Anonymous griefers induce epileptic seizures using JavaScript

happygeek 0 Tallied Votes 325 Views Share

I am not an easily shockable person. Anyone who knows me, anyone who has seen me, will understand this. Indeed, other than the usual trio of sexual or racial abuse and mindless violence it takes a lot to drop my jaw in shame and despair while browsing the web. However, a bunch of numbnut griefers managed to achieve just that over the weekend when they used a combination of JavaScript coding and flashing animations with the intent to trigger fits amongst the users of an epilepsy support website.

According to reports one user suffered her worst epileptic attack in 12 months when she clicked on an offending post at an Epilepsy Foundation site forum. Confronted by a full screen of rapidly flashing squares in different colours she quickly "locked up" and was rescued by the quick thinking of her 11 year old son who killed the browser process and prevented a full fit from occurring.

The non-profit organisation responded admirably quickly and closed the site briefly on Sunday in order to purge the forums of the messages, and hopefully patch the security holes which allowed them to be posted in the first place.

The hackers responsible posted hundreds of messages via an automated script on Saturday, following up by injecting JavaScript into posts to redirect to another site with even more targeted pages designed to trigger the seizures in viewers suffering from both photosensitive and pattern-sensitive epilepsy.

Wired claims that the attack was perpetrated by members of the informal griefer collective known as Anonymous, perhaps best known for its recent attacks on Church of Scientology sites. The report suggests that it might have been intended to generate anger towards a web site much disliked by its members, and which was referenced in the first batch of postings. It goes on to claim that some forum members had tracked down a now deleted forum thread planning the attack at a site known to be a stronghold of the group.

copingwepilepsy 0 Newbie Poster

This isn't an isolated event - it isn't the first time the hooligans at 7chan instigated an attack on epilepsy forums. They do it periodically. I issued a press release ( http://www.pr.com/press-release/60959 ) after they attacked CWE ( http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/ ) last November. They have attacked the NSE forums ( http://www.epilepsyforum.org.uk/ ) several times over the last couple years.

happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster Team Colleague Featured Poster

It really does beggar belief, doesn't it? :(

MikePL 0 Newbie Poster

Oh man. I'm one of the protesters against the Church of Scientology, and I really don't understand how people could be blaming us for this thing. Anyone can be anonymous on-line, people need to take a look at the websites these griefers operate on. The people who run sites like 7chan are against our protests. Scientology is against its members taking medication to stop them from getting seizures, for example, Tory "Magoo" Christman - http://www.entheta.net/archive/personal_story/tory/affidavit.html

Jocelyn Dorfmann died from an epileptic seizure in Scientology care in France - http://www.whyaretheydead.net/others/Jocelyne_Dorfmann_34.html

Heribert Pfaff died from an epileptic seizure in a Scientology hotel in Clearwater - http://www.whyaretheydead.net/room758.html

James Stewart committed suicide after CoS put in him in a Condition of Doubt for having epileptic seizures in public - http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/kult-epelep.htm

steven woodman 57 Posting Pro in Training Banned

Dirty son's of b$#%H's. People that do that kind of junk make me sick. Why would anyone want to inflict random suffering on other people. If as many people put their knowledge and obviously wasted time into something of good cause the world would be such a nice place.

Sw

LegionAnonymous 0 Newbie Poster

I hope we are not still associated with this kind of disgusting thing. Raiding on Habbo is one thing, but this is a completely different thing. And anyone can go onto sites like 4chan or 711chan and post anonymously. That doesn't make them part of the protest group Anonymous.

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