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."

May or may not be the same Anons

[TheSpoom (715771)]

The members of Anonymous that did these hacks, if, in fact, that is who planned them, are likely not the same people protesting the Scientology organization.

One of the things about Anonymous that makes it different than most groups is that there are no real leaders and that, due to its very nature, nobody really knows anyone else in the group short of a few people that they might know outside the anonymous forums (this is because on a lot of the boards that Anon originated on, posters are forced to post anonymously, hence the name).

So it's really impossible to tell whether the people doing this are the same ones behind the masks at the protests.

Smear campaign by Scientology

[the_skywise (189793)]

count on it.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[dosius (230542)]

Some Anons say there is but one Anon.

I express solidarity with the Anons who fight the CoS, but I refuse to accept the Internet Hate Machine as being the same Anonymous. It is why I said before and I say again: There are TWO Anonymous.

-uso.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[WhodoVoodoo (319477)]

this is not true. There is not One or Two anonymous, there is NO anonymous.

It's not useful to associate "anonymous" as a group or entity. "Anonymous" is a completely chaotic, anarchistic, loose association. It is akin to race. There are (excuse this analogy) white people, and there are other white people who do bad things, and there are yet more white people who do good things. It is not useful to say "white people" are anything, except that "white people" came from europe and have a history of colonialism.

It is exactly the same with "anonymous". Anonymous is simply a subset of most people in the world who use the internet, and there is a subse tof them who do other things, and a subset of THEM who attack things, and a subset of this which may have assaulted an epilepsy board. But none of them are really related beyond circumstance.

The point is "anonymous" does not have any goals or means or anything. They don't even share interests, the only real connection is a mode of communication (and often web sites). Some anonymous coalesce to do things, like protest scientology or mess around on the internet, but they are not related except by modes of action. Attributing causal notions to this Anonymous is fallacy.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[CyberData4 (1247268)]

...Says the Anonymous Coward. Grow up.

Close but no cigar

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Akin to the nigger race maybe..

More akin to the racist brand of Anonymous Coward.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[Bert64 (520050)]

Or could it be that, due to the original anonymous group against scientology being well, anonymous, they are easy to impersonate...
Thus, the second anonymous group attacking epileptics is actually compose of members of the church of scientology seeking to discredit the original anonymous group?

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[FredFredrickson (1177871)]

Mod parent up- Fact is that "anonymous" means nobody knows who did it. So blaiming the people who are attacking scientology for an anonymous attack is the same as blaiming every crime whose perpetrator is unknown on the group protesting scientology.

It seems the only ones looking to benefit from making this connection would be the church of scientology itself, and this "article" just helps the scientology propaganda.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[aurispector (530273)]

I think we can all agree that this incident is utterly and completely reprehensible. It's one thing for griefers to screw around with overly serious gamers or troll/flame discussion boards - no real harm done at the end of the day. To deliberately attempt to induce a seizure may be a criminal act.

Considering recent events it does not seem likely that "Anonymous" would do it - their campaign is meant to expose CoS's alleged misdeeds; an altruistic motive. Blaming "Anonymous" doesn't make sense in this context.

In these days of never ending spin and propaganda, the *first* thing to do when analyzing an event like this is to look carefully at who's ends are served by the fallout. The most likely culprits are either 1)some random asshole or 2)CoS. Of the two, who's ends are best served by this event?

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[TheSpoom (715771)]

This is more common than you might think; it has, in fact, been demonstrated that Scientology faked a bomb threat against themselves by Anonymous on YouTube earlier [youtube.com].

An extension of their most certainly not dead Fair Game [wikipedia.org] 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."

Scary stuff, especially for a group claiming to be a religion.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[LrdDimwit (1133419)]

This is not a juvenile prank. This isn't anything close to a juvenile prank, the same way swatting [typepad.com] isn't. A juvenile prank would have been subliminal flashing penises, not iterative deployment of effects specifically designed to be highly effective against many types of epilepsy. Thousands of people were affected, it was an ongoing attack that received several refinements to make it more effective, so it wasn't spur-of-the-moment either.

Someone not only came up with the idea of forcing people to have epileptic fits, but was evil enough to follow through with it. This is a serious disease, with serious detrimental effects, and it was perpetrated in a way designed to maximize exposure.

The perps need to be found, and need to be prosecuted. Bury them with one seperate count of (at the least) assault for every person who says they suffered epileptic attacks. If law enforcement can't nail these guys, then they may as well throw in the towel, because it means they lost. The bad guys win.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[ins0m (584887)]

You bet. This sounds exactly like a false-flag attack to discredit Anonymous. They have already struck back once [godlikeproductions.com] after Anonymous sandbagged their servers with DDoS and Gigaloader attacks. Co$ has been twisted up since the 2/10 and 3/15 peaceful demonstrations. Now that the /i/nsurgents are under the tutelage of Gregg Hagglund, Tory Christman, and Mark Bunker, it's only going to be a matter of time before OSA kicks it into high gear to start tracking these kids down.

This is just a salvo of an upcoming battle, the likes of which Co$ hasn't ever seen before. So long as Anonymous can remain decentralized and have more than one forum to communicate, this could be interesting to see play out.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[hedwards (940851)]

This was largely my thought, how exactly do we know that these are actually people that are affiliated with that movement, and not just Scientologists looking to smear their adversary.

Or equally likely a random collection of griefers that hit on the idea of doing a threefer.

The "evidence" that they've cited at the end is extremely tenuous. It could be related to the Anonymous effort to end Scientology, some Scientologists themselves or just a random assortment of people looking to cause as much trouble as possible.

The thing that I kind of have to wonder about is why people with epilepsy would be cruising the net without pop up, javascript and gif blockers on. Even if there weren't an attack of this sort, there are plenty of sites on the net with animations and such which could very easily trigger these sorts of symptoms.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[K8Fan (37875)]

Smear campaign by Scientology...count on it.

Agreed. Anyone who doubts that they are capable of doing this needs to read about "Operation Freakout" [wikipedia.org] a campaign to destroy the career and mental health of journalist Paulette Cooper. Scientology's goons stole her stationary and sent bomb threats. She was only cleared after voluntarily submitting to questioning by the FBI under sodium pentothal.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[K8Fan (37875)]

This is the sort of thing that Anonymous does normally, though. Anonymous was not created for this anti-scientology crusade.

I know. It wouldn't make any sense to do something awful and attribute it to an enemy if the action is not plausible. But from what I understand, Anonymous' targets have been people who "offended" them in some way, or people so loathed by the general public that the majority will not object.

Anonymous attacking the "Church" of Scientology makes sense. Anonymous attacking random epileptics does not. Also, it's worth remembering that most epileptics are dependent on pharmacological treatment, and the "Church" claims that they can treat epilepsy without drugs. They are wrong, of course and have a body count to prove it [whyaretheydead.net].

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

[popmaker (570147)]

All this might mean however, that people make the connection between "anonymous", the group that protests scientology, and "anonymous", the internet assholes that cause epileptic seizures. People might not stop to think about all this "no-organization-no-values" ideology and simply make the mental connection that "Anonymous" is just like any other group of people, and they just might now make the conclusion that they are BAD. Thus the whole anti-scientology effort is undermined. Because if a group of assholes protests something - do we have any idea if what they were protesting was bad or not?

It's the message that gets compromised, not the group, which - like you said - isn't really a group anyway.

Re:May or may not be the same Anons

[seebs (15766)]

And I care why? I'm not anonymous. I'm just anti-CoS.

I'm no more required to hide my identity than I am required to participate in harassing epileptics.

Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

I am no supporter of Anonymous, but isn't it convenient for the Scientologers that their new-found enemy should suddenly be suspected of a such certoonishly evil assault.

Two particular L. Ron Hubbard quotes are especially instructive in this regard-

We are slowly and carefully teaching the unholy a lesson. It is as follows: We are not a law enforcement agency. BUT we will become interested in the crimes of people who seek to stop us. If you oppose Scientology we promptly look up - and find and expose - your crimes. If you leave us alone we will leave you alone.

And-

Never discuss Scientology with the critic. Just discuss his or her crimes, known and unknown.

Certainly makes you wonder...

Also, Epileptics need to build themselves a Firefox plugin that'll detect any harmful behaviour, and block it Adblock-style. As the tech progresses this plugin could even be integrated into special sunglasses.... [hhgproject.org]

I have a true Scientology story....

[Izabael_DaJinn (1231856)]

A few months ago when that crazy Tom Cruise video first appeared I wrote a comment about it on DailyMotion making a joke about Scientology. The next day our office phone number (listed at our registrar) had a call (on the caller ID) from the Church of Scientology the very next day. No one was around to answer and no one called back, but it can hardly be a coincidence since it was the first time before and after we ever had a call from them!!

In other words, I do believe they would do something like you are suggesting.

I also would expect another phone call from them tomorrow for this post :~(

Re:Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[Brett Buck (811747)]

Idiot troll. Epilepsy is absolutely *not* a psychological reaction. It's purely physiological - its no different in principle than a knee-tap reflex.

          Brett

Re:Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

Epilepsy is traditionally analysed with an EEG. That makes it a neurological condition.

And yes, I do have epilepsy, but not the photosensitive kind. Back in the days when the only way to make a rapid strobe light was with xenon or neon there was a lot of attention paid to pulse rates, intensity and containment. You were not supposed to just set it up anywhere. You had to warn people.

Now that anybody can make a strobe with an array of cheap LED's the photosensitivity issue is being ignored. This is a problem because it goes beyond people with recognised seizure problems. We should not be feeding pulse trains into our eyes which mimic signals which always run inside our brains.

Re:Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[by Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[schon (31600)]

Anonymous has been romanticized as a morally driven vigilante group.

This, and the fact that you're posting as an AC made me wonder if you're a cult member.

Anonymous taking on Scientology is more akin to [...] spray painting a swastika on a Jewish community center.

This made me sure of it.

It isn't. I have followed various /b/ and /i/ boards for a long time.

This is a clear debunking of the rationale present in this post. [slashdot.org]

If you know anything about the cult, you know about "Fair Game".

Considering the amount of AC posts here (like yours) that are pro-cult, it's pretty obvious that this is a *VERY* lame attempt at framing their detractors.

Re:Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

[Scrameustache (459504)]

pissing on a crazy homeless person, or spray painting a swastika on a Jewish community center. [...] I can appreciate the humor in those actions
[...]
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) [wikipedia.org]
Diagnostic criteria

Three or more of the following are required:

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honour financial obligations
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

Redundant.

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

Why did they go through all that trouble? They could have simply redirected 'em to Myspace [myspace.com].

In future news...

[Spartan Niner (1264332)]

Newbie griefers pretending to by Anonymous are caught posting from IP addresses associated with Scientology.

Of course

[PakProtector (115173)]

Obviously 'Anonymous' did this, because the Church of Scientology is so moral as to never stoop to breaking the law and framing others to remove a detractor.

Just how they would never try to drive a critic to suicide or cause the death of one of their own due to denial of basic medical treatment.

Sickening

[wwwgregcom (313240)]

As an epileptic, I find this absolutely sickening. Although I have a very mild form that is not photosensitive, this is a terrible act. For some, seizures do have a small risk of sudden death. When I was first diagnosed, I found these and similar message boards to be an absolutely invaluable resource in finding comfort and support for what is an often incurable and sometimes still stigmatized disease. For me, these forums will never feel like the same safe haven that they used to be.

Re:Sickening

[taustin (171655)]

Given how trivial it was to conduct this attack, I have say that this forum didn't "used to be" a safe haven, it only seemed to be. Now, you have a clearer understanding of how the world really works.

Re:Sickening

[vertinox (846076)]

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.

Riiight...

[Zocalo (252965)]

And I am supposed to believe that this is Anonymous branching out from their protest against Scientology, and not some asshat member of Scientology trying to give Anonymous a bad name because...?

Anonymous has a beef with Scientology, and that is the sole extent of their agenda to date, so there is absolutely no reason for them to suddenly decide to launch an attack against epileptics. On the other hand there is every reason for Scientology to try and smear Anonymous in order to gain a more sympathetic ear in any future court actions against Anonymous. Given the track record Scientology has with the use of smear campaigns against people and organisations that try to stand up to them, I'd say it's pretty obvious what's really going on here.

Oh, and expect incoming pro-Scientology astroturfers in 3... 2... 1...

Re:Riiight...

[Zocalo (252965)]

Actually, I was just pointing out that Anonymous has no motive for an attack on epileptics while Scientology has every reason to want to discredit Anonymous and this smacks of Scientology's usual modus operandi. I don't believe I made any statement about my views on either side, other than that I'm not particularly pro-Scientology, but what the hell... For the record I think that the upper echelons of Scientology are a bunch of deceitful scumbags whose sole purpose in the organisation is to manipulate the more gullible members of the organisation into giving them large sums of cash and will do pretty much anything to keep that gravy train flowing. Typical cult in other words.

Anonymous, on the otherhand, I think has a worthwhile agenda in showing the public at large just what they can expect should they ever be tempted to join, or coerced into joining, Scientology. I do however have a problem with *their* operational methods though - not the peaceful protests, which are harmless to everyone and everything except Scientology's recruitment drive and gravy train, but their more militant activities like launching a series of DDoS attacks against Scientology. That does indeed smack of them consisting, at least in part, of a bunch of 13-year old script kiddies with no life that are perfectly capable of smearing themselves.

I was wondering when this would happen

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

I have a relative in the Fire Alarm business and he tells me about the restrictions on strobe lights on long corridors, they have to flash simultaneously because the random flashes could cause a seizure during a fire. I thought, "wow, that's right. I wonder if they actualy thought about it before hand, or if they wrote the regulation based on a real incident."

Anyway, having that on my mind, I was looking at some of the more garish web sites and thought to myself, "I wonder if someone would construct a site that could trigger an epileptic seizure. Well, now we know.

As for "Anonymous" be the same anti-scientology "Anonymous," I would bet with 99% confidence that if there is such an accusation, it is scientology that did it. We know "why" anonymous is going after scientology, whether you agree or disagree, they have a cause. The epilepsy incident has nothing to do with that cause, and furthermore undermines it. It only makes sense that since it undermines the cause of "anonymous," it was likely done by scientology since they are the ones with the actual motive.

This does not sound like Anon

[Toandeaf (1014715)]

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.

Dude,

[DancesWithBlowTorch (809750)]

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.

What the hell are you talking about?

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?

I heard that Anonymous posts here?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Is that true?

This is indirectly a good thing...

[JustShootMe (122551)]

Not the actual "attack" itself, of course. But immediately, someone mentioned "anonymous" and everyone knew who they were, that they had a beef with scientology, and that scientology was possibly behind it to discredit them.

This shows that scientology is losing the PR war. They are completely out of their league when they can't actually identify and personally harass their detractors.

Not the peaceful activists.A msg from Anonymous.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hello, Slashdot. We are Anonymous.

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 .info with the most horrendous filth porn and human gore imagery to be found online.
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.

This is a "false flag" tactic by Scientology

[leereyno (32197)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag [wikipedia.org]

The cult is doing this to make Anonymous look bad.

I used to be a Scientologist, and I can tell you based on first hand experience that this is EXACTLY what the cult would do.

This is not the work of those who fight and oppose the cult of Scientology.

The cult has already taken to creating fake videos and messages that appear to be from Anonymous and that contain threats of violence against the cult itself. This latest stunt is simply the next step in their campaign of demonizing Anonymous.

The problem with Anonymous is that anyone can pretend to be part of the group. While they are highly resistant to efforts by the cult to target them as individuals, they are vulnerable to false-flag tactics such as this one.

This is not the first time the cult has done this. Back in the 70's they targeted a woman for writing a book that revealed the evil nature of the cult. The cult responded by forging evidence linking her to a fake bomb threat, among other things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout [wikipedia.org]

She was facing a long prison sentence until the FBI accidentally discovered that the cult had set her up while conducting another investigation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White [wikipedia.org]

Scientology is evil. It is something that most people who have never dealt with the cult have a hard time understanding or believing. To describe the nature of this cult to someone who is unfamiliar with it is very difficult because polite society lacks the terms needed to accurately convey the depth of evil found within this organization. It is also difficult because an accurate description defies belief. Most people are unable to contemplate something so evil actually existing in the real world.

But scientology is that bad, and it is real. Its victims are a multitude and its crimes are horrific.

But don't take my word for it, read up on it yourself:

http://www.xenu.net/ [xenu.net]
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/ [cmu.edu]

Re:Assholes

[Jeremiah Cornelius (137)]

And so, the Scientology strategy of blaming their detractors through a blackbag job worked. They got you to believe this was by Anonymous.

Re:Definitions please

[garylian (870843)]

See Wikipedia for a pretty complete explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer [wikipedia.org]

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.

Re:Cruel and unusual

[MikeFM (12491)]

It's not even new. I remember a virus in about the mid 90s that would attempt to cause the victim to have a seizure in the same manner. Also there was some Japanese cartoon that accidentally caused seizures in som watchers and it was popular for a while for people to post clips of the offending scenes on their websites. Not much a hack.

I am surprised that sufferers of this condition can't get filtering software for their computer though that analyzes what is happening on the screen and blacks out, or otherwise makes safe, dangerous content. Looking for strobes should be a fairly easy thing. Hell, I'd be surprised if a lot of ad banners don't cause seizures.

Re:Cruel and unusual

[FudRucker (866063)]

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...

Re:Cruel and unusual

[trytoguess (875793)]

To disable animation in Opera you go to Tools > Quick Preferences > uncheck "Enable GOF/SVG Animation"

Re:Cruel and unusual

[by Anonymous Coward]

To disable animation in lynx you go to ... uh... carry on.

Re:Cruel and unusual

[uglyduckling (103926)]

Yup, and in fact the stupid London 2012 olympics logo trailer could trigger epilepsy [bbc.co.uk] and had to be removed from the web site. The fact that it is uniquely offensive in its own right without being combined into a mind-wrenching flashing animation makes the whole thing even worse.

Chill dude

[by Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall ever having strobing marching penises coming out of the monitor at me when I read usenet all those years...

Obviously you were just in the wrong newsgroups.

Re:Maybe...

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

boards for epileptic support shouldn't be written with javascript and image upload ability in the first place? Just a thought.

I almost bitchslapped you down as Overrated but decided to reply instead. Those boards are using standard PHP BBS packages off the shelf. They're already pretty buggy; on the EFA you keep getting immediately logged out, you keep losing posts, etc. Surprisingly epileptics don't tend to be experts at putting together crackerjack bulletin boards secure from unconventional cyberattacks that nobody anticipates, like asshats uploading strobe light movies. I guess they have to shut down their mailing lists, too, in case a Scientologist uploads an attachment.

Most of the seizure-induced hallucinations I get while staring at a computer screen happen when I'm using Eclipse. Blocks of code start disappearing into blind spots or they fly across the screen but somehow remain at their home positions. It's actually kind of annoying because I know I have 20 minutes to check the shit in. Although it's visually-related epilepsy, it doesn't seem to be photosensitive so a trick like this probably wouldn't work. It's more shocking and insulting than anything. But one thing I will say about epilepsy is that you have to put up with a surprising amount of shit from people. [qj.net]

Re:Will the Authorities Take Notice Now?

[nevali (942731)]

Er, how about this: people who run websites need to be competent at it.

Many forum software packages have the ability to selectively or globally disable the upload animated GIFs. Given that they're forums for suffers of epilepsy, you'd think it'd be fairly high up on the list given that photosensitivity is a well-known symptom.

Similarly, a sticky forum post on "How to avoid a seizure when browsing the web" would be helpful. Links to Firefox plug-ins, and the like.

Re:Stop lying, Christ.

[Lehk228 (705449)]

you are the 4th or 5th person with a low post count asserting that Scientology could not possibly have done this and that they aren't afraid of anonymous.

a pattern emerges

the pattern says go back to clearwater