10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17425
application/pdf
2038-3460
17425
1
en
Denis Roio
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
ASCII Shell Forkbomb (Cover’s Comment)
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
10
Editorial
2019-07-16
2023-06-26
2019-07-16
2023-10-05
TS
Denis Roio
2019/07/16
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17425
2038-3460
1
en
ASCII Shell Forkbomb (Cover’s Comment)
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17425/16276
10
                                                     Cover’s comment


ASCII Shell Forkbomb (2002) by Jaromil

This forkbomb is a kind of poetic virus. If its visually attractive line of
only thirteen characters is entered into the command line of a Unix sys-
tem and the enter key is pressed, within seconds the computer will crash
because the devious little program commands it to make multiple copies
of itself, setting off a chain reaction and thus quickly exhausting the sys-
tem’s resources. In considering a source code as literature, I am depicting
viruses as poésie maudite, giambi against those selling the Net as a safe
area for a bourgeois society. The relations, forces and laws governing the
digital domain differ from those in the natural. The digital domain pro-
duces a form of chaos – sometimes uncomfortable because unusual, alt-
hough fertile – to surf thru: in that chaos viruses are spontaneous compo-
sitions, lyrical in causing imperfections in machines made to serve and in
representing the rebellion of our digital serfs.


https://jaromil.dyne.org/journal/forkbomb.html
