Pixelular Assault

[saavedra77]

Last weekend, hackers exploited a security hole in the Epilepsy Foundation's website to embed "hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images" in the site's support forums. The hackers' surprise lightshows were enough to trigger severe migraines and near-seizures in some photosensitive and pattern-sensitive viewers. Wired magazine describes it as "possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims."

The offline metaphor that comes to mind is that scene in Kiss of Death where a giggling Richard Widmark pushes a wheelchair-bound woman down the stairs.

Comments

[waysofseeing.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is part maliciousness, part ignorance.

When I was an accessibility PM at Microsoft, I used to regularly explain to devs that they had to fix strobing/flashing bugs, because they were the only kind of bugs that could cause physical damage. It was amazing to me the number of intelligent, educated developers I talked to who not only had never heard of this idea, but flat out didn't believe me. I had a developer tell me bluntly that I was lying: there was no possible way that flashing pixels on a computer screen could cause any real harm, so stop acting like such a goddamned drama queen, wouldja?

Most people have no real idea what a seizure is, and no way to comprehend what it's like to have one. To them, epilepsy feels like ridiculous hypochondria, like the guys who wear tinfoil hats to keep the cell phone transmissions from giving them brain cancer.

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

You're probably right:

I'm not sure that many non-epileptics really understand how wrenching the experience is. I find it hard to express--its like repeated electrical shocks, and can entail pulled muscles, dislocations, palpable physical injury. But I can imagine how the uninformed could see it as just so much nervous twitching--a la Peter Sellars' Dr. Strangelove, say.

And no doubt there are some who think it's some kind of hypochondriac drama--like your developers who just couldn't believe that strobing/flashing bugs could actually harm someone.

But you can't deny the pure malice of it, either, given the deliberate targeting of E.F. website users and the hundreds of digital snares they went to the trouble of embedding in the site.

So, yeah, ignorance and malice.

[waysofseeing.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I'm not excusing them. It's vile behavior. John Gabriel was right. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/)

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I got you; I've been living with this long enough that it just didn't immediately occur to me to think about the ignorance factor.

Thanks for the John Gabriel link, btw: I needed the laugh. :)

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

I can't understand how anyone could witness a seizure, or read about the symptoms, and believe they're fake or an overreaction.

I'm not being very sympathetic to the ignorance of others, am I?

The incident just disturbs the hell outa me. The cruelty of humans and all that...