Saturday, 18 March 2017

Md. man accused of sending seizure-inducing tweet to Newsweek writer who has epilepsy

quote [ John Rayne Rivello faces a charge of cyberstalking, the Justice Department said. Newsweek said the target was one of its writers, Kurt Eichenwald, an epileptic who has criticized President Trump. ]

Damn, that's some creative cyberstalking. More like cyber-assault really.


From WaPo:

Reveal

Md. man accused of sending seizure-inducing tweet to Newsweek writer who has epilepsy
By Martin Weil
March 18 at 12:59 AM

A Maryland man was arrested Friday on a cyberstalking charge in connection with allegedly sending an epilepsy sufferer an animated Twitter message telling the victim that “you deserve a seizure,” federal officials said.

The victim has been identified as a Newsweek writer who is a critic of President Trump.

Newsweek said the victim was Kurt Eichenwald, a senior writer. The Justice Department said that after viewing the strobe image, the victim “immediately suffered a seizure.”

Eichenwald has written for Newsweek about having epilepsy.

Cyberspace is filled with harsh exchanges. However, the allegations in this case suggest it may be one of the first in which physical harm resulted from receipt of a cybermessage.

The suspect was identified by the Justice Department as John Rayne Rivello, 29, of Salisbury, Md. The department said he was arrested Friday in Maryland on a criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of Texas. Eichenwald lives in Dallas.

The Twitter message told the recipient “you deserve a seizure for your post,” according to a statement from the Justice Department. The statement did not name the alleged victim.

On his Twitter feed, Eichenwald said that the FBI had arrested “the man who assaulted me using a strobe on twitter that triggered a seizure.” The Dallas police also investigated.

The matter apparently can be traced back to last year.

In October, shortly after publishing an article about Trump’s conflicts of interest, Eichenwald said that he received a video from a Twitter account that listed “Mike’s Deplorable AF” as the handle.

According to a Newsweek article, Eichenwald said the video contained strobe lights, flashing circles and a picture of Pepe the Frog flying at the screen. Eichenwald said the images were designed to trigger an epileptic seizure.

He said he avoided injury by dropping his iPad facedown on the floor. Writing about the incident in Newsweek at the time, he said he expected more attacks to follow.

A similar message was received Dec. 15, Eichenwald said. He said he did go into convulsions.

His assailant, he said, knew “his actions could injure me, and he succeeded.”

In its statement, the Justice Department said evidence received pursuant to a search warrant turned up an iCloud account with a screenshot of “a Wikipedia page for the victim.”

The complaint said the shot had been altered to show a fake obituary, with the date of death listed as Dec. 16, 2016.

[SFW] [science & technology] [+4 WTF]
[by sanepride@5:40pmGMT]

Comments

midden said[1] @ 1:27am GMT on 19th Mar
This seems a little odd, as most photosensitive epileptics require a very specific frequency to trigger a seizure, and that frequency varies from person to person. Was Eichenwald short-sighted enough to actually identify the specific frequency he is sensitive to in his previous Newsweek article about his condition?

(edit)
I think this is the article in which he spoke of his epilepsy:
http://www.newsweek.com/sean-hannity-lies-hillary-clinton-health-490469

Here's a great line:
"I know this response to Sean Hannity is a little raw, but as someone with epilepsy, I hope my editors will let this slip through: Fuck you, Sean. Your willingness to deceive your viewers—to degrade those of us with epilepsy, to suggest something is a seizure when it looks nothing like one, to leave people dumber about this condition—is unforgivable."
Emphasis in original.

zarathustra said @ 1:39am GMT on 19th Mar
I read another article on it that mentioned all the things you bring up but said that with some study and some luck ( that the victim had a screen that filled most of his field of vision, that while an LCD would do it would be more likely to work with an older monitor, etc) it was possible. Still failed or not, according to what they guy said in his other posts sounds like if he had killed the guy it would qualify as a depraved heart murder.
midden said @ 1:45am GMT on 19th Mar
Oh, yeah, he's still guilty as all get-out, and it's certainly possible; it just seems highly unlikely that some Bumbletrump supporter from across the Bay Bridge is going to luck out and hit the exact frequency to cause the reporter to have a seizure.
hellboy said @ 1:47am GMT on 21st Mar
Even if it didn't work it'd be an unmistakeable "fuck you" message. And yeah, the intent to harm seems pretty clear.

Eichenwald is a douchebag with paranoid tendencies, so it wouldn't surprise me if he was lying about having the seizure though. Sounds like he'd have to be holding the iPad up to his nose.
Bob Denver said @ 5:52am GMT on 19th Mar
Weaponised e-mails... I fear that the Donald might enhance his tweets under the new military budget...

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