18 Days of reckless computing

What happens when you purposely leave your computer open to the dangers of the internet?

What kind of idiot buys a computer and willingly – even eagerly – exposes it to all the malware and viruses he can? Me. I bought a Dell Dimension B110 ($468! Cheap!) and tried to kill it for more than two weeks. I clicked on every pop-up and downloaded the gnarliest porn, gambling, and hacker files I could find. It seems our Internet overlords are sterilizing spam. If I were to treat my body the way I treated this computer, I’d have yellow fever, bird flu, and Alzheimer’s. But the Dell? Eh. Somewhat the worse for wear.

Steve Knopper documents the entire process using a series of journal entries which describe the process of purchasing and purposely trashing a sysmte using your usual virus, malware, ands spyware crud.

An old “let’s prove how vulnerable PC’s are” mission journalized for all to see.