back to article V&A Museum shows Guardian's destroyed MacBook as ART

The remains of computer hardware which had contained the Guardian's London trove of Snowden documents – and which was destroyed on the rather spiteful demands of GCHQ personnel – have gone on display at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. While the frankly unremarkable remnants of a MacBook Air are uninteresting in and of …

  1. Ole Juul

    me

    " who among us has not taken an angle grinder to an errant machine?"

    Though I have administered some cruel and unusual punishment to the odd computer over the years - the worst being from a keyboard.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: me

      And me.

      Computers are people too, and personal computers are family.

      Maybe a stern talking to or a detailed expression of one's disappointment would be in order, but not physical abuse. Not civilised at all.

      1. IHateWearingATie

        Re: me

        It's not hardware that annoys me, its software. Now we get everything digitally, there are no more CDs to frisbee across the room in frustration.

        Its a good thing iTunes never had a physical manifestation when I was using it in the past - an angle grinder would have been the least of its worries.

      2. Hairless Biker
        Mushroom

        Re: me

        Agreed, computers need love and understanding, and an occasional gentle admonishment when stepping out of line.

        Printers, on the other hand... (see icon)

        1. Mark 85

          Re: me

          Gentle words has never worked for me. I find that threatening to turn them into a boat anchor usually brings them inline pretty quick.

    2. Allan George Dyer

      Re: me

      Me too.

      Though I will admit drilling through a stack of CD-ROMs.

  2. Cliff

    What makes art?

    We either follow Duchamp down a navel gazey road of contrived construct and pretension which in itself makes a mockery of the commercial art world, or we go with context.

    If it was (say) Damien Hurst destroying a laptop, it would be pretentious bollocks, but if it was destroyed out of seeming spite for having held leaked secrets (as if sedition rubs off on electronic components) within the wider picture of the public becoming alarmed and educated about how their own governments spy on them...

    This one is about the context. The art isn't the item you're seeing, or how it's arranged, it's what it represents by the fact that someone has thought it worthy of exhibition.

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: What makes art?

      This one is about the context. The art isn't the item you're seeing, or how it's arranged, it's what it represents by the fact that someone has thought it worthy of exhibition.

      In fact that is a pretty good definition of art right there. I mean art as different from illustration or commercial art. Have an upvote!

      1. Anonymous IV

        Re: What makes art?

        "Art is anything you can get away with" - Marshall McLuhan.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What makes art?

      >The art isn't the item you're seeing

      Ceci n'est pas une Macbook?

      1. AbelSoul
        Trollface

        Re: >The art isn't the item you're seeing

        This is not the droid art you are looking for.

      2. nichomach

        Re: What makes art?

        http://images.cryhavok.org/d/16306-1/Ceci+N_est+Pas+Une+Lune.png

        I have a very bad feeling about this...

      3. JimmyPage Silver badge
        Headmaster

        une Macbook

        or un Macbook ?

    3. Bob Wheeler

      Re: What makes art?

      I guess this starts to blur the lines from traditonal (Turner, DeVinchi etc) art, through modern (Herst etc) art into political statement.

      but when you get statements like this "... enables us to focus on often difficult-to-grasp questions about who owns our digital data and the right to privacy .."

      For myself (YMMV) it just seems to more of a political point than art.

    4. graeme leggett Silver badge

      Re: What makes art?

      As an exhibit - better suited for a museum of computing, as a "famous computer" because the bits of themselves are only factual.

      Now if someone had reused the pieces to represent the act of destruction, or the overbearing state, by for example laying them out to spell "1984" then that might be a bit arty.

    5. Geoffrey W

      Re: What makes art?

      It isn't art; its a symbolic artifact with meaning derived from its context and historicity, and as such better suited to a museum exhibit rather than an art gallery, which indeed this is.

  3. Phuq Witt

    Security Alert!

    *"...The brute force needed to eradicate the data from the individual computer parts, down to the heat sink unit..."*

    Shit! —all these years, I've been forgetting to securely wipe the heatsink, when disposing of old computers.

    ...

    [Cue some obscure smart-arse boffin to spoil an already feeble joke, by demonstating the ability to reconstruct data, using the pattern of thermal stresses in the molecular structure of a heatsink]

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: Security Alert!

      Hmm, I wonder what would actually be a suitable domestic means to properly destroy data, and by that I mean something that survives the experience (sticking things in microwaves or blenders tends to damage the appliance as well). The grinder would indeed do the job, but that's not an average household tool (well, unless the resident cooking skills resemble mine :).

      Maybe 3 hours in the oven at 200C?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Adze

        Re: Security Alert!

        BBQ - most people have one and charcoal burns nice and hot provided its given sufficient air ;)

        1. Swarthy
          Black Helicopters

          Re: Security Alert!

          I am a big fan of the sand-filled dead-weight hammer. Beat a drive until the chips start falling off and you know the platters are toast, the heads are (at a minimum) out of alignment, and the controller board is shot.

          This tool can also be used to render a heat sink completely unreadable.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Security Alert!

            "Beat a drive until the chips start falling off and you know the platters are toast, the heads are (at a minimum) out of alignment, and the controller board is shot."

            Easier just to unscrew the back, pull out the discs, and bend them 180 degrees in the middle using a vice. You would probably get even better results putting them in HCl but I can't be bothered. For laptop drives, just bend the whole drive in the middle and fold it back. I do this when disposing of drives that have had customer data on, just to comply with the DPA.

            You can also recover the magnets, which are useful for various bits of DIY.

      3. beep54
        Facepalm

        Re: Security Alert!

        "Maybe 3 hours in the oven at 200C?" Not only would this probably stink, it could well be toxic. Ages ago a friend came up with the following idea for a piece of 'art': Bake a loaf of bread with the dough placed on top of a manual typewriter; then shellac the thing. You have no fucking idea the horrible wretchedness of baked typewriter. None.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. lee harvey osmond

    Angle grinder?

    Since the GCHQ staff who destroyed the MacBook Air took their angle grinder back to the office, and then almost certainly destroyed it just to be on the safe side, did the V&A staff preparing the exhibit think to ask GCHQ if they'd kept the bits? Make a great exhibit ...

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Angle grinder?

      From what I understand, it was the Guardian staff who actually destroyed the machine, as instructed by the GCHQ staff. Presumably the angle grinder is back in the shed of some Guardian staff member.

      Which leads me to wonder, who came up with this "secure wipe" procedure? Did it develop as some kind of "we can be more unreasonably pedantic than you" game between the spooks and jurnos?

      1. Cliff

        Re: Angle grinder?

        If the hardware components of the laptop can catch 'sedition', then the grinder is surely contaminated by now, you're right. It'll be having words with the garden forks and half-sack of gone off cement in the back of the shed...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Were they trying to destroy the data or the evidence of firmware backdoors on those chips?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A fit of pique

    My first thought of the destroyed Macbook was the fact that the Telegraph accused the G of pandering to Apple in order to obtain advertising funding, so that destroyed Macbook in my mind, as art, has happened after a fall in Apple advertising revenue.

    A bit more arty effort by the V & A would have an even more thought provoking stance.

    Privacy is also about the battle for advertising budgets.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is art

    Because the government vandalism in a vain attempt to silence Snowden certainly wasn't science.

    As for Clegg...Labour 2 points ahead in his seat. Come on lads, one more push! Let's demonstrate that actions (or inactions) like abandoning all the principles your party is supposed to hold for a fancy (if meaningless) title and a company car - have consequences.

    1. Stern Fenster

      Re: It is art

      "As for Clegg...Labour 2 points ahead in his seat. Come on lads, one more push! "

      Shouldn't that be "One last heave"?

      Ah, the poetic justice...

  8. Simon Rockman

    I wouldn't try to go and see this just at the moment. Queues for the McQeen exhibition are monstrous.

    1. Tiro

      The exhibition the MacBook is part of ('All of this belongs to you') is on display all around the museum, so no need to get caught up in the McQueen exhibition queue (tickets still available! book ahead!)

  9. Alistair
    Pint

    No angle grinders here.

    I *have* however engaged in shotput exercises once or twice with harddrives. And a certain brand of CD-RW drives.

    As for final destruction of data on (departed/departing) media - beyond a digital wipe (shred -zun 10 /dev/(volgroup)/(volume) ) I have a 16lb horseshoe magnet from a dredger that a friend of my father's once worked on. I've found it to be *spectacularly* effective at wiping the spindle, and in some cases even wiping firmware off drives. It is also capable of pulling screws, nails and other small metal bits from behind and underneath large wooden sheds with less than 2cm of clearance -- apparently it has about 3 feet of range for this option. It could also make an effective weapon, as I required two stitches after it fell on my head from a shelf.....

    Beer, since its effectively Friday on a Thursday and I'm chasing down network ports in the DC.

  10. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Just occurred to me ...

    What did GCHQ know that the Guardian didn't that prompted them to insist on such a newsworthy destruction.

    What *else* have they been up to ?

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: JummyPage Re: Just occurred to me ...

      "....that prompted them to insist on such a newsworthy destruction...." Allegedly, the GCHQ is full of Linux fanbois, and when they were told it was a Mac.....

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    evidence of the current struggle for control of the digital public realm

    clutching at straws

  12. TheProf
    Joke

    ART?

    This isn't art. You wouldn't know art if you stepped in it!

    http://tinyurl.com/muu2xm8

    (Tiny url'd to preserve the joke. Damn! I've just given the game away.)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    there is a selector in fox acid for the register. hope you posted anonymously.

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