Mac Game/Trojan Wipes a File for Each Alien Killed
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!
- Intel Atom Support Returns in Latest Mac OS X
- Google Shows How Much of Your Data is Stored
- Super Talent USB 3.0 RAIDDrive is Super Fast
- Nvidia Making x86 CPU With Ex-Transmeta Brains?
- Blizzard Introduces Buying in-Game WoW Items
- Deals of the Day: More Hardware, Laptops, Games
- Microsoft Cuts Another 800 Workers From Staff
- Tuan: Follow Me on Twitter and Forums
- Updated! The MacPadd.com/David Free Ultimatum
- Modern Warfare 2 PC Won't Have Console
- EU to Offer Fileshares More Protection From ISPs
- Daily Deals: $400 Off HP TouchSmart and More
- Windows 7 Initial Sales Blast Past Windows Vista
- Ex-MSFT Employee: Microsoft Should Run Linux
- ECS Also Providing USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s Cards
- 50% Off Mass Effect This Weekend on Steam
- Bioware Details Mass Effect 2 Collectors' Edition
- Intel Accused of Giving Dell $6 Billion in Perks
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.
Enjoy mac boys and girls you are now in the club.
lol. I wonder if he got an A.
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
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.
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.
Wait a second let me make sure I get this correct. Someone wrote a game for a Mac?!?
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.
@ amplexis
There's quite a few games for mac, its not like the Linux situation.
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...
hey, there are plenty of games for linux, most of them open source, but we have them
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?
At least it's not another WW2 shooter
Alien's fire at you in lots of those top down arcade shooters.
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
@Curnel_D
Could'nt have put it better myself.
Another point though... Windows/Linux alternative? Sounds like fun =]
Moricon is absolutely right. Just like with anything else in life, if you can't read the warnings, you get what you deserve.
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.
Enjoy mac boys and girls you are now in the club.
While very funny, this isn't quite true. The game probably deletes files belonging to the user that is playing, or asks to run privileged so it can delete other files too. There is no exploit there...the user is already supposed to able to delete files they have permissions for.
So, I agree that this should be flagged by a/v software...but I don't really think you can count this one against mac or osx. You could just as easily write a Windows game to do this.
(and I'm usually the first in line to make fun of apple products)
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.
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.
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.
@ 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.
And people wonder why it can be hard to get a job with a Fine Arts degree.
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.
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.
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!
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.
This may be a very fun way to delete files for which you do not have access! (guest account)?
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.
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.