Not that I think hurting people is funny, but I have to commend their creativeness on this one.
I’ll show my ignorance here - cant epileptics look away? Once they see it’s a flashing object just stop looking at it - or is it like moths to a flame?
Hackers’ posts on epilepsy forum cause migraines, seizures
Computer attacks typically do not inflict physical pain on their victims.
But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Landover, Md.-based Epilepsy Foundation of America’s website with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they’re exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.
The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation’s publishing software that allowed them to quickly make numerous posts and overwhelm the site’s support forums.
Within the hackers’ posts were small flashing pictures and links — masquerading as helpful — to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
“They were out to create seizures,” said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of web and print publishing for the foundation, which is based in Landover, Md.
He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
Security experts said the attack highlights the dangers of websites giving visitors great freedom to post content to different parts of the site.
Speaking from the point of view of someone who has migraines and has had strokes, even seeing something like that for as long as it takes to close the window can be enough to trigger an attack.
I’ll show my ignorance here - cant epileptics look away?
Some can, if they recognise the onset in time, many can not, hence the term ‘seizure’. In a grand mal seizure, the person will generally start off feeling light-headed and unfocussed, soon afterwards they will go rigid and lose consciousness (though not necessarily close their eyes), thereafter they will exhibit the classic spasmodic jerks people associate with a fit.
Like diabetic hypoglycaemia, the fact that the first symptoms of an incident usually involve some impairment to the thought process, sufferers may have only the briefest window to act.
Very sick indeed. Sometimes flickering lights or those stupid flashing banners declaring you to be the 1,000,000 visitor click to claim your prize, just about do me in. Thank God for adblocker.
PS on migraine: I read a few years ago that some types of migraine are the result of a lack of calcium. And they gave the tip to drink milk or take some calcium tablets. So I started drinking milk to see if it worked and it did for me. Two glasses of milk a day an never had a migraine again.
PS on migraine: I read a few years ago that some types of migraine are the result of a lack of calcium. And they gave the tip to drink milk or take some calcium tablets. So I started drinking milk to see if it worked and it did for me. Two glasses of milk a day an never had a migraine again.
I still eat cow though.
Beef gives you all the benefit of milk. But manlier.
And milk is pretty manly. BA Baracus drinks milk in the A-Team. And he’s the manliest person alive. And he pity the fool who cause seizures!
People can die from having a seizure. Notably, track-star Florence Joiner asphyxiated during a fit, people regularly fall and injure themselves, every so often someone drowns.
Okay, so it was unlikely anyone would drown from viewing this ‘prank’, but the hackers had no way of knowing where or how anyone whose seizure they caused would fall. Basically it was about as funny as starting a fire in an old people’s home.
One of the reasons I find it so disgusting is entirely selfish.
Like I said, I’m coming from the point of view of someone with migraines/strokes, not seizures.
However, if their little prank triggered a severe migraine in me, it has a high likelihood of leading to a stroke (the more you’ve had, the higher the likelihood, unfortunately). Luckily, it’s been three years or so since my last mini-stroke, and longer since my last proper one, but I could end up losing months of my life again (learning to write again, sleeping over 20 hours a day, learning how to talk properly again, trying to regain memories etc.) or much worse, for something as stupid and pointless as this.
When I was still only a fresh-faced schoolboy (about the same time as Tom Brown, I think), I saw someone have their first fit.
He sort of slowed, stood straight up, then fell backwards like a plank (or a cartoon). Then he jerked and shook and urinated uncontrollably for the next five minutes while the blood pooled around him from a wound on the back of his head. I and an older girl from my school did the best we could to hold him still so he didn’t hurt himself more, while the friend I was with - who was the faster runner - went back for a teacher. Fortunately, someone in a nearby house saw what was going on and, having had a sister with epilepsy, knew what to do. She said we’d done the right thing, but then, that’s probably what you would say to two shocked and pale schoolchildren.
When the seizure passed, the woman called an ambulance and the boy’s parents, and we waited with him till it came. He was more embarrassed than anything, not least for having wet himself, and made his mum promise to bring a change of clothes with her. Me and the other girl, who was obviously quite shaken herself, just hugged and she said how brave I’d been. The next year, I asked her out.
She called me a “moose” and a “prick” and walked off giggling.
