Mac game deletes files everytime you shoot an alien

Zach Gage created quite a stir with a Mac video game that he developed as part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project. The game is named Lose/Lose, it looks a bit like Space Invaders but the unique thing about it is that for every alien space ship you shoot the game permanently deleted a random file on your hard drive. If the player's ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted. Gage seems quite amused, but security experts are a bit concerned:

On September 14, Gage posted his "Lose/Lose" game on his Web site and at the Experimental Gameplay Project, which links back to his site where he has a big warning in red: "KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANENTLY." The application also displays a warning when it is launched.

This week, Symantec announced that it has flagged the application as malware, a Trojan it has dubbed OSX.Loosemaque. Sophos is calling it a Trojan too, OSX/LoseGame-A and Intego has named it OSX/LoserGame.

"We are concerned that somebody could take this and modify it in some way where users aren't aware of the consequences," Kevin Haley, director of product management at Symantec Security Response, said in an interview on Wednesday. "We want to make people aware of what's on their machine and they can make the decision on whether to run it or not."

More details at CNET.