6 ms·
The Persistence of Chaos - $1M for malware infected laptop
- isoprophlex 7y agoI guess if a room full of blenders filled with goldfish can be classified as art, this can be too. Whoever thinks of buying this: I'll get you one for half the price. It won't be "a work of art" but it will functionally be the same. I even promise I wont neuter it's LAN port.
- Quenty 7y agoArt pricing is weird https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/20/705278696/episode-189-why-a-dead-shark-costs-12-million https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/20/705278696/epis...
- downandout 7y agoI don’t get it. How could the reserve already be met for an old laptop with some malware on it? Current bid is $1,200,750. Is the “artist” very famous or something?
- edoo 7y agoYes I'd like to know how he is getting over $1M for this. I have an old laptop that would likely hold at least 7 pieces of malware.
- larrybeck 7y agoPure scam in operation here, no one is actually paying over $1M for this piece of junk chock full of viruses.
- ncmncm 7y agoIt's not uncommon -- especially where you don't have to pay an auctioneer -- to enter some number of fake bids to make it evident bidding has started. When there's just one, you can assume that happened, and impute no dishonesty. The reason an auctioneer matters is they typically are paid a (sometimes decreasing) percentage of the final bid, or a (sometimes lower) percentage of the reserve, if there are no bids. But details vary.
- 1023bytes 7y agoI checked the source of the page and there is a state object from Nuxt.js SSR. It says "totalBids:0"
- Thorrez 7y agoIt could be fake troll bids. Internet auctions of items deemed "funny" often accumulate a lot of fake bids from trolls who don't intend to pay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Artists-Beanie-/111913567870 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Artists-Beanie-/111913567870
- theturtletalks 7y agoRelevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/350/ https://xkcd.com/350/
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y agoAnd here's another one: https://xkcd.com/670/ https://xkcd.com/670/
- zzo38computer 7y agoI disagree with all of them. Maybe they have their own units, and a new model may have a louder setting than before but they want to keep ten the same as it was before, so they will put in eleven. If they make ten louder and make ten the highest, then the setting might be too coarse.
- justinclift 7y agoAmp knobs are analogue. ;)
- klingonopera 7y agoThat actually makes his original argument more valid, as that implies that the volume setting is infinitesimal, and thus a finer scale actually makes sense as it makes finer, more accurate adjustments easier.
- justinclift 7y agoReally not seeing how that makes it more valid. ;)
- skrebbel 7y agoWould be cool if the ILOVEYOU worm author sues for copyright breach.
- shshhdhs 7y agoDid that author actually copyright it though? Isn’t that a prerequisite?
- NikkiA 7y agoCopyright is automatic in almost all of the world except america, and even in america most forms of copyright do not require registration.
- code_duck 7y agoIt is automatic in the US. https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/software/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/software/ "Even if you don’t put that little © on your work, you automatically get copyright protection the instant your work of expression becomes fixed in a tangible medium. Theoretically, this means that you own the copyright, and no one may copy, distribute, display or make adaptations of the work without your permission." The difference is it must be registered for the creator to sue for monetary damages. https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/registration-and-enforcement/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/registration-and-... "You must register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office before you are legally permitted to bring a lawsuit to enforce it."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- repiret 7y agoA couple of additional points: * Registration is also needed to get the longest available copyright term. * There's no need for the registration to happen anytime near when the work is created or published. If I needed to sue someone for copyright infringement for a piece of software I wrote and published in 1998 and stopped maintaining in 1999, I could file the registration on Tuesday and the lawsuit on Wednesday.
- system2 7y agoHow is this even art? We literally have dozens of similar laptops with all those viruses.
- HenryBemis 7y agoI was curiours to read the 'terms & conditions', and I get a message: AccessDeniedAccess Denied9C4B36E7FC7ACA7FKsCbHsWgxW247njRoi1yEzHzhhyN26vG9Gf8OjWQPyLMf2/hVXnvQqZzGBuAxpBjMN0pReNJDYI= For the hell of it I will bid with a throwaway and see what are the next steps.
- HenryBemis 7y ago22 hours later and no email from that website. I think it is a very nicely spoof setup, perhaps they are harvesting names, surnames and emails of potentially rich and stupid people (in which case enjoy one of my fake accounts) *or" this is just part of the 'art' that leads to nowhere.
- chriselles 7y agoUse a Bedazzler to put rhinestones on it, get Damien Hirst to sign it, name it "For the Love of Technology", and it should sell for $50 million. Get Banksy to light it on fire and the molten slag should sell for at least $100 million. :)
- beautifulfreak 7y agoRichard Prince could take a photo of a photo of it too: https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691257/richard-prince-instagram-photos-copyright-law-fair-use https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691257/richard-prince-in...
- grepballsoffire 7y agoPerhaps the actual "artwork" is the auction itself, and we are all unwitting participants. Or it's just someone hoping to make some easy money.
- downandout 7y agoThat would be interesting. Save all the comments saying it’s a scam and maybe put them on constant scroll on the laptop’s screen. Name it Art of the Scam. Edit: Looking at it now, this appears to actually just be a somewhat clever way to get attention for “Deep Instinct” - a company that does some sort of malware threat detection.
- areoform 7y agoComments so far have been focused on a reductive analysis of the piece that reduces the work to its base components. Reducing Jeff Koons' One Ball Total Equilibrium to a tank of salt water and a basketball https://whitney.org/Education/EducationBlog/OnViewOneBallTotalEquilibrium https://whitney.org/Education/EducationBlog/OnViewOneBallTot... . Marco Evaristti's Helena to a goldfish in a blender http://artelectronicmedia.com/artwork/helena-by-marco-evaristti http://artelectronicmedia.com/artwork/helena-by-marco-evaris... . Or (more classically) Duchamp's fountain into a urinal. As modern art is meant to be bizarre, this reductio ad absurdum feels true but it isn't accurate in capturing the spirit and nature of these pieces. We have been trained to see most works on canvas as art first, layers of pigments second. Through education, the skill used to create them has become evident to all of us - thereby sanctifying them from these criticisms. Yet all art was subject to such criticism at one time or another. Some even going so far to call Munch's paintings "An abortion, a failure like those Zola described so well D'Oeuvre. Here is no longer a question of nature, only a bizarre madness, delirious moods, feverish hallucinations" and "Are those meant to be hands or are they blobs of fish mousse smeared in lobster sauce?" Sounds familiar? Art goes beyond the technicalities of the creation of the work itself. Art is a form of communication. An attempt to have a conversation with a society. Or an expression of the artist’s uniqueness. It can be that and so much more. The point of art does not have to be linear technical accomplishment, it can be the exploration of the bizarre and the strangeness of our world. The fish in a blender were put there as an invitation to kill a being. The point of the piece was the question, will a human being push the button? In a world where cruelty exists at a push of a button that is a valid and fascinating social experiment. This work is original and creative in the sense that it packs what wreaks our world into havoc into one device and puts it on the pedestal. Our world is increasingly governed by blips of code. Bad blips of code have caused billions of dollars in damage. In that laptop lies the power of immense destruction, contained in a cheap plastic container. What does it say about us when we look at it and the world we have wrought? Those are the questions that pop into my mind when I look at the work. That’s what I feel the artist is trying to communicate. We will at some point recognize the audacity of this piece as art as well. But we haven’t matured to that point yet. We still look at it as “blobs of fish mousse smeared in lobster sauce” Art is an ever-evolving conversation. All we have to do to appreciate it is… listen more closely and relax the preconceptions that cloud our mind. Let them all fall away to hear what the artist might have to say. It is far more interesting to look at art this way than the common, reductive lens.
- ineedasername 7y agoSure, I know it's not a contender for significant monetary damages, but I was disappointed not to see the Happy Birthday Shankar virus on the list. [0] In my early tech days riding the helpdesk in college, I'd heard about it and half thought it an urban legend. Then it hit campus, and I had to clean about a half dozen systems. Not a complex process, and more fun than most given that I could admonish the user, "You really should have wished Shankar a happy birthday." [0]https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/marker.shtml https://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/marker.shtml
- klingonopera 7y agoWhen reading through the list of malware, I would've really appreciated to see in which year they were discovered. That data allows me to put everything into context. I wish more people would be aware of the importance of dates.