There's a lot of nonsense on the internet about whether anime is "good" or "a mistake," but this story definitely makes me lean a little towards the latter. A new malware called Rensenware is somewhat of a joke on Ransomeware, a type of malware that holds your files ransom until you pay the hacker a certain amount of money. Rensenware, however, hold your files ransom until you score over 200 million points in anime shooter Touhou Seirensen (Undefined Fantastic Object)'s "lunatic" level.
Yep, it's as crazy as it sounds. Rensenware was developed by a Korea-based student, who made it as a joke—the name itself is a pun on Touhou Seirensen. And if you're wondering how difficult that game's lunatic level is, then check out the video at the top of the article. Kotaku spoke to the student and learned that even he can't reach that score, which is funny considering he infected his own computer with the malware while programming it.
But he wasn't the only one who was affected by it. After uploading the malware to GitHub, he went to sleep and, upon waking up, realized that it had spread in a way that he wasn't prepared for. The student then designed a piece of software that kills Rensenware and uploaded it to GitHub. Along with the software, he apologized for the mayhem it caused.
"I'd like to apologize [to] everyone for making [them] shocked or annoyed," the apology read. "Ransomeware is definitely kind of highly-fatal malware, but I made it. I made it for [a] joke and just laughing with people who like Touhou Project series."
I'm sure you already knew this, but this story is a good reminder that it's probably best you don't download anything strange off the internet unless you know exactly what it is.
