

Employee Turns Gaming Network Into Private Bitcoin Mine - rheide
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/05/esea/

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mctx
Could this be a source of income for indie game developers? While users play
the (free/cheap/torrented) game, the users graphics card spends its spare
cycles on mining for the game developers. No obnoxious ads, no paying $60 for
a game you only play a few times.

~~~
lifeformed
Once ASICs become mainstream, GPU mining will no longer be profitable.

~~~
mctx
The Avalon ASIC can perform 68,000 Mhash/s which is ~110x more powerful than a
7970 GPU (at ~600 Mhash/s) at around 3x the cost.

It's obviously better value for an individual to buy an ASIC than a bunch of
GPUS, but I think you could still earn a few coins if you've got thousands of
gamers with spare GPU cycles.

~~~
muyuu
If you can buy one.

The problem with ASICs is that, once they get under the profit curve, they
have no other usage. I can very reliably expect a 7970 to be useful for a few
years at least. An Avalon, if I manage to get it, may or may not pay for
itself before difficulty makes it unprofitable to run. And then it's
completely useless.

Lots of hypothesis and conjectures.

~~~
lifeformed
Could you repurpose them for password cracking?

~~~
muyuu
Nope.

FPGAs yes, ASICs no.

They are just machines or iteratively calculating sha-256( sha-256( something
) ) and they are hard-wired to that.

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tlrobinson
Just wait until WebCL is widely deployed and any webpage could use your GPU to
mine bitcoins!

~~~
lucb1e
I suppose it's better than ads-only. When there are less ads, an ad will
become more valuable and fewer need to be shown. Perhaps it'll one day be
possible to run without Adblock Plus and not have three flashing 300x300
blocks on your screen at any given time. Also mining keeps a cryptocurrency's
network secure. It sounds really good to me ^^

~~~
kolinko
Well, it's not so good if you're trying to use laptop on battery power.

Having said that - I wouldn't mind websites charging me automatically
fractions of cents for reading their contents

~~~
lucb1e
Interesting idea, "charging fractions of cents". Usually when people talk
about covering the costs, ideas like monthly subscriptions and donations are
mentioned, but I haven't heard about very small automatic fees.

Then again, not all content is worth reading. It should be proportional to how
long you are on the site, or you should be able to revoke it manually or
something. Anyhow, an interesting idea to think about and toy with.

------
niggler
yesterday's discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5636233>

EDIT: wow has wired always been this bad? 16 trackers/ads according to
ghostery, 20 according to disconnect

~~~
iooi
As are all sites owned by Conde Nast.

------
jacobquick
This is ridiculous, it wasn't an employee it was the CEO, who dropped hints
they were doing it all through April. Shouldn't expect better from Wired I
guess.

This being a entrepreneur tech site, it looks like there's a market for non-
terrible companies providing video game-related software and services to niche
multiplayer communities.

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salman89
Is this a viable revenue stream for free app developers? Would it ever make it
past the Apple review process?

~~~
anywhichway
Could you imagine the reviews about draining battery life?

~~~
salman89
Absolutely.

I'd be really interesting in seeing if the energy cost is lower than the
average long term output. I'd be perfectly fine with leaving my iPhone plugged
in all night if it meant it could generate me $x/night, where $x is greater
than the electricity hit I get.

~~~
Derander
I'd be surprised if it were worth it. Even with fairly efficient GPU mining
rigs it's getting close.

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ohwp
Would it be viable to rent a (GPU) cluster for mining? $3700 in 14 days seems
doable...

------
nacho2sweet
If only this option was available more in the gator browser bar heyday.

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wilfra
I smell bullshit. Sounds like the company tried it, got caught, and blamed it
on a (fictitious?) rogue employee.

~~~
d23
> In just a couple of weeks, he netted close to BTC30, or about $3,700.

You honestly think the company would risk something like that for such a small
amount of money?

~~~
wilfra
I think they acknowledged they were willing to risk it by considering it in
the first place.

~~~
modarts
That's what I found to be strange too. Why was it ever considered?

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Customers with a low cost of electricity and a hot GPU could have used it to
offset the cost of their subscription. They would not have needed to learn
anything about Bitcoin or manage their own financial account.

~~~
bigiain
Hmmm, I wonder if you could somehow plot bitcoin mining rates against location
and temperature/climate? I wonder if there are people who selectively turn on
their mining boxen to use as room heaters, effectively getting the computation
(and bitcoins) "for free" since they'd be consuming the power for heating
anyway?

~~~
modarts
Thoughts like this are why I love this site.

------
yoster
Instead of donating to charity, they should have given it to the gamers who
had their computers illegally used. They do not realize the criminal and civil
actions that can arise from this.

~~~
mseebach
Are you sure there are grounds for a criminal case? When you install and run a
piece of software on your computer, you grant it a fairly wide license to run.
Very little actual harm was done (I can't think of anything beyond power
consumption and perhaps an infinitesimal amount of wear and tear), and
certainly much less than a bug that causes the computer to crash. If crashing
the user's computer could be grounds for a criminal case if would have very
far-reaching consequences.

~~~
Goronmon
_If crashing the user's computer could be grounds for a criminal case if would
have very far-reaching consequences._

It's not "crashing the user's computer". The guy intentionally added hidden
functionality to his company's software that he knew would cause an extremely
high load on the client. It's the difference between a mistake and deliberate
sabotage.

~~~
mseebach
I'm aware it didn't crash the computer, it's an analogy.

Also, "sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity
through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction". Clearly not
what's going on here, and it's this kind of hyperbole I'm arguing against.

