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."

Comments

Hackers?

[Aaron England]

The headline of the news article is "Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer", yet all the perpetrators did was troll the message board with offensive links not unlike what happens here daily on Slashdot. The media never could grasp the correct usage of hackers (hackers versus crackers, hackers versus script kiddies, etc), and confusing Anonymous for hackers isn't likely to help.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[try_anything]

Fair Game policy, which states that Scientology critics, or "Suppressive Persons (SPs)", "may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."

So on one side, you have assholes trying desperately to pretend they aren't evil, while on the other side, you have assholes trying desperately to take pride in being evil. I have to give the edge to the Scientologists. They have a shitload of money, a huge organization, and some seriously good-looking people. From the pictures I've seen of the anti-Scientology protests, Anonymous seems to have (at most) a couple hundred chubby kids who really should have brought enough masks for everyone.