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This is pretty hilarious. Given how small the load can be to automatically contribute hashes to a pool for ___coin, I expect more of these in the future, but sm

This is pretty hilarious. Given how small the load can be to automatically contribute hashes to a pool for ___coin, I expect more of these in the future, but smarter. Runs for 5 seconds per minute on ten million devices for six months? That's no joke with some of the hardware out there. It's this close to a victimless crime (that is, unless the victim gets their CPU/GPU fried, as has happened with these nets before). But what about apps that use spare cycles while you're plugged in, or above 75% battery, or between hours x and y, to mine dogecoins for charity? People would voluntarily submit to that!

wyager 13y ago
It's still stupid. Mobile devices are orders of magnitudes worse than PCs at the integer arithmetic required for cryptocurrency mining.
- gargarplex 13y ago
  only a brewing threat til it becomes a force. innovator's dilemma.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  But you have orders of magnitude more of them. Slaved mobile devices are orders of magnitude cheaper, too!
  - wyager 13y ago
    >But you have orders of magnitude more of them. Not according to this: http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/MJ13_BizReport_charts.2.png http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/M...
    - alandarev 13y ago
      Yes, but very few PC owners will download & run songs.exe executable to listen to several songs available at youtube.
doesnt_know 13y ago
Electricity and bandwidth are both resources that most people have to pay for, I would consider this theft and not a "victimless crime". The severity of financial impact on the victim is irrelevant. If I steal tiny amounts of money ~0.01c from large amounts of people and accrued significant wealth from it, is it fine? Is it a "victimless crime" because the amount is so small?
- negrit 13y ago
  > The severity of financial impact on the victim is irrelevant. Not if it actually damage some parts of the phone like the battery because you have to charge it more often.
  - saurik 13y ago
    You seem to mean "negligible", which is a different meaning than "irrelevant"; the point that was being made is that even if it were a "negligible" amount, the crime is not "victimless", hence the amount of the theft is "irrelevant": the point you seem to be making is that it might be a non-"negligible" amount, which is probably true, but at this point in the thread unrelated, and in fact according to the post you are responding to, "irrelevant" ;P.
  - inheritancejon 13y ago
    I agree, its theft. If I borrow your bicycle all the time without you knowing it may be innocent enough, but it still causes wear and tear on the bicycle. I am thieving bicycle time from you that you paid for. If I had simply asked for it, you couldn't blame me, but alas I took it without your consent. [edit] Do either of these apps explicitly state that they will access/use device in this way?
    - termain 13y ago
      No it's not theft, it's conversion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law)
UweSchmidt 13y ago
It's the disdain for the user. Take their data, use their CPUs, whatever. Users are dumb, they won't notice, and hey, the app's free anyway. Back in the day, the software on my "Personal Computer" was my friend. It was all wonderful things to have and to learn about. Looking at my smartphone that's right here on my table, it's shiny, but I've long felt a distinct lack of control over the thing. And now this: Hello - any of you apps mining anything right now in there?
- clef 13y ago
  I Just use the factory apps and have nothing else installed, this way no one mines anything out of me.
  - qq66 13y ago
    Except Google mining all your data (if you use Android)
    - clef 13y ago
      Well then I guess Apple knows I come here often!
    - Yetanfou 13y ago
      That would be strange, given that the only Google-produced code on my Android-running phone comes from AOSP and has had plenty of eyes (and network sniffers, and firewalls, etc) on it to weed out any such mining. If you run Google applications (on Android or on iOS or elsewhere) you send data to Google. If you don't want to send data to Google, don't run Google applications. The same goes for Apple applications which phone home to Apple, Microsoft applications to Microsoft, etc. Android works fine without Google applications ('gapps'). It does not need the Google Services Framework to survive. You don't need the (horribly named) 'play store'. Nor Gmail, Google Maps, Google+, etc. This is one of the big differences between Android and the other bigger players in this field - you have a choice.
  - galaktor 13y ago
    by which you also miss out on most of the things that make a smartphone worth buying in the first place...
DanBC 13y ago
Here's a story from 2004 about a school IT tech who installed SETI@home on the school machines. The increased electricity bill caused some consternation and he lost his job. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041010/2225204.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041010/2225204.shtml I imagine that mining crypto currency without permission is due for a high profile court case.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I did that on some university servers around 1999. We had a few Alphas dedicated to batch processing, and I set up S@H to run on them. One catch was that the duration of batch jobs was limited to 12 hours, so I couldn't just fire and forget. I ended up scripting it so that when the job ended, it automatically resubmitted itself to the batch queue. It took about a day before I got a surprisingly friendly e-mail from the sysadmin asking me to please stop.
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
I'm inclined to believe that things like this could just be an alternative to ads. Ads take up CPU, battery life and bandwidth too (although a relatively small amount compared to coin mining). Alternative income source, I guess.
- jlcummings 13y ago
  Taking that further, I would much rather be used as a fractional miner than provide unhindered, across the board access to personal transportable data and per device usage from the device. Providing a user with means to throttle or govern the mining seems appropriate even if not explicit. If I am trying to use my device put the virtual mining crew on break and dont check back for at least 20 minutes. Secondly, exclusive mining rights. Only one app per device, but each developer can ask for a share of the haul. Having more mining apps competing for time will work in no ones favor. As the device owner I should inherently be entitled to a significant share. An auditible mining client would be valuable. I could certainly see this as something that could eventually fit neatly somewhere between an optional and encouraged part of an AOSP deployment.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    It will frequently be the case that it would be cheaper for the user to simply buy whatever credits are being mined with their resources (which means that many of them won't knowingly run miners).
    - jlcummings 13y ago
      Today, perhaps and most likely in all but a few cases. That doesn't preclude a shift or evolution of platforms to more efficiently provide that capability as a built in.

wyager 13y ago

It's still stupid. Mobile devices are orders of magnitudes worse than PCs at the integer arithmetic required for cryptocurrency mining.

gargarplex 13y ago
only a brewing threat til it becomes a force. innovator's dilemma.
devindotcom 13y ago
But you have orders of magnitude more of them. Slaved mobile devices are orders of magnitude cheaper, too!
- wyager 13y ago
  >But you have orders of magnitude more of them. Not according to this: http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/MJ13_BizReport_charts.2.png http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/M...
  - alandarev 13y ago
    Yes, but very few PC owners will download & run songs.exe executable to listen to several songs available at youtube.

doesnt_know 13y ago

Electricity and bandwidth are both resources that most people have to pay for, I would consider this theft and not a "victimless crime". The severity of financial impact on the victim is irrelevant. If I steal tiny amounts of money ~0.01c from large amounts of people and accrued significant wealth from it, is it fine? Is it a "victimless crime" because the amount is so small?

negrit 13y ago
> The severity of financial impact on the victim is irrelevant. Not if it actually damage some parts of the phone like the battery because you have to charge it more often.
- saurik 13y ago
  You seem to mean "negligible", which is a different meaning than "irrelevant"; the point that was being made is that even if it were a "negligible" amount, the crime is not "victimless", hence the amount of the theft is "irrelevant": the point you seem to be making is that it might be a non-"negligible" amount, which is probably true, but at this point in the thread unrelated, and in fact according to the post you are responding to, "irrelevant" ;P.
- inheritancejon 13y ago
  I agree, its theft. If I borrow your bicycle all the time without you knowing it may be innocent enough, but it still causes wear and tear on the bicycle. I am thieving bicycle time from you that you paid for. If I had simply asked for it, you couldn't blame me, but alas I took it without your consent. [edit] Do either of these apps explicitly state that they will access/use device in this way?
  - termain 13y ago
    No it's not theft, it's conversion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(law)

UweSchmidt 13y ago

It's the disdain for the user. Take their data, use their CPUs, whatever. Users are dumb, they won't notice, and hey, the app's free anyway. Back in the day, the software on my "Personal Computer" was my friend. It was all wonderful things to have and to learn about. Looking at my smartphone that's right here on my table, it's shiny, but I've long felt a distinct lack of control over the thing. And now this: Hello - any of you apps mining anything right now in there?

clef 13y ago
I Just use the factory apps and have nothing else installed, this way no one mines anything out of me.
- qq66 13y ago
  Except Google mining all your data (if you use Android)
  - clef 13y ago
    Well then I guess Apple knows I come here often!
  - Yetanfou 13y ago
    That would be strange, given that the only Google-produced code on my Android-running phone comes from AOSP and has had plenty of eyes (and network sniffers, and firewalls, etc) on it to weed out any such mining. If you run Google applications (on Android or on iOS or elsewhere) you send data to Google. If you don't want to send data to Google, don't run Google applications. The same goes for Apple applications which phone home to Apple, Microsoft applications to Microsoft, etc. Android works fine without Google applications ('gapps'). It does not need the Google Services Framework to survive. You don't need the (horribly named) 'play store'. Nor Gmail, Google Maps, Google+, etc. This is one of the big differences between Android and the other bigger players in this field - you have a choice.
- galaktor 13y ago
  by which you also miss out on most of the things that make a smartphone worth buying in the first place...

DanBC 13y ago

Here's a story from 2004 about a school IT tech who installed SETI@home on the school machines. The increased electricity bill caused some consternation and he lost his job. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041010/2225204.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041010/2225204.shtml I imagine that mining crypto currency without permission is due for a high profile court case.

mikeash 13y ago
I did that on some university servers around 1999. We had a few Alphas dedicated to batch processing, and I set up S@H to run on them. One catch was that the duration of batch jobs was limited to 12 hours, so I couldn't just fire and forget. I ended up scripting it so that when the job ended, it automatically resubmitted itself to the batch queue. It took about a day before I got a surprisingly friendly e-mail from the sysadmin asking me to please stop.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

I'm inclined to believe that things like this could just be an alternative to ads. Ads take up CPU, battery life and bandwidth too (although a relatively small amount compared to coin mining). Alternative income source, I guess.

jlcummings 13y ago
Taking that further, I would much rather be used as a fractional miner than provide unhindered, across the board access to personal transportable data and per device usage from the device. Providing a user with means to throttle or govern the mining seems appropriate even if not explicit. If I am trying to use my device put the virtual mining crew on break and dont check back for at least 20 minutes. Secondly, exclusive mining rights. Only one app per device, but each developer can ask for a share of the haul. Having more mining apps competing for time will work in no ones favor. As the device owner I should inherently be entitled to a significant share. An auditible mining client would be valuable. I could certainly see this as something that could eventually fit neatly somewhere between an optional and encouraged part of an AOSP deployment.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  It will frequently be the case that it would be cheaper for the user to simply buy whatever credits are being mined with their resources (which means that many of them won't knowingly run miners).
  - jlcummings 13y ago
    Today, perhaps and most likely in all but a few cases. That doesn't preclude a shift or evolution of platforms to more efficiently provide that capability as a built in.