MIT Researcher 'Paints' Cyber Threats

By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer, Technology / Computer Sciences

In this photo provided by MessageLabs, Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu's visual representation of the "russian3" spam file is shown. Dragulescu was commissioned by MessageLabs, a computer security company, to artistically render computer spam, viruses and other cyber threats into a computational 3-D form. (AP Photo/ MessageLabs, Alex Dragulescu)

(AP) -- Cyber threats like NetSky, Mydoom and Parite are the bane of IT departments around the globe, but artist Alex Dragulescu has found subtle beauty deep within the dangerous computer code that can bring down networks and bombard e-mail inboxes with murderous spam.

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Posted by drknowledge 04/10/08 09:58

Rank: 4/5 after 1 vote

Good art, but so-so science. It's an artist's job to find interesting and meaningful patterns. It seems (to me, at least) the artist had a degree of success. In terms of being able to better analyze spam, the graphic presents a perspective, but it isn't a knowing one. To be knowing, it needs to present its assumptions. It's misleading to suggest that a pretty picture, in itself, in some way presents a verifiable, scientific truth.