Tech Bits: Hackers' posts on epilepsy forum cause migraines, seizures
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By The Associated Press
Computer attacks typically don’t inflict physical pain on their victims.
But in a rare example of an attack apparently motivated by malice rather than money, hackers recently bombarded the Epilepsy Foundation’s Web site with hundreds of pictures and links to pages with rapidly flashing images.
The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in some site visitors who viewed the images. People with photosensitive epilepsy can get seizures when they’re exposed to flickering images, a response also caused by some video games and cartoons.
The attack happened when hackers exploited a security hole in the foundation’s publishing software that allowed them to quickly make many posts and overwhelm the site’s support forums.
Within the hackers’ posts were small flashing pictures and links — masquerading as helpful — to pages that exploded with kaleidoscopic images pulsating with different colors.
“They were out to create seizures,” said Ken Lowenberg, senior director of Web and print publishing for the foundation.
He said legitimate users are no longer able to post animated images to the support forum or create direct links to other sites, and it is now moderated around the clock. He said the FBI is investigating the breach.
The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation’s site didn’t appear to care about profit. The harmful pages didn’t appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims’ computers, for instance.
In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people. That attack appeared to have been designed to cripple the computers of people using illegal copies of the software, researchers said.
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Research firm cuts into Sony’s lifespan claims for super-thin $2,500 TV
A Sony TV with novel display technology that has drawn rave reviews for image quality may actually last little more than half as long as the company claims, according to a test by a private research firm.
Sony’s XEL-1 is the first TV on the U.S. market that uses organic light-emitting diodes, which give a bright, colorful image while keeping power consumption low. The screen diagonal is just 11 inches, making it more of a conversation piece than the center of the living room, especially considering the price — $2,499.99.
DisplaySearch ran two XEL-1 units for 1,000 hours, and measured the drop in brightness. Extrapolating from that, they found it would take 17,000 hours for a display to lose half its brightness, a standard measure of display life.
Sony says the display lasts 30,000 hours, or 10 years of typical use. Spokesman Greg Belloni said that figure is based on years of tests and the company stands by it.
Poor longevity has been a problem with OLEDs, but Barry Young, senior adviser at DisplaySearch, said it has more or less been solved in the most recent iterations of the technology.
“The results demonstrate that the Sony display is significantly inferior in many ways to the current (OLED) designs,” DisplaySearch’s researchers wrote.
For example, Young said, Samsung makes a smaller OLED display for cell phones that lasts longer than Sony’s TV.
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Future dims for broadband over power lines as Texas network is sold to monitor grid
Goodbye, broadband over power lines. We hardly knew you.
Once touted as a possible third option for home broadband that could compete with phone and cable companies, the idea of providing Internet service over power lines now looks like it has died in infancy.
A Texas utility company said last week that it is taking control of the equipment that was to be used in the largest planned U.S. deployment of broadband over power lines, or BPL — and won’t be using it to provide Internet service.
Oncor Electric Delivery Co., the Dallas-based distribution arm of former TXU Corp., said it will buy the network from BPL technology provider Current Group LLC of Germantown, Md.
The network was to offer Internet service to 2 million electricity customers through their wall outlets. Instead, Oncor will use the data capabilities of the network to monitor the electric grid.
“Our business is delivering electricity, not being an Internet provider or a television provider,” said Oncor spokesman Chris Schein.
Other BPL trials have met with similar fates, though a few are still in operation. Compared to coaxial cables and copper phone lines, power lines are poor conduits for data. Some deployments also met fierce legal resistance from ham radio operators, who found that BPL created radio interference.
The Federal Communications Commission was a booster of BPL. FCC commissioner — now chairman — Kevin Martin said in 2004 that the technology had the potential to become an Internet solution “throughout the United States.”
Yet the FCC found only 4,776 BPL subscribers in the country at the end of 2006, the latest figures it has published.
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British defense ministry contest brings out flying saucers, mini-helicopters
LONDON — Emotion-detecting robot cars will face off against eavesdropping flying saucers in the English countryside when scientists, academics and schoolchildren compete later this year to design the next generation of military equipment.
The British Ministry of Defense’s first ever “Grand Challenge” intends to encourage participants to turn their ideas into prototypes for machines the army can use in urban environments.
The six finalists, who each received $600,000 to build such contraptions as a disc-shaped remote-controlled flying robots fitted with heat and motion sensors, were in London last week to display their models.
From Swarm Systems Ltd. comes a set of tiny helicopters that fly in formation into a village and record images and audio tracks to beam back to headquarters. And British aeronautical company BAE Systems teamed up with the University of Manchester to build a self-propelled, remote-controlled camera.
The Silicon Valley Group PLC, a small research company in southeast Britain, teamed with the Bruton School for Girls in Somerset to build an unmanned buggy that can analyze gunmen’s movements to determine whether they are angry or nervous.
“This project has really allowed us to broaden out our vision and look at what other work is being done out there in our field,” said Norman Gregory, the company’s business manager. “We are a small company and would not have been able to put together a consortium to develop such a sophisticated system without this competition.”
The government wanted participants to get schools involved, Gregory said, so the company consulted the Bruton School, which already sponsored robot design competitions.
Finalists will take part in a mock battle in August. The contest’s winner gets a trophy made from the recycled metal recovered from a WWII fighter jet. The best designs also will get further financial backing from Britain’s defense ministry.
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