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Mac Game/Trojan Wipes a File for Each Alien Killed

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3:10 PM - November 5, 2009 by Jane McEntegart

A new piece of software developed by Fine Arts student Zach Gage is making waves in the security community.

As part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage wrote a game for Macs that deletes files from your machine as you play. Dubbed Lose/Lose, the title sees the player take on the role of a space captain on a "seemingly endless quest to destroy attacking aliens." Each alien is represents a file on your computer. Killing the alien means destroying that file. You have one life and if an alien touches you, you explode and the application will delete itself.

Describing the program as "a videogame with real life consequences," Zach says he tried to explore what it means to kill in a videogame. On his website, the student says that while touching the aliens will lose you the game and killing them will get you points, the aliens don't actually fire at you. "This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics," writes Gage. "Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?"

However exploratory, experimental or just interesting it seems, users are warned several times before they download and before they play that Lose/Lose will result in the permanent deletion of files from your hard drive and CNet reports that Symantec, Sophos and Intego have flagged the application as malware, with each of them calling the "Trojan" OSX.Loosemaque, OSX/LoseGame-A and OSX/LoserGame, respectively.

What do you think, malware or just harmful game? Let us know in the comments below!

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Talkback
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sstym 11/05/2009 2:31 PM
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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.

nforce4max 11/05/2009 2:34 PM
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Enjoy mac boys and girls you are now in the club.

adaman2576 11/05/2009 2:34 PM
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lol. I wonder if he got an A.

mindless728 11/05/2009 2:36 PM
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wow, i suddenly want to put mac OSX in a VM and play this game, once to get points, once to see how long i can dodge the aliens until i die

moricon 11/05/2009 2:36 PM
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What I would like to do is see if it would be possible to play without getting killed before all my files have been deleted and the OS crashes, sounds like fun to me, Brilliant piece of software really, and it is without a doubt electronic art in its purest form.

And if you read the warnings and still play knowing full well it will delete your files then its your own fault and that is just tough luck for you.

SneakySnake 11/05/2009 2:45 PM
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I tried it out on my MBP on little while ago ( I was wiping the HDD anyways). It does what he says, and its a sombering feeling knowing that the better you doing the worse off your computer/files are.

amplexis 11/05/2009 2:48 PM
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Wait a second let me make sure I get this correct. Someone wrote a game for a Mac?!?

copperbottoms 11/05/2009 2:51 PM
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SneakySnake 11/05/2009 2:52 PM
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Transmaniacon 11/05/2009 2:53 PM
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I bet there are plenty of Mac people out there who will disregard that warning because they think their Mac is immune to any viruses or malware...little do they know...

mindless728 11/05/2009 2:53 PM
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hey, there are plenty of games for linux, most of them open source, but we have them

Curnel_D 11/05/2009 2:57 PM
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sstym :
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.


This is an awful comparison. Think of it more like an innocent moron, walking up to someone's house, and finding a 'letter bomb' which clearly has warnings written all over it. They then take the letter bomb, bring it into their own home full of valuables, and open it just to see what's inside.

I'd love to see someone trying to explain to a judge that they purposely downloaded a clearly marked virus, ignored their anti-malware software warnings, and deleted all their files simply because they were too ignorant to understand what "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK" means.

How are you even accessing the internet?

r0x0r 11/05/2009 2:57 PM
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At least it's not another WW2 shooter

Anonymous 11/05/2009 3:00 PM
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sqhacker 11/05/2009 3:01 PM
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So in my opinion i think that its not malware, thats like getting a toy with assymbly instructions, if you fail to read the instructions then you put yourself at risk of destroying the product, i say the warnings are valid and it has many applications of study and psychological advance, but thats just my opinion

homrqt 11/05/2009 3:14 PM
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This concept is very deep if you think about it. Our brains are programmed to automatically start playing this game as a classic starshooter, and now we have to fight our impulses and think about the consequences of our actions before we actually start playing. I'll be rolling this article around in my head for a few hours now. =p

Anonymous 11/05/2009 3:27 PM
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@Curnel_D

Could'nt have put it better myself.


Another point though... Windows/Linux alternative? Sounds like fun =]

mwbeatty 11/05/2009 3:27 PM
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Moricon is absolutely right. Just like with anything else in life, if you can't read the warnings, you get what you deserve.

MustWarnOthers 11/05/2009 3:37 PM
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homrqt :
This concept is very deep if you think about it. Our brains are programmed to automatically start playing this game as a classic starshooter, and now we have to fight our impulses and think about the consequences of our actions before we actually start playing. I'll be rolling this article around in my head for a few hours now. =p



I SORT of understand where you're coming from, but the consequences of our actions when playing video games differs extremely from the consequences of our actions in real life.

The whole point of video games, in addition to entertainment, is that those consequences are....inconsequential. We go into them knowing we can abandon reason, morality (if we so choose) etc.

Looking back on that one time I dressed up in a clown costume and unloaded an assault rifle at a water park, I really don't think having played this game would have made me thought about the consequences.

nekatreven 11/05/2009 3:38 PM
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mman74 11/05/2009 3:41 PM
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They got this wrong. Surely it should be if you lose a life then it deletes a file. Play this on your work computer and it will be like playing Russian Roulette.
Gives it a Tron like feel. Lose a life - lose your life, or at least your job.

joebob2000 11/05/2009 3:48 PM
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homrqt :
This concept is very deep if you think about it. Our brains are programmed to automatically start playing this game as a classic starshooter, and now we have to fight our impulses and think about the consequences of our actions before we actually start playing. I'll be rolling this article around in my head for a few hours now. =p



Are these tendencies ingrained in us because of these other games, or is it something more primordial? It would be interesting to find a pool of people unexposed to video games but otherwise computer-aware, and see how they deal with the concept.

Anonymous 11/05/2009 3:56 PM
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His website has a clear warning - not sure if the software when run shows a similar clear warning (fine print does not count IMHO). I don't agree with producing a game that could render a machine badly crippled. However, if his program moved a file to a documented location, allowing one to get it back, I'd be a bit less hostile to the concept.

datawrecker 11/05/2009 4:03 PM
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SneakySnake :
@ amplexisThere's quite a few games for mac, its not like the Linux situation.



Actaully it is a small conversion to get Mac games to work on Linux. Windows games can work on linux as well with the use of WINE or other such emulators.

steveoh 11/05/2009 4:06 PM
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And people wonder why it can be hard to get a job with a Fine Arts degree.

gcolefla 11/05/2009 4:13 PM
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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 11/05/2009 4:15 PM
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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 11/05/2009 4:43 PM
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gutpunch 11/05/2009 4:43 PM
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Welcome to the jungle! LOL @ the tools who spend astronomical amounts on Macs and have this false sense of security. Hey guess what... you guys shoulda kept it a small group of people. 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.

supertrek32 11/05/2009 4:55 PM
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sstym :
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.


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 11/05/2009 5:17 PM
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This may be a very fun way to delete files for which you do not have access! (guest account)?


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