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

[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. :)