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London Zoo: [Closed] Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer

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  1.  (1591.1)
    Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users.

    The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.

    The attackers turned to a more effective tactic on Sunday, injecting JavaScript into some posts that redirected users' browsers to a page with a more complex image designed to trigger seizures in both photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epileptics.

    RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.

    Fultz says she "locked up."

    "I don't fall over and convulse, but it hurts," says Fultz, an IT worker in Coeur d'Alene, Ohio. "I was on the phone when it happened, and I couldn't move and couldn't speak."


    From Wired.
  2.  (1591.2)
    See, here is the funny thing Spiral. I do not look at this and see what most others here see I expect.

    I see: attempted murder: good luck making a privacy/anonymity argument before a judge to block you being hunted down
  3.  (1591.3)
    @JTraub:
    I see the same thing you do. No less than hacking someone's pacemaker.
  4.  (1591.4)
    Privacy rights hang by a thread at times.

    Enough events like this and we will literally be buried in laws designed to demolish internet anonymity. And of course, those laws will be incredibly hard to enforce, so they will generally hit the wrong people. Acts like this are not only monstrous in a direct fashion of trying to murder a human being for laughs, they literally put a gun to the head of the future.

    My level of disgust is really hard contain.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJoe Paoli
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2008
     (1591.5)
    Every so often I'm surprised at how much lower assholes can sink.
  6.  (1591.6)
    Torture by hack - sick fucks.
  7.  (1591.7)
    I see: attempted murder: good luck making a privacy/anonymity argument before a judge to block you being hunted down

    I'd be interested to see if they do this.
    • CommentAuthorNecros
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2008
     (1591.8)
    @Jtraub: I agree with you completely. This is just bad all around.

    I just want to know why anyone would think this was funny.
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      CommentAuthortedcroland
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2008
     (1591.9)
    Or even remotely impressive. Yes, use your ability to hack to hurt people--and only to hurt people. What an awesome person that did this.
  10.  (1591.10)
    I just want to know why anyone would think this was funny.

    The same people who watch "Cops: Tased and Confused" and laugh like 12-year olds huffing nitrous.

    The only difference between this and somone wandering around a hospital ward pressing buttons and pulling plugs is the distance of the internet. It's an outgrowth of the lack of civility and assumption that something happening on the internet isn't as "real".

    Sorry, all I can picture when I read this is my friend at work with epilepsy being victimized and how murderous that would make me.
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      CommentAuthorUnsub
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2008
     (1591.11)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    Not funny but definitly interesting. It reminds me of the first time a human was killed by a Robot in Afghanistan in 01.
    As far as I am concerned privacy is more important than murder. We don't allow searches without warrants no matter how serious the charges(or at least we should not).
    If there is probable cause to get a warrant to search the files to find them by all means find them and charge them with a count of attempted murder or assault for every person who they sent a image to. I am not a lawyer but I believe it was the intent of the person to do harm that makes it a crime.
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      CommentAuthorjohnjones
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2008
     (1591.12)
    Personally, I'm hoping the FBI cybercrimes unit is all over these guys and they get sent to a maximum security where they can learn all there is to know about "backdoor invasions."
  13.  (1591.13)
    As far as I am concerned privacy is more important than murder. We don't allow searches without warrants no matter how serious the charges(or at least we should not).
    If there is probable cause to get a warrant to search the files to find them by all means find them and charge them with a count of attempted murder or assault for every person who they sent a image to. I am not a lawyer but I believe it was the intent of the person to do harm that makes it a crime.


    Not the issue. Nobody said anything about warrant-less searches.

    I am not a lawyer but I believe it was the intent of the person to do harm that makes it a crime.


    Its what makes it attempted murder. Intent to do harm in a common venacular sense is not part of most crimes, only intent to commit the act which might be foreseeable that will harm or recklessly cause harm. Thus Mens Rea is the intent to act, as opposed to an accident, but is not the intent to cause the exact result that occurred. So, for example, assault does not requires you intended to hurt the person only that you intended that act which made them fearful of being hurt and such an act falls within the scope you could foresee that fear. Battery does not require intent to cause damage only intent you made contact. And depraved indifference is a nice broad area indeed....
  14.  (1591.14)
    Here's the thing, these shit-eaters will not be hard to find. Even the most "l88t haxxrs" leave all manner of bread-crumbs. I doubt these punks were anything approaching cyber-criminals, just assholes having a holiday. Doing something on the internet is doing it in public, whether that is simple speech, threats or posting kiddie porn, you're sharing with the sum general of humanity. To do something like this, knowingly causing harm and endangering the lives of people with medical conditions? Fuck that.

    This isn't some crazed over-reaction by the government to people with liquids in the backpacks or some 10 year old saying he's going to "kick-ass" in geometry on his twitter being hauled off to juvie, this was a targetted act of cruelty with intent to do physical harm. Give even the dimmest prosecutor a few minutes, they'll find plenty of caselaw to put these cretins in the bad dark place for a good long time.

    Sorry to be histrionic. I just sent this story to my co-worker warning her. She's this adorable woman in her late fifties, a grandma and soon to be great-grandmother who has survived with Grand Mal seizures for most of her adult life. She bakes us cookies on shoot-days and on at least one occasion members of our company have held on to her while she convulsed on the floor. The first time it happened she made a joke about shake and bake that made us all blush. She's a wonderful human being and the thought of some fark troll thinking her suffering is "lulz"...Fuck them.
  15.  (1591.15)
    I think we can congratulate humanity on its "embarassing new low" in Internet. This is unbelievable. "Hey, Nigel, I just had this great idea: let's cause seizures on people and maybe even kill them with a computer screen!". And what JTraub said is absolutely right, about this being attempted murder and causing possible internet restrictions in the future.
  16.  (1591.16)
    Without wanting to sound like the misanthrope I am, one of the things that no longer surprises me is just how vicious and nasty people can be. OK. I'll shut up now.
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      CommentAuthorJay Kay
    • CommentTimeMar 29th 2008
     (1591.17)
    My first thought mirrored JTraub's: Attempted murder, pure and simple.

    My second thought, though, was: Fuck, imagine if these guys used their talents to help people rather than fuck with them...
  18.  (1591.18)
    I guess Wired is more reputable than many net "sources", but this story completely sounds like something that will show up on Snopes before this week is over.
  19.  (1591.19)
    Without wanting to sound like the misanthrope I am, one of the things that no longer surprises me is just how vicious and nasty people can be. OK. I'll shut up now.


    Why? You're right.
  20.  (1591.20)
    Rare outbreak of false modesty. Won't happen again.

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