It’s technically possible, but windows doesn’t give you as the user tools to do so. If you donÄt want windos to have the ability to do so you could use full system encryption like: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system

yess 100% it would force big corporations out of our media

But it’s definitely possible to ship a virus embedded in a playable mkv file, but something else would have to extract it first, for it to do anything

if you really only played it and it didn’t abuse some zero day in vlc (extremely unlikely), the there’s basically zero chance you could have activated a virus.

I have to say cool idea, but realistically if you are not using a apple or other locked down device you device will function without internet, and somebody will be able to create mesh nets or sneaker nets, and those will replace the internet (or are actually already in use right now) and those are so redundant, that as long as there isn’t a solar storm that hard that it literally short circuits all technology, even in some in that case not good enough faradray cages, we will be able to recover pretty fast after the initial panic

trying to advocate for sustainability, social justice, privacy etc. via my local and federal school councils, which have (even if it is quite limited) political power. And running some workshops for folks wanting to move to open source software.