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posted by Snow on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-wish-I-thought-of-that dept.

Laptop infected with six of the most destructive viruses sells for $1.9 million. [ed: Australian Dollars]

You wouldn't ordinarily want to seek out a computer with viruses installed, but that's exactly what the winner of a US$1.345 million auction just did – picking up a laptop crammed with the deadliest malware of our time in return for their cash.

The buyer remains anonymous but we know much more about the laptop, which is actually part of an art project by Chinese digital artist Guo O Dong. The piece is called The Persistence of Chaos.

Dong worked with cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct to load up the laptop with its dangerous code, and it's apparently air gapped, which means it has security measures that prevent it from connecting to any other networks, to stop it from spreading its malware further.

[...] Persistence of Chaos includes ILOVEYOU from 2000, a particularly damaging worm that came attached to an email with an "ILOVEYOU" subject header. It deleted local files when run, and is thought to have caused billions of US dollars' worth of damage before being stopped.

Also at ABC.net.au and Digital Trends.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:36PM (1 child)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:36PM (#849489) Journal

    Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut:

    "I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid."

    A million+ bucks for a crap filled laptop? Yeah, I feel stupid.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @03:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 31 2019, @03:13AM (#849604)

    Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut [a novelist]

    "I had no respect whatsoever for... the novelist"

    ... Yeah, I feel stupid.

    Mind boggles down.