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McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Retraction: There is In Fact Such a Thing as
a Virus that Puts Porn on Your Computer.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/retraction-there-is-in-fact-such-a-thing-as-a-virus-that-puts-porn-on-your-computer

RETRACTION: THERE IS IN FACT SUCH A THING AS A VIRUS THAT PUTS PORN ON YOUR
COMPUTER.

[Originally published July 9, 2010.]

This past month I published an article in the *Michigan Journal of
Theoretical Computer Science* entitled, “The Myth of the Porno Virus,” the
principal contention of which was that there does not exist—nor has there
ever existed—a computer virus that populates a victim’s hard drive with
sexually explicit images and videos. Further, I argued that in virtually
all instances in which such a virus has been suspected, it was merely some
dude trying to hide the fact that he’s a porn hound from his girlfriend or
whatever.

Since the publication of this article, however, I have become aware of
additional research that effectively contradicts my earlier findings. Some
of this research was communicated to me by a number of concerned
researchers through letters and e-mails, while in other cases the research
was whispered angrily over the phone late at night. Someone even threw some
research through the windshield of my car while I was in Pathmark.

In light of this new evidence, I have no choice, evidently, but to rescind
my previous claims. There is definitely, for absolute sure, a virus that
puts pornography on your computer. It is a real thing that actually exists.
And for my prior error in scientific judgment, I throw myself upon the
mercy of the research community, as it were.

A great deal is already known about how the virus works. In almost all
cases, it is downloaded onto a victim’s computer from a trojan website such
as 1800flowers.com or zales.com. Upon initialization, the virus begins
aggregating pornography from the Web—either at random, or else in an
algorithmic pattern based on sexual proclivities diametrically opposed to
the victim’s—and deposits it in a not-especially-well-hidden folder
somewhere on the victim’s machine. The virus also floods the victim’s
browser histories with compromising records, sometimes in a fashion that
coincidentally correlates with times the victim was necessarily alone in
the apartment.

Early data indicate that this virus is responsible for as much as 98
percent of all apparent consumption of online pornography. No one really
looks at that stuff. The virus has even been linked to similar malware
programs, such as one that causes a victim’s computer to compulsively check
his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page, as well as this one that generates
e-mails (again, by some algorithm or something) that make it seem as if the
victim were cheating on you with Christine.

Fortunately, the virus can be neutralized simply by deleting the offensive
material from the hard drive in question and never speaking about it again.
And while there are no effective measures or anti-virus software packages
capable of preventing it from striking again, any repeated contamination
should only be construed as further proof of the virus’s existence.

In the end, we can only speculate about the forces that lead to the
creation of this virus. Perhaps it was designed by the porn industry itself
to generate artificial demand for its unpopular products, or else as part
of a campaign to break up otherwise rock-solid couples in order that the
heartbroken parties would look for solace in the cold, cold embrace of
commodified sex. We may never know. Although I, personally, would accept
any halfway-plausible explanation someone offered.

I’d only like to stress, by way of a conclusion, that we must remain
vigilant. Again, this virus is 100 percent not made-up, and every time
someone questions its existence it only grows incrementally stronger. We
may allow ourselves to be disgusted by it—or even to hate it with the whole
of our collective sense of human decency—but its reality must be doubted by
no one. Especially the wives of the two researchers waiting for me out in
the parking lot.


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

Sent from my iPhon