Sounds like it's a cat. No wonder the bug won't be fixed then.
In any case, I don't see how this is XFCE's problem. Just change the wallpaper.
While any user who notices they're affected by the issue can fix it on their own, this is only likely to happen after damage has already been inflicted. XFCE can help people preemptively by changing the default to something less likely to attract cats.
I remember programing a small .asm that would move the head of a floppy to a farther point and it stoped working. Probably not all models would fail, but one particular brand did.
Then a intense debate followed that I was wrong. Never talked about it again.
Fast-forward, now we have news that nuclear programs had malfunctions caused by cyber-attacks. Ok, not exactly the same "software doesn't damage hardware" we talked back then, but...
I'm willing to consider that using software to make some catware cause damages to the hardware should be acceptable too :D
Isn't this trivially false?
Of course we can design hardware (+ firmware) that allows software to damage or irrevocably destroy it.
So even if we're not willing to accept that alone, it surely follows that some hardware (+ firmware) will (accidentally) be physically vulnerable to malicious software?
I also recall that on early IBM PCs with a monochrome monitor and a Hercules graphics card, it was possible to set the refresh rate to zero and toast the monitor.
But now? When microcode can be patched? I'm waiting for tamperproof ransomware, that holds your hardware as well as your data as the hostage.
Firmware in other platform devices, however, may be vulnerable to modification -- BIOS, network adapter, video card, hard disk...
Ever broken a monitor with a bad X config?
A more recent debate (TL;DR: yes, software can cause damage to hardware): https://superuser.com/questions/313850/
While my forray into malicious floppy disks didn't end with physical damage, I did manage to make one similar to DBAN. If you booted the computer with the floppy inserted, all drives would be formatted instantly, without any user input.
Fortunately, even in highschool I realized they probably imaged the school machines anyways. Probably...
In the days of C64 and Amiga you could safely say "No".
Once there was a basic rewritable input/output system (BIOS), the answer changed to "Yes". Remember the CIH virus?
Goes back even further than that. It's probably always been possible, but maybe it was harder on timeshared systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_poke#Commodore_PET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_poke#Commodore_1541_Dis...
status:Wont Fix
