65 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
65 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
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# Irradiate v0.1
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#### Evelene Ultraviolet
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#### July 2019
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#### AGPL v3
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---
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### Oh no, what is it this time?
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Irradiate is a program for messing up your files. It does so in a manner reminiscent of how high-energy
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charged particle damage to the data storage medium might manifest - flipped bits inserted in a random fashion.
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---
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### What it does
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When called on a file, Irradiate opens the file in read-write mode, seeks to a selectable number of
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random positions on the file, and sets single bits to certain values. You can tell it to either set the bits to
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a randomly-selected state (the default), or to only zero them (using `--zero`), only one them (using `--one`),
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or flip them (using `--flip`). If you please, you can also give a "holdoff" value to protect a certain number
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of bytes at the beginning of the file, e.g. to prevent a header from being corrupted and rendering a file
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unopenable, using the `--holdoff` flag.
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Be warned! This program *will* corrupt any file you point it at. It does **not** copy the input file like a
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normal converter program does; it operates in-place. If you want to preserve the original file, you need to copy
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it to a new location *before* you run Irradiate on it.
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---
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### Why would you want to do this?
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As is typical of our projects, you likely would not.
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However, we think it might be useful for glitch art.
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---
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### Why does it only operate on files in-place?
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The decision to do this was made the way it was due to the fact that real high-energy radiation does not
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helpfully make copies of your files before it messes with them - it, like this program, simply damages them where
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they lie. It's more immersive this way.
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For maximum immersion, you can run Irradiate on a block device, like a USB flash drive or SD card. This probably
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requires running it as root, which is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it, but it's an option if you feel like
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disregarding this advice.
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Irradiate does not offer the option to operate recursively on directories, for reasons which are hopefully not too
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difficult to imagine.
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---
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### Can this program actually damage my computer, or hurt me, the way real ionizing radiation could?
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This program does not produce ionizing radiation. It may seem like it goes without saying, but we will clarify it
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anyway. `irradiate` cannot directly cause harm to your body.
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As for your computer, well... We do not recommend you run this as root, especially against targets like:
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- Your kernel
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- Your initramfs
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- Your computer's EFI firmware
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- Important block devices, such as your system's boot medium
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- `/dev/mem`
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Treat this program like you would `rm` or `shred`. The files it acts on should be considered lost, and any
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resemblance they bear to the originals considered as a happy accident.
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All this being said: if you ever *do* run Irradiate on some important system of device file and something funny
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or cool happens... let us know, yeah?
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