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CBS's Showtime caught mining crypto-coins in viewers' web browsers

  1. #1
    LegalizeSpiritualDiscovery Space Nigga [my yellow-marked arboreous hypnotist]
    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/25/showtime_hit_with_coinmining_script/?mt=1506379755407

    I didn't even know this was a thing that could be done covertly like that, let alone that any major companies were actually doing it. I read that The Pirate Bay was caught doing something similar. I wonder how many other sites are doing this, especially smaller businesses.
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  2. #2
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition
    LOLyeah I was going to mention the pirate bay. They make out that they disclosed it, that it was an option for them to offer the site without running ads but they

    A) didn't disclose it until someone found out their browser was choking the CPU and
    B) ran ads concurrently
  3. #3
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition
    I guess it's time to disable javascript altogether.
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  4. #4
    MrAsbestos Houston
    Big deal, kind of a cool idea
  5. #5
    Lanny Bird of Courage
    While not disclosing that they're doing it is obviously wrong I actually kinda like the idea of using mining to defray hosting costs, you could actually build more efficient miners into browsers and allow sites to use them given they don't overuse CPU and don't have ads. I don't know if the mining power would be greater than the cost of servicing the page load but I could see it changing the hosting economy significantly, it breaks the dependence of hosts on a small ring of advertisers and it ties the value of user acquisition to a currency instead of a nebulous questionably estimated likelihood of conversion.

    At least when I'm connected to power I'd much rather give a host some spare cycles on my CPU (or more likely GPU) than degrade my experience with shit tier intrusive ads (which have gotten progressively worse in recent years).
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  6. #6
    Originally posted by Lanny While not disclosing that they're doing it is obviously wrong I actually kinda like the idea of using mining to defray hosting costs, you could actually build more efficient miners into browsers and allow sites to use them given they don't overuse CPU and don't have ads. I don't know if the mining power would be greater than the cost of servicing the page load but I could see it changing the hosting economy significantly, it breaks the dependence of hosts on a small ring of advertisers and it ties the value of user acquisition to a currency instead of a nebulous questionably estimated likelihood of conversion.

    At least when I'm connected to power I'd much rather give a host some spare cycles on my CPU (or more likely GPU) than degrade my experience with shit tier intrusive ads (which have gotten progressively worse in recent years).

    The only problem is that there is zero reason to mine jack shit on anyone's CPU or nowadays GPU. Even Ethereum is going to be done with GPU mining soon. You're going to get $0.0000000001 or of each page view, why shit on your site's performance for that?
  7. #7
    Lanny Bird of Courage
    Originally posted by Captain Falcon The only problem is that there is zero reason to mine jack shit on anyone's CPU or nowadays GPU. Even Ethereum is going to be done with GPU mining soon. You're going to get $0.0000000001 or of each page view, why shit on your site's performance for that?

    Yeah, the PPV of mining vs. ads seems like it'd be low, but on the other hand you don't mine on your CPU because you have one of them. It might scale better when you have N millions of them that facebook as in users. Also I've been saying this for a while and also been wrong for a while but the difficulty factors of popular cryptocurrencies is fucking insane, at some point it has to stabilize. Like if this trend continues, in the limit, bitcoin is going to be some kind of crazy proxy for the lowest price of electricity on the globe and difficulty can not rise faster than energy production becomes more efficient. I think no small part of the current mining difficulty is speculative on trends that are physically unsustainable, if BC price stays level the profit margin on mining operations is pretty thin and getting pushed ever closer to zero by the nature of the system. Historically it's not a great prediction but I think long term difficulty is going to settle such that consumer GPU mining is just barely profitable.

    It's also worth pointing out GPU mining doesn't actually have to become profitable for the browser-mining model to work. If that line isn't hit it's essentially transferring the value to a host with a fee paid to power companies and computer manufacturers equal to the delta between the cost of mining vs. value of hashes solved. Although admittedly the wiggle room there is pretty limited.
  8. #8
    It is interesting as an idea though, I would much rather pay with CPU power than deal with add (although Im a bastards so just like right now I just block ads, I'd probably disable JavaScript the same way)
  9. #9
    All the other people can watch ads for me. I'm not giving up my adblock.
  10. #10
    mashlehash victim of incest [my perspicuously dependant flavourlessness]
    I still don't get the whole idea behind mining coins

    I don't even know what that means

    I don't know the value of money a coin or the time that it takes
  11. #11
    MrAsbestos Houston
    Bitcoin are like logic pussles.

    And ur computer is like a pholosopher.

    U run a progran on ur computer to think about the pusles and when it solves it u have discovered a new coin.

    But every time a pusles is solved the next one is even more difficult n ur computer needs a higher IQ 2 salve .
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  12. #12
    mmQ Lisa Turtle
    "I'm PLOWING this new girl, man you gotta check her out that pussy is tiiiight yo, and get this, she's a miner!"

    "..What? A minor? You're proud of this why??"

    "Yeah man that's fuckin rare!I bagged me a female miner! And aside from being gorgeous as the moonlight she can ride a cock like a featherweight champion, my man. Tiny little thing, a goddamn MINER!"

    "Get out of my house Chuck."
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  13. #13
    Sophie Pedophile Tech Support
    Originally posted by MrAsbestos Bitcoin are like logic pussles.

    And ur computer is like a pholosopher.

    U run a progran on ur computer to think about the pusles and when it solves it u have discovered a new coin.

    But every time a pusles is solved the next one is even more difficult n ur computer needs a higher IQ 2 salve .

    Pretty accurate.
  14. #14
    mashlehash victim of incest [my perspicuously dependant flavourlessness]
    Originally posted by MrAsbestos Bitcoin are like logic pussles.

    And ur computer is like a pholosopher.

    U run a progran on ur computer to think about the pusles and when it solves it u have discovered a new coin.

    But every time a pusles is solved the next one is even more difficult n ur computer needs a higher IQ 2 salve .

    I still don't get it, teacher.
  15. #15
    Madman African Astronaut
    I just sold all my bitcoin to buy guns.
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