Imaginary Landscape
RSS FeedIn what may be the first "physical" attack conducted through the Internet, hackers descended upon an epilepsy support group forum and uploaded strobing and complex images with the goal of causing seizures.
It worked.
The attack was conducted by a group of griefers, a special name given to someone whose sole mission is to go online and cause others grief.
According to the article in Wired Magazine, the Epilepsy Foundation closed down the forum briefly to remove the offending images, but not before several people seized up.
It's hard to imagine the reasons or motivations for such an effort. It took planning, design, research and execution. In some endeavors, those coordinated disciplines would be worthy of praise. Not here.
Like most of these cases, it's probably just a bunch of maladjusted people seeing if they can hurt others. Such a waste.
Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:29AM CDT by brian
Categories: People Acting Badly User Interface
