Typically, you would only expect to see computer loaded with six of the most infamous malware programs in history in the possession of, say, late ‘90s video game pirates or senior citizens who just discovered internet pornography, not a technology-focused artist and a cyber security company. But, it’s the latter—Guo O Dong and Deep Instinct—that are showing off their nightmare of a virus-choked laptop in a current livestream.
The stream is part of a project titled The Persistence of Chaos, an art project that involves a Samsung netbook running Windows XP, living in what we can only imagine is silent, machine-torment, after having been deliberately infected with, as the site puts it, “6 pieces of malware that have caused financial damages totaling $95B.” Those programs include a real demonologist’s notebook of headline-making viruses, like WannaCry, ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, BlackEnergy, SoBig, and DarkTequila. Dong and Deep Instinct are selling the plagued work as an art installation, taking bids for a sale that presumably doesn’t include the “isolated and airgapped” quarantine chamber it currently lives in so as “to prevent against spread of the malware.”
In a comment to Forbes’ Curtis Silver, Dong explains that he “created The Persistence of Chaos because I wanted to see how the world responds to and values the impact of malware.” Silver, giving a more thorough critique of the item he dubs “the most dangerous laptop in the world,” calls it “a statement of social anarchy, of controlled chaos, and an exposé of how fragile our machine-connected lives really are,” which seems a bit more fitting.
If this sort of technological schadenfreude does it for you, keep an eye on this poor machine by checking out the Twitch stream or making a bid on the auction page for yourself.
[via Forbes]
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