Where the FBI Needs to Put Its Efforts

One of the most troubling hacks I have heard of is the recent attack on the Epilepsy Foundation Website. There have been many malicious attacks, but this one has set an all time low. Even worse, I believe that the people who did it were not doing it for any other purpose than to try to be funny. It is as funny as waterboarding, and actually that should only be the start of their punishment.

To those people who haven't heard about the attack, a criminal or several criminals, posted messages on the Epilepsy Foundation's message boards that contained flashing pornographic images. The flashing aspect of the images causes seizures for approximately 5 percent of people with epilepsy. All indications are that the seizures are the intended effect of the postings.

What is actually most troubling is that this is probably a broad attack on strangers, who just happen to have epilepsy. Unless the perpetrator is specifically targeting an individual with epilepsy that they know, there is really no specific intent in the matter.

Not to offer a justification, but if there were a specific target, then you could at least see some comprehensible reason that a person would do something so vile. You cannot even contend that you are politically opposed to helping epileptics. If, however, the hackers did it just because they could, then it is a downright evil act for personal amusement.

Sadly, this is the old-school hacker mantra taken to an inevitable extreme -- or at least the mantra of the immature hackers. They contend that hacking is pushing the limits, showing people that things can be done, manipulating technology in ways that it was not intended, showing the flaws for the sake of showing the flaws, and so on.

While many old-school hackers would probably condemn this attack, this is a predictable result of all of the propaganda that they spew. There is nothing ingenious about this attack, just malicious. Many people know that flashing lights can induce seizures in epileptics, and it is not really that hard -- just as most computer hacks are not ingenious, as they just take advantage of widely known vulnerabilities. The Internet is full of opportunities for people with criminal intent, and there is nothing noble about it, whether it is defacing a Website or causing seizures.

I've been trying to determine whether or not "computer hacking" was actually involved in this attack. The reports I've seen so far indicate that this crime involved posts to message boards. This doesn't have to involve computer hacking. Maybe there were some protections to prevent people from posting, however most sites allow anyone to register and begin posting.

That is one of the critical issues. Anyone can do this on just about any site that has message boards. Sadly, as the book The Tipping Point highlights, there will likely be similar attacks in the very near future. There are plenty of imbeciles out there who are able to put this very trivial attack together, and are willing to do it just so that they themselves can try to be "elite."

We really need the law enforcement to take swift action and make arrests in this case. More importantly, we need to see severe punishment for the actions. The pathetic sentences that have been doled out to criminals tend to do little to discourage them. There is no excuse for this. It is too easy to duplicate. Examples must be made immediately.

— Ira Winkler, Former National Security Agency analyst and author of Spies Among Us