Also from that Wiki entry:

In Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, showing a maliciously-crafted black-and-white bitmap to a person familiar with binary numbers can cause their brain to be reprogrammed. These images tap into the brain’s lower-level functioning which, the book suggests, all humans share. Thus, showing someone familiar with binary results in the reprogramming, regardless of what language they speak, because, the book suggests, each individual’s understanding of spoken language is built on top of the brain’s lower-level functioning. If the image is crafted properly, the binary message bypasses the spoken-language level of understanding and reaches the framework on which higher thought is built.