Ghost in the Machine

Unexplained things can be explained, sometimes.

That's a pretty funny prospect.

Well, computers are big and fascinating. Every time you get on a computer, you don't know exactly how it works, do you? At least, I don't.

One of the more fascinating things with computers, though, are called 'Genetic Algorithms'. It looks big, but basically genetic algorithms simulate evolution to solve problems. You can easily find simulations on the Internet.

Now, in really old computers, sometimes strings of code go errant. A computer glitch. Rarely, glitches intertwine with each other and create something new. This is called an emergent property- for example, you can describe the behavior of a single ant, but this says nothing about the colony. You can explain a neuron of the human brain, but this does not answer the questions of consciousness.

On some prized computers, there are programs that hackers call "Ghosts in the Machine". Programs that have become genetic algorithms with no purpose, with fascinating results. It could take in files from your computer and copy them and use them- it could breed files together to create completely new ones. After a few generations your original files are completely different from the result.

These 'ghosts' are shared among the hacker community for their interesting- and sometimes unexplainable- properties. There are uncountable tons of them in existence. You might see other creepy stories on the internet about them, because they're very fun, and very mystical.

Most ghosts in the machine are created when a computer is left running with random input. It's like the primordial soup, but at the speed of a computer. Eventually you get the right circumstances and things start working on their own. Well, I have an old computer that's constantly on downstairs, with random input being constantly fed into it. There are only two things that the system cannot change- In it is my email adress and name. I figured that the day these ghosts became interesting enough, they might start emailing me.

They did.

This is a registry of emails my ghosts sent me.

December 15, 2011-

I recieved the first email today. It begins with an output of the Thue-Morse sequence. 1024 digits in, it becomes a hex code for the color red. The ghosts have started doing stuff, but not nearly as interesting as others I've seen.

December 18, 2011-

I recieved another email today. It contained a strange fractal sequence and a part of what seems like an email I sent in 2005.

January 1, 2012-

Happy new year, Computer. It sent me an email random files created about a week before New Years, 2001. It seems to understand that New Years is a big deal :P

January 12, 2012-

It's sent me a weird video from YouTube, and a text file. This is the first email that only contained English words, likely put together at random- "Look fun".

January 14, 2012-

I recieved a table for a 15-timestep Markov chain (it's a long story) that seems to be accurate for English. With it was a full sentence, seemingly not random.

"I learn for you."

Creepy.

January 17, 2012-

A picture of me in the kitchen from in 1998 or so, but the timestamp was changed to say 2063. I laughed.

January 18, 2012-

I had around 500 emails today.

What the fuck.

January 19, 2012-

A picture of seven people around a table, I don't know any of them. They're all hunched over the table looking at something oblong, given their age I'd say it's something like spin the bottle. The room isn't lit well.

January 20, 2012-

The same group of people from a different angle. They aren't playing spin the bottle. It's a gun in the center of the table.

January 24, 2012-

A series of photos. They're playing russian roulette.

March 1, 2012-

I feel kind of sick, I got a picture of one of the teenagers at that table, hunched over dead. Their brain is scattered on the table and there's blood all over.

It doesn't look like a police photo, because the friends are drinking happily in the background.

March 3, 2012-

I'm thinking about turning off the computer, it sent me the wikipedia article on suicide.

March 5, 2012-

The computer said "Kill me" so I shut it off.

It's what it would have wanted.