AI
Saving Digital Culture Is Hard
Clash Royale has 300 million monthly players. But the game will not survive 700 years. The server is closed source. The code alone cannot recreate the multiplayer experience. The Internet Archive has preserved 44 million books, 15 million songs, 11 million movies, and 1 million programs that can be run in a browser emulator. That is the model for saving digital culture.
Running Viruses in the Browser
Mikko realized the MAME emulator could run old viruses. He sent samples to Jason Scott at the Internet Archive. They worked. The Malware Museum launched in 2016 and has been visited by over 2 million people. The viruses run in a JavaScript emulator inside the browser, sandboxed. No code executes on the host. Users can see old virus payloads like “Fortran must die” or the Cascade falling letters.
Old Virus Tricks and a Physical Museum
The oldest virus in the physical museum is Cascade from 1987. It makes characters fall to the bottom of the screen. Another virus, Casino, lets you gamble for your data. If you lose, it hangs the machine. The museum in Helsinki shows these and other viruses on real CRTs and emulators. The collection includes viruses from 1987 to modern ransomware. The museum has had 1,600 visitors in its first six months.
Art from Malware Binaries
The museum commissioned modern art inspired by malware. “Click for Love” is a sculpture made from over 800 pink computer mouses, symbolizing the ILOVEYOU worm that infected 200 million computers. Greg Linares created paintings by feeding malware binaries into Stable Diffusion. Four paintings are made from a Russian cyber weapon used in Ukraine. The art stays on display until the war ends.
34 Years and a New Mission
Mikko told the story of crashing his boss’s Saab 9000 Turbo while fetching a forgotten demo floppy. He was not fired. He stayed with the same company for 34 years. In his last talk, he announced he is leaving cybersecurity to join Sensor Fusion, a military contractor fighting drones in Ukraine. Finland shares a thousand-mile border with Russia. He said there is more meaning in that work now.
Notable Quotes
i do see the culture in malware. i do see the value in these old samples of viruses which were showing things that someone created. we should save them. Mikko Hypponen · ▶ 28:23
this belongs into a museum and the answer from the thief is that yes, but so do you. Mikko Hypponen · ▶ 33:16
i wasn’t fired. i was forgiven and i never got another job. i’m still with the same company today. Mikko Hypponen · ▶ 37:32
there’s more meaning for me right now in this work. Mikko Hypponen · ▶ 38:55
Key Takeaways
- The Malware Museum at archive.org has hosted over 2 million visitors running old viruses in their browsers.
- A physical art museum in Helsinki features art like a sculpture of 800 pink mouses representing the ILOVEYOU worm.
- Mikko Hypponen ended his 34-year cybersecurity career to work on drone defense in Ukraine.
About the Speaker(s)
Mikko Hypponen is a global security expert who has been working in malware research since 1991. He is currently the Chief Research Officer at WithSecure, a Helsinki-based security company. Mikko has published his research in The New York Times, Wired, and Scientific American. He has lectured at Oxford, Harvard, and MIT. Mr. Hypponen’s research team was the first to locate, analyze, and develop protection against the ILOVEYOU email worm - the largest malware outbreak in history. Mikko is also the curator for The Malware Museum at The Internet Archive and for The Museum of Malware Art in Helsinki.