Mac Game/Trojan Wipes a File for Each Alien Killed

[gcolefla]

I like the piece. It throws the user into a war situation where you are the only aggressor. The creatures don't really try to harm you, if they hit you the application just deletes itself. So you are responsible for your own aggression. I know I wouldn't want to play it though because of the damage it could do.

 

[beergoggles]

A Fine Arts degree with the skillz to program a game in a Mac land. Sounds like this cat has some real broad capabilities. I don't expect to see him sitting in a cubicle answering to some stressed out "checkbox" middle-manager anytime soon.

 

[zoobiewa]

copperbottoms "How does it possibly explore what it means to kill in a game? You aren't hurting other people like real killing, you're destroying your own computer. This is an exercise in masochism, not morality."

Oh that's right. It's completely impossible to kill brain cells too. Killing is only OTHER things! This could NEVER be similar to what real viruses do, attack and kill immune cells in the body. Holy crap! What a completely inauthentic game!

 

[Supertrek32]

[citation][nom]sstym[/nom]Clearly malware. Even if you warn them beforehand, the average user is very likely to ignore the warning, in this case because it is a game. Try sending people low power letter bombs that will merely damage their hands, but with a red letter warning that reads "Letter Bomb, open at your own risk". Someone is bound to open the letter at some point.Then good luck telling the judge it was a social experiment and you gave adequate warning.[/citation]
Except he's not forcing it into your hands, or even telling you to take it. He's sitting on his lawn with a stack of letter-bombs saying anyone who wants one can take it. Kind of like a lemonade stand, but the sign says, "LETTER BOMBS!" in big, bold, red letters.

If you look at the site, it says right above the download link, in big, bold, red letters, "KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANANTLY."

Being stupid should not mean it's someone else's fault.

 

[njalterio]

This may be a very fun way to delete files for which you do not have access! (guest account)?

 

[Guest]

Not 'deep', not impressive...

Just a fine arts grad student writing the metaphorical "paper about writing a paper". This is the least amount of effort Zach Gage could put into a thesis.

Software of this complexity would take even a novice developer less than a week to create. Writing some feigned 'deeper meaning' into the subtext can only fool those that are fooled by the 'supernatural' or Internet scams.

 

[ominous prime]

Definitely malware, I can see people installing this from a flash drive on people's computers and destroying all kinds of files. And glad they wrote it for mac now as well. I think we can expect a lot more malware coded for OSX. Hope you're ready Apple, the days where you could claim "no viruses" are over.

 

[Honis]

Yes it's malware. Nothing is stopping someone from downloading this, removing warnings, and redistributing with the tag "Hey, check out this awesome game for Macs!" It will work on mac users just as it has worked on windows users.

 

[pbrigido]

I killed 1,203,395 aliens and my computer still works.

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

But can it delete Crysis?

 

[jecastej]

I don't need to be a programer to create a trap. That is what our ancestors did to have a meal. And any walking creature passing by could.... booooring!!! Anyone could be trapped.

It proves nothing new on anything. Is it a programing achievement or else
A way to delete real files... yeah

 

[jecastej]

By the way, congrats on a promising starting career in the borders of legality and mediocre intentions. You should be a lawyer

 

[wildwell]

Russian roulette in space?

I'd like to remind everyone that Tom's is currently conducting a poll regarding a Mac OS forum:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/32340-12-forum

 

[92Sileighty]

[citation][nom]copperbottoms[/nom]What a ridiculously fartsy idea... Digital art?? How does it possibly explore what it means to kill in a game? You aren't hurting other people like real killing, you're destroying your own computer. This is an exercise in masochism, not morality.A video game with real life consequences would harm others through the player's aggression and harm the player for being injured or destroyed etc. If you're going to try and simulate real life consequences at least pick a reasonable scenario.[/citation]

I am continually surprised at what is passed off as ART these days.

 

[tjhva]

[citation][nom]92Sileighty[/nom]I am continually surprised at what is passed off as ART these days.[/citation]

I wish I was surprised at how little the public understands how to interpret art. If it's not dealing with beauty it's not art? Post modernism smashed all those walls.

 

[Yoder54]

[citation][nom]gutpunch[/nom]Now you have to deal with the same issues as Windows except - oh thats right - you haven't had the years of dealing with jerks like this guy in the article.[/citation]

If all viruses and malware came packaged like this chap did his, then it would be a great world for computers. I do not consider this malware, but a reality based game. If only all games had real consequences.

This has nothing to do with the attacks on Windows over the years in that this game gives you a choice. All of the viral attacks on Win have not given the user any real choice as to whether you want to download it nor do they warn you of any adverse consequences. It could be argued that people make choices to download the various infections, but that is the result of their own stupidity.

 

[megamanx00]

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha .................................

The evil laughter will not stop.

 

[lowguppy]

It is indeed art. By the standard they use to call this malware, any disk tools that can format your hard drive are malware. How about back in the day when you could type "format C:\" from a DOS prompt and wipe your disk without so much as a warning?

Personally, I think this is the most actually genius thing ever associated with an apple product.

 

[lowguppy]

Actually, flagging it as malware could be justifiable for these companies for the sake enterprise environments using their products. That is if third party malware tools are actually used on Macs in such environments.

 

[datawrecker]

[citation][nom]njalterio[/nom]This may be a very fun way to delete files for which you do not have access! (guest account)?[/citation]

Think Apple already owns the rights to that game. It's called OSX 😛.

 

[war2k9]

Mac user WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!

 

[rooket]

Wow and I thought macs were crippled enough already. Nice game.

 

[datawrecker]

While technically not malware since the author divulges what is will happen and give the user an out before starting the game, this certainly does have the potential to become malware.

Image a slight modification, have the core of it hidden behind a program; an instant messanger for example. With every keystroke on IM a file gets deleted.

 

[ordos96]

My biggest concern with this, is that you can download it, so whats to stop someone from putting it up on the internet elsewhere advertised as just a game? For the sake of his thesis he could have made this loaded it up on a virtual MAC and shown how it worked that way without spreading it to the internet where it could potentially fall into the hands of someone with malicious intent.

 

[runmymouth]

Imagine if you modified it to delete a file every time they clicked the mouse button. Then imagine putting this on someone's computer you hated.