
Russian Nuclear Engineers Caught Cryptomining on Lab Supercomputer - rbanffy
https://www.hpcwire.com/2018/02/12/russian-nuclear-engineers-caught-cryptomining-lab-supercomputer/?utm_campaign=Contact+Quiboat+For+More+Referrer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=quiboat&utm_content=&utm_term=
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glastra
Interesting URL parameters:

utm_campaign=Contact+Quiboat+For+More+Referrer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=quiboat&utm_content=&utm_term=

Maybe someone can strip them from the link?

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yorwba
This story has been submitted a lot:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&query=russia%20m...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&query=russia%20min)

If you upvoted this submission and would have liked to have seen it sooner,
maybe you should spend more time on the "new" page.

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zMiller
Curious what kind of hash rates you would get on a 'super' computer..

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wslh
I speculate less than the latest ASIC device.

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rbanffy
Probably less Bitcoin hashes per watt/time, but BTC is not the only
cryptocurrency they can mine.

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wslh
It is true but what cryptocurrency you can mine with a supercomputer that
gives you a profit?

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rbanffy
Any, as long as someone else pays for the operation.

But you can probably do a lot if your computer has lots of GPUs and CPUs on
fast interconnects.

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lawlessone
I don't understand how they're nuclear engineers and not smart enough deduce
someone would notice their supercomputer being connected to the internet.

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xstartup
Risk of getting caught is always there. But the reward is too high sometimes
which makes up for it. Imagine, if they could silently mine for a long time -
they'll be able to retire in Bangkok.

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lo_stronzo
Agreed, sometimes the reward is just too high to simply "pass on an
opportunity".

We had an undergrad utilize our then, nascent CUDA nodes. But, simple
monitoring of the nodes raised a red flag.

When we looked into his running jobs, we found an expediently crafted work-
flow, where there was no attempt at obfuscation. That is, the user's input
files all contained references to various mining sites at that time...

Needless to say, privileges were revoked and never restored!

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marvin
With a little more thought, this could be done with a less obvious connection
to the internet. The just need to transmit the correct hash, which can be done
from a different computer. It's just the hash calculation that needs to happen
on the supercomputer.

Regardless, the Russians obviously don't pay these scientists enough if they
have to resort to crypto-mining to pad their salaries ;)

