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

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

count on it.

Re:Smear campaign by Scientology

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

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.

Anonymous, or the Hubbardistas?

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....

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?

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.

Redundant.

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

In future news...

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

Of course

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

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

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.

Riiight...

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...

I was wondering when this would happen

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

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,

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?

Is that true?

This is indirectly a good thing...

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.

Re:Assholes

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

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

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

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

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

Chill dude

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:Will the Authorities Take Notice Now?

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.