Neal Stephenson speculate about computer viruses that could ram human encephalon in his classic novel Snow Crash , but the engineering science to do something like that has always seemed ( luckily ) far in the future . Now , however , computing machine hackers have created a loophole that lets them do it today . Over a month ago , a group of anon. people exploit a moderately well - known software vulnerability that admit them to flood WWW meeting place with a circumstances of posts . In this case , however , the C. W. Post were on an epilepsy site — and many take prototype full of shoot icons explicitly designed to cause seizures .
Epileptics impose the meeting place come home on links to the images — which masqueraded as links to helpful medical websites — and were confronted with blinking images that induced migraines and seizures . Other post hold in the flashing range of a function already . It ’s not yet known how many the great unwashed were affect , but the FBI is now enquire and the web site is being monitored . It is the first known example of a website attack that was also in heart a strong-arm flack .
According to AP :
The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation ’s site did n’t seem to care about profit . The harmful pages did n’t appear to seek to tug down code that would allow the cyber-terrorist to hit control of the victims ’ computers , for instance .
“ I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it ’s suspicious to put a cat in a purse and discombobulate it over a clothesline – they do n’t realize how cruel it is , ” say Paul Ferguson , a security measure researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. “ It was an chance wait to come about for some tight - spirited kid . ”
In a similar onset this class , a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software program that reads textual matter out loud from a computer screen door for blind and visually impaired people .
While these cases of computer - generate psyche attack evidently only work on a specific universe , what they reveal is a strong will to charter in these attack . Asbrain - calculator interfacesbecome more commonplace , such attacks could feign a broad stove of people very quickly .
Hackers Posts Cause Seizures[AP via PhysOrg ]
Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer[Wired ]
HackingScienceTechnology
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