Why would anyone want to attack epileptics?

Article: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/03/epilepsy

Last Easter weekend, when most Americans were spending joyous time with their families, a group of hackers were pulling a vicious prank (if you can really call it a prank) on the Epilepsy Foundation's forums. On Saturday, the hackers posted hundreds of messages embedded with colorful animated gifs. On Easter Sunday, they used a JavaScript code in their posts that redirected users to another page that contained a colorful, flashing image designed to trigger seizures in epileptics. Many people did in fact suffer from seizures after viewing these images, and some just suffered from severe migraines. While the authorities do not know for sure who the culprit is, it is believed to be the group Anonymous, known for their protests against the Church of Scientology.

Ah, the human race never ceases to amaze me. I just can't grasp how anyone would want to do such a horrible thing to innocent people. Epilepsy is not a joke -- it's a serious disease. People can lose consciousness during a seizure. People have even died from seizures.

The bright side of this incident is that it caused the Epilepsy Foundation to increase security on the forums. They also reacted very quickly to the incident, promptly shutting down the forums to remove the messages. Had they not done this, many more people would have suffered.

Happenings like this show that you do not need to be a super-smart hacking whiz to wreak havoc in cyberspace. Someone who knows nothing about hacking could have launched an attack like this. The way I see it, not much could have been done to prevent this attack. All it took was an anonymous user to enter the forum and post a message -- and even if the site requires you to make an account in order to post, the attacker could just use false information to make it harder to track him. Most message boards have moderators that monitor the posts, but the moderator is not online 24/7. Perhaps a good solution would be to implement a system where all posts containing embedded files (like images) must be approved by the moderator before they go public. Otherwise, forum users must proceed at their own risk and hope for the best.