https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100306
--- Comment #28 from MirceaKitsune sonichedgehog_hyperblast00@yahoo.com --- After another two weeks of absence, the issue was apparently reimplemented on top of Kernel 4.11.3 + Mesa 17.1.1 + Plasma 5.10.0, likely sometime during the last few days. The behavior is once again identical, with alt-tab switching or desktop effects causing everything but the mouse pointer to freeze then after 10 seconds the monitor shuts down. Other unrelated GPU crashes (such as those caused by some games) behave by the classic model, where the entire system simple freezes in place at once... that's a very different result from this freeze, and likely confirms this is a different type of crash.
At this point I have almost no doubt this is an attack that's being deliberately programmed, and manually reimplemented on top of new drivers once it gets fixed. The cycle seems to be that a kernel or driver update resolves the issue, then the creators of the crash require about two weeks to patch it and reimplement the exact same functionality. This is the 4th time the story repeats.
I tried steering away from this possibility until I was sure, as I didn't want it triggering any unnecessary arguments... if this is an attack then investigating it as such might help in finding its source more quickly. There's simply no way something this precise could happen by itself for nearly half an year, always coming back with the exact same effects after a period of absence... all despite radical changes to nearly every driver and system component, which would have no doubt altered the behavior of the initial problem in some form. Therefore I hope everyone can see why I'm now going with this theory and greatly considering the option of malicious intent.
I have no idea how the virus (?) could be updated on my computer, as it's likely not through the package update system directly. However I suspect it's using a constant series of vulnerabilities in one or more system components, which should be fixed by the developers if they exist. I would appreciate any ideas on both how the malicious code might be inserted into the computer, as well as finding the vulnerability within radeon / Mesa / X11 / etc that it exploits. Please let me know what your thoughts are!