An artist created malware to subject computers to the Covid-19 pandemic

What if running your computer reflected the health conditions around your home?

« epidemic pulse [le pouls de la pandémie] It is a malicious program that infects computer resources with the same rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths from your site. »This strange project I spotted MotherboardJustin Blinder’s work. Artist, technologist and researcher in his words. The author of the program had published it in February and then put it away from the decline of the epidemic. It was the emergence of the delta variant that eventually prompted him to republish it.

Using his tool, the artist wishes to present a different perception of the health crisis. He wants to understand the production of impressive numbers about the pandemic, numbers that are frequently referenced thanks to sites like covid tracker. The tool is based on US data produced by the CDC and therefore does not work with the French, but it still offers an interesting approach. ” The app recontextualizes relevant epidemiological data on a pandemic and attempts to make them tangible and relevant at a personal level », details Blinder on its website. Through his computer, the spectator should be able to imagine the state of health.

voluntary malware

In detail, Pandemic Pulse will slow down the CPU (the main computational component of your computer) based on the local infection rate, while the screen brightness will be reduced compared to the covid mortality rate. The computer will therefore react to the health situation surrounding the user’s area.

Although Pandemic Pulse can be described as “malware” (or malware), its victims deliberately infected themselves by participating in the experiment, and the artist never intended to infect third-party computers. The program is prominently displayed on the computer and can be activated and deactivated with a single click. To reassure even the most suspicious of people, Justin Blinder posted the source code for his tool on GitHub.

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