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Epilepsy Foundation
On March 22, 2008, unknown H@Ck3R$ infiltrated the forums of the Epilepsy Foundation. The attacks started out with simple gif images, but as soon as Anon accidentally realized that html worked on the forums more sophisticated JavaScript redirect codes were created, this caused mass headaches, twitching, and mild seizures among the forum members, but not the desired effect; accidental an heroage. The raid seemingly originated at a thread on 420chan, when /i/ was located at not420chan, (though 7chan seemingly got the credit because of their batshit unwarranted self importance) and caused a media shitstorm when members of the forum called the press. The story was covered by Wired and subsequently posted to Slashdot, Digg, MetaFilter and elsewhere.
The Raid
—Epilepsy Forum member, Wired News |
—Another Forum member, Wired News |
The raid itself occurred in one stage, a simple zerg rush which /i/ is accustomed too. On Saturday, the initial wave of attacks involved simply registering as new members on the Epilepsy Foundation and then spamming flashing GIFs in the site's various subforums, along with the typical pro-Ebaums comments that accompany any /i/nsurgent activity. This caused mass headaches and pain among the forum's regular viewers, who presumably reacted in a similar fashion to Angry German Kid. Within about an hour into the raid, the attacks became more sophisticated, using TinyURL links to drive the hapless, twitching epileptics to a blinking Javascript app which was specifically designed to trigger seizures and to party hard.
Video of the raid
Epileptic Reactions
—Staff |
The forum mods finally got online on Sunday and shut down the forum for 12 hours, which is apparently how long it took them to permanently disable embedded images and JavaScript. Thus ended the invasion.
Media Reactions
The first report by Wired News was posted on Wired on March 29th, a week after the actual event. The article assumed that the raid was carried out by Hackers on Steroids, but also mentioned the possibility that it could have been instigated or executed by Scilons. Reactions to the Wired story ranged from expressions of disgust to calls for justice to disbelief that the noble Anonymous could stoop so low. Reactions to the raid itself were generally ambivalent.
Chan Reactions
While some members of /b/ and Anonymous were upset, others noted that Anonymous is chaotic neutral, and hence they felt free to lol and lol some more at the whole situation. Accusations of newfaggotry and moralfaggotry were thrown about with abandon as Anons accused each other of either going too far or being weakling Protestfags who weren't aware of the true nature of /b/. Some argued that this invasion was a welcome return to /b/'s original viciousness, where laughter was often mingled with guilt, and that the Scientology protests were merely drawing in newfags who didn't realize this yet.
Excuses
According to 7chan admins, Scientologists posted threads calling for the raid on 7chan's /b/ and made it seem like members of Anonymous were the ones fucking with the Epilepsy forum—counting on the negative media stories from this attack to undermine the positive press that Project Chanology has so far received. This is a known Scilon technique called "dead agenting". This never happened though and it was just 7chan extending their e-peen to get some press coverage.
After being linked to the raid in numerous media reports, 7chan posted the following message to its front page:
—7chan's admin's |
Happy Ending
In the end, however, some good came of it all. In their recent press release on the raid, the Epilepsy Foundation said
The Epilepsy Foundation’s quick [12 hours l8r, LOL — Ed.] reaction to a recent attack by hackers on one of its online forums raises awareness of the need for Web security for some health organizations
[...]
“This was clearly an act of vandalism with the intent to harm people, and we shut the attack down immediately [12 hours l8r, LOL — Ed.],” said Eric R. Hargis, president and CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation. “We’ve established deterrents in the system to prevent similar incidences.”
Nefarious deed or lulzy prank? History alone will judge. It may be, however, that by hipping the no-doubt dorky and clueless Poindexters of the Epilepsy Foundation to the laughable state of their online security, the cock sucking adolescents of 7chan may have inadvertently done some good after all. As a result of this unintended benefit to tards everywhere, perhaps the Great Easter Raid of 2008 and its cum-gargling chanfag perpetrators will be judged less harshly by the World Of Tomorrow.
BRB, FBI
Someone gon' get V&.[1]
Gallery
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7chan's statement
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A thread posted on 4chan during the raid
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Ebaumsworld decides to share some beautiful poetry with the epileptics
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a GIF used by the raiders
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another GIF
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Yet another
See Also
Links
- Epilepsy Forum- DEAD
- Wired News story (linked from Slashdot, Digg, MetaFilter)
- Hooligans Attack Epilepsy Patients During Epilepsy Awareness Month
- RealTechNews story
- Moar news coverage
Epilepsy Foundation is part of a series on Visit the Chans Portal for complete coverage. |
Epilepsy Foundation is part of a series on Visit the Sites Portal for complete coverage. |