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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."
See Wikipedia for a pretty complete explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer
In a nutshell, it's someone that does a deliberately obnoxious or destructive thing to another person, simply for their own personal entertainment.
So, it's not exactly being used correctly. If it was done by Anonymous in response to a supposed threat, that was a premptive strike, not a griefing. If it wasn't anonymous, but simply someone that thought it would be funny, then griefing is a correct term for it.
Yes, there is. They are recklessly and intentionally inflicting physical harm on other people. This is assault, and they should go to prison for it.
If you build a robot with a remote control and use it to shoot people, that's the same as holding the gun yourself. Likewise, if you intentionally set out to use your computer to cause seizures in others, specifically taking action because you know that this will be the result, then you are guilty of assault.
Find them, and lock them up.
Maybe this is how Anon rolls on 7chan, but the Anon of 4chan simply does not work like this. Perhaps someone encouraged them, but usually such an idea would be met with accusations of using /b/ as a personal army. The raids I have seen always target pornographic webcams, racist radio shows, or rival internet groups such as Gaia. Anon may laugh at harm that happens on others, but they aren't actually malicious when it comes to their own actions. It is more their style to troll a dyslexia forum with garbled paragraphs. I suppose this could be the doing of a minority of truly evil people who take advantage of the anonymity, but this just seems too convenient of timing. I believe the Co$ is to blame for this.
Install noscript, set the FF option to disable animated gifs, disable flash. It's save again.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
with Firefox open about:config search for image_animation_mode and set to none
with Seamonkey in preferences > Privacy & Security > Images select Never to Animated images should loop...
not sure about Opera as i don't have it currently installed, and as far as Internet Explorer i have no clue since i do not have or use windows...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Animnated gifs have nothing to do with Javascript. Maybe boards don't allow posting animated gifs. An easy fix to this problem.
To disable animation in Opera you go to Tools > Quick Preferences > uncheck "Enable GOF/SVG Animation"
Idiot troll. Epilepsy is absolutely *not* a psychological reaction. It's purely physiological - its no different in principle than a knee-tap reflex.
Brett
...Says the Anonymous Coward. Grow up.
Hello, Slashdot. We are Anonymous.
.info with the most horrendous filth porn and human gore imagery to be found online.
Anonymous, peacefully campaigning against the Church of Scientology, condemn this attack.
There is also little doubt that those who would attack a site such as this, and unprovoked, are the same 'Unnamed People' who covered the anti-Church of Scientology Campaign wiki page, Projecct Chanology on partyvan
It is possible that these were both orchestrated by anti-moralist members of 'the chans', but it is also not impossible that the 'Church's' online operatives managed to instigate this unprecedented attack to discredit the peaceful protesters.
Perhaps 'the chans' do not realize they are being manipulated.
Sadly anonymity is a catch all, literally anyone can and will say "I am Anonymous", even The Church of Scientology is "Anonymous" when they connect to public FTPs. You can not have the security of anonymity both inside and out, without the problems of defending against anonymous insurgents, just ask Wikileaks.
Condolences to any harmed.
This attack, as any violent attack, is condemned by Anonymous.
Though the 'Church' will push this at every opportunity, it will feed their policy of ad hominem attack. It does not in any way negate the crimes of the 'Church', they cannot hide behind another.
We will legally fight the corrupt pyramid scheme organization that is the Church of Scientology regardless.
Knowledge is free.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.
There, fixed that for you.
The Church of Scientology has a long history of shady, underhanded, illegal and murderous activity, including infiltration of the United States Government.
This is entirely their style.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Epilepsy has many different forms and variations of severity. Some aren't lucky and suffer from seizures triggered by sound, light, etc. For others its a non-stop thing where they can convulse many times per day.
I have epilepsy. Mine isn't triggered by rapidly blinking lights at all. Mine is caused by sleep deprivation and didn't develop until my late teens-early 20's. I'm on a very low dose of anti-seizure meds. Fortunately mine are under control. I have a driver's license and I remain very active. I don't think anyone will ever realize I have epilepsy. I'm thankful I'm fortunate enough.
Epilepsy can be caused by a genetic disorder (there's no family history) or a traumatic brain injury (very mild to very severe). Getting in a car accident, playing hockey, falling off a bike that sort of thing, if it hits the right way with no protection, you could end up with brain damage which *could* lead to epilepsy.
If there's any particular thing I want to give as a message, get your kids to wear a helmet. You seriously do not want to fuck around with risking a traumatic brain injury. I had one probably while playing sports and I think this is what's caused my problem. Bones can heal but your brain won't.
That said, this incident is highly irresponsible. If the hackers are in the US, I hope they get the full brunt of an FBI investigation.
Not necessarily, however keep in mind that Anonymous is not a single organization but a collective of people who have different morals and values. Technically the Anonymous that griefs forums and social networking sites etc. shouldn't be considered the same entity as the Anonymous that's protesting scientology. Of course, this kind of thing is the downside of having no leadership or any kind of hierarchy whatsoever. In any case, I don't think it's fair to imply that these are the same people (altho in the interests of full disclosure, some might well be).
Down side? That's a strength.
We have no values. What we do are our values. We need no leader to tell us what to do. It's not our business to tell each other what to do. We do what we do because we want to.
Scientology can try to slander us all they want. Fox has tried, and failed. Because we are Anonymous.
Those of us that reject Chanology know that Anonymous are not internet superheros. We are the internet hate machine.
[...]
I don't feel guilt. I understand why I should, but if I am not the one making a prank phone call to the parents of some recently deceased child---I can disassociate enough from the act to sit back and laugh. Antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy)
Diagnostic criteria
Three or more of the following are required:
You can't take the sky from me...
There are many forms of epilepsy, ranging from spurious signals being sent down neural pathways through to what used to be called "brain storms" (massive, violent electrical impulses across large swathes of the brain). They are most definitely neurological and experiments have shown how to induce temporal lobe seizures with high magnetic fields. They are dangerous and can be a progressive condition (ie: every seizure causes damage and can lead to increased risk of worsening seizures.) It doesn't help that a lot of anti-seizure medication is now associated with higher suicide risk. Because these epileptic seizures suffered by people witnessing these images caused actual damage to the brain, this is not merely an inconvenience or harassment but grievous bodily harm, an act of violence that caused brain damage to victims.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Since there's actually a surprising amount of the population that are sociopaths (better term than psychopath for this particular disorder). Somewhere in the range of about 5-9% of people are like this. They just cannot empathize with others. They can't put themselves in the shoes of another person, and as such they cannot understand when that other person feel sad or in pain or whatever.
Most people associate this with just serial killers and while it is true that you are pretty much guaranteed to be a sociopath if you are a serial killer, there are actually plenty of normal people who are the same way. They don't necessairily break any laws, they are just the real inconsiderate pricks out there.
Good chance on your average day you run in to at least one of them.
'Japanese cartoon... caused seizures"
Pokemon. Episode #038. "Electric Soldier Porygon". http://www.serebii.net/anime/epiguide/indigo/038.shtml
epilepsy is a neurological disorder, not psychological. There is a fine distinction between them.
Your assertion would have more validity if this were a new or isolated event, but the hooligans at 7chan target epilepsy forums periodically. They hit one of the sites I visit last November too.
Coping With Epilepsy
Hello :-) The first thing comming to my mind is : "Attack on epileptics is quite nuts. But spreading a rumour that it's an anti-scientology group who did without solid justifications is completely nuts. That sounds tortuous enough to come from pro-scientology people". I mean scientologist are so twisted and ready to harass by any means the ones against them, that they could well have perpetrated all that. Regretfully this scenario matches pretty well the extend of madness scientologists are used to exhibit boldly.
I couldn't help a loud laugh out while RTA. Again now: lol !
Bye.
But from what I understand, Anonymous' targets have been people who "offended" them in some way
/i/ "raid" activities against the site.
Anonymous attacking the "Church" of Scientology makes sense. Anonymous attacking random epileptics does not
I've gotta jump in here. There's a slew of slashdot posters defending Anonymous who are really ignorant of what's happened here.
Please look at the message boards being targetted. Gaiaonline.com. Go read the *chan message boards and read up on the longcat issue. Anonymous is pissed at Gaiaonline.com. They've attacked Gaia in other ways lately too. This is just one of many
I hate Scientology as much as the next guy, but lets not be naive here. This has been planned on the message boards used by Anonymous very thoroughly. Go start reading the chans and other places used by Anonymous. You'll see a bunch of directives and plenty of explanation as to why they are pissed.