, golly-gee, giving the Scilons your life's savings can make you even more awesome than you already are!)
Since the "right" answers (i.e. what the Scilons regard as the human ideal) have long since been leaked to the Intarwebs, you can promptly go to any Scilon Basestar and get 100% on the test. Since that's never supposed to happen (i.e. since it's supposed to cost you your life's savings to even get started!), their sales script doesn't have a line for that, and provided you take suitable steps to conceal your identity before taking the test, fucking lulz can ensue.
Griefing epileptics is teh lame. It's funny, but it's too easy. Griefing idiots with delusions of godhood, and a private army of over 9000 PIs, stalkers, and Sea Org and OSA goons with whom you can subsequently play James Bond on the subway system, now that's teh win. It's free training in tradecraft, and you don't have to join any government's secret police to play!
damn, I don't have a punchline for that.
-
You don't know the history of light bulbs....I do.
-
When I walk by a light bulb unscrewed in I know that as a scientologist, I am the only person who can screw it in.
-
We are the authorities on screwing in light bulbs. We are the authorities on screwing them in.
-
The SP's must have unscrewed it! Implement "fair game" on the janitor.
/li>
The jokes almost write themselves.Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
How folks "roll" == what they do. See also: T-shirts attempting to be funny.
7chan, 4chan == same shit, different sites (slightly different communities, but not by much)
"/b/ is not your personal army" == what happens when you try to give Anon a shitty target. In this case, Epileptics are a shitty target. (Autistics are a little better target; not that their issues aren't any more or less serious, but just for their drama factor. Same thing goes for Furries; fursuits are funny, sure, but it's the drama generated that makes them prime targets.)
Scientology == The Granddaddy of Anti-lulz. Period.