Stop press! The art of computer viruses may not be dead, after all.
Vancouver-based artist Bratsa Bonifacho says his latest collection of paintings has been inspired by computer malware.
One of Bonifacho's virus paintings is titled "Horty MyParty is Weird and Coolnow".
An unusual name, you might think, but it is apparently inspired by a number of viruses from yesteryear including VBS/Horty (which claimed to offer pornographic content of adult film star Jenna Jameson), 2002's MyParty email worm, and the CoolNow MSN Messenger worm.
In the words of the artist, his work..
"..explores the tensions between the logical, linear scripting of virus programs and their capacity for destruction. In the simplest terms, he imitates the effects of computer viruses and worms by scrambling letters and messages in his large-scale oil paintings. His work carries the elegance of programming code. It also indicates the deep layers of chaos and confusion caused by viruses."
Golly. What a chance I missed entering the field of computer security rather than art criticism. A layman like me wouldn't have understood that Bonifacho "communicates and expresses essentially non-verbal thoughts and emotions abstractly, within the discipline of formalism - through colour and shape, gesture and surface.." unless I had visited his website.
Today most malware isn't written to impress the virus writer's peers by spreading digital graffiti, but instead to stealthily steal information. As a result, the art we used to see from malware has pretty much disappeared.
Unlike the old days, most modern malware authors don't like their creations to draw attention to themselves by plotting Mandelbrot fractals on the screen (as the Tequila virus did) or swirling spiraling whirlpools (W32/Hybris) or give the opportunity to throw coconuts at members of the computer security community.
It's not just a visual art either.
In "the old days" some malware authors would sometimes spend months takibg care, honing their creation so that no anti-virus products would detect it, whereas today we see the result of mass-produced malware created on a conveyor belt.
Today's cybercriminal, in the main, doesn't care if some anti-virus products detect his or her code. After all, if this particular variant of the malware doesn't successfully infect computers there'll be another one along in a couple of minutes.
It's always been a bad thing and indefensible to spread malware irresponsibly and infect innocent people's computers, but there was some pride shown by (at least some of) their creators in the past in what they had written.
The old-school malware writers probably got a kick out of thinking that anti-virus companies were burning the midnight oil, attempting to find a way to make their anti-virus software detect infections reliably.
And although we in the anti-virus industry never appreciated their efforts, we could grudgingly concede that some of the cybercriminals had programming talent - albeit misdirected.
So, I think you could potentially argue that there was an art involved in virus-writing.
In the present day, however, we have to acknowledge that any pretence of "art" has been subsumed by mass-produced malware of typically poor quality.
Despite the efforts of painters such as Bratsa Bonifacho, the art of computer viruses is largely dead.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not shedding a tear for its loss. I just hope that one day it might be joined in its computer coffin with the insidious mass-produced data-stealing malware that many people are impacted by today.
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This is actually a thought provoking idea. Art is so subjective in it's existence that often it is difficult to decide whether it is art(istic) or not. Comparing the viruses of yesteryear with those of today does show us there was a level of artistic intent present then that is lacking now. Not that I'm shedding any tears for their disappearance either...
I always wanted to catch the one that tumbles (DOS mode) text down your screen - the description sounds pretty & I was using a floppy-only setup, so it wouldn't really hurt much
Sounds like you're describing the Cascade virus.
Now that sounds like a nice fun game. Setup virtual machines to try and fish for particular viruses. For a real challenge you go fishing for the older dos and windows 3.x ones.
VX heaven
Sadly not any more... (see https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/03/28/vx-hea... )
my "artistic appreciation" goes to the guys and girls who work to beat the virus writers and keep my computer clean and working for me. thanks, and i'll try to do my part by staying alert, and being cautious on the web.
Hear hear! I would agree with you that the ones who fight the malware, rather than write it, are the ones who deserve our admiration.
I think in many ways this isn't so much the death of the art of writing a virus as the widespread death of the art of coding in general. As programming has become more and more commercialized, a lot of originality in general has disappeared. It has become more about getting a piece of code out the door quickly and less about taking the time to refine it into something truly great.
I'd like to see malware writers get patents and copyrights on their works, then they
have to submit all their code to the U.S. Patent Office. How easy it would be then to
take stock of their creations and write code to protect us against theirs!
Now that is a grand idea! Patent malware! Then you can sue anyone who dares infringe on your patent. That is of course if you can find them.
"In the present day, however, we have to acknowledge that any pretence of "art" has been subsumed by mass-produced malware of typically poor quality."
Really? from what I've seen TLD4 is as good as anything from the time of the Black Baron, tight, cleaver and bug free.