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Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

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Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#141

Post by tokenizerrr »

IamCarbonMan wrote: post #136
tokenizerrr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. If you post your idea on a public forum I will be responding with my opinion. Feel free to stop posting if you don't want my replies. I'm also genuinely curious what kind of card game has such intensive server requirements because I just don't see it. Maybe you have a legitimate need to contribute to global warming, it just seems unlikely to me.

I'm sure it's entirely possible that I can run my application within the arbitrary limitations that you have set for me. I have a MongoDB and Express stack primarily. Sorry that I didn't know that online.com™ can host my application with 8 gigs of RAM for just $9 a month. I came into this damn thread wondering if maybe someone thought this was a good idea from the point of view of user experience. I don't care whatso…

Sounds like olyou should take a refresher ethics course. And if not that, a business course because you're just going to drive your idea into the ground the way you're going. There's your feedback.

By the way, users will instantly close your game if you cause their cpu fans to spin up to 100%

Good luck with your doomed project :)

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#143

Post by IamCarbonMan »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #141
IamCarbonMan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's entirely possible that I can run my application within the arbitrary limitations that you have set for me. I have a MongoDB and Express stack primarily. Sorry that I didn't know that online.com™ can host my application with 8 gigs of RAM for just $9 a month. I came into this damn thread wondering if maybe someone thought this was a good idea from the point of view of user experience. I don't care whatso…

Sounds like olyou should take a refresher ethics course. And if not that, a business course because you're just going to drive your idea into the ground the way you're going. There's your feedback. By the way, users will instantly close your game if you cause their cpu fans to spin up to 100% Good luck with your doomed project :)

You do know what throttling and debouncing are right? Or do you need to take an actual computer science class?

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#144

Post by 6nf »

paultopia wrote: post #70

Wait, people are actually doing this? Using client-side resources not to deliver content or applications to clients, or even to visibly deliver things like advertisements, but to divert user CPU cycles for their own purposes? I want to know more about this. Are they seeking any kind of consent from the users, or even disclosing it to the users? If not, I have serious doubts about the legality of this behavior.

Pirate Bay trialed this but otherwise nobody is doing this at scale right now. The problem is that users will notice and the ROI is miniscule. Even if your users keep the miner running 24/7 you're nowhere near just regular old ads.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#145

Post by paultopia »

icebraining wrote: post #79
paultopia wrote: post #70

Wait, people are actually doing this? Using client-side resources not to deliver content or applications to clients, or even to visibly deliver things like advertisements, but to divert user CPU cycles for their own purposes? I want to know more about this. Are they seeking any kind of consent from the users, or even disclosing it to the users? If not, I have serious doubts about the legality of this behavior.

What law do you think would prohibit this?

As I said, I have doubts. I'm not saying "definitely illegal," just dubious as all hell.

In terms of specifics, maybe not anything criminal (though a prosecutor could try the CFAA), but on the civil side tort law trespass theories, maybe also unjust enrichment theories, would be well worth a try for a plaintiff's lawyer.

But really, I'm thinking in terms of more abstract legal ideas that could use some caselaw development to flesh out---the notion that there's an implied license to use resources on a user's computer to an ordinary extent and for an ordinary purpose---and grabbing onto those resources for this kind of extraordinary purposes without prior notice violates that license in just the same kind of way that (eg) triggering a more conventional malware download would. If you buy that theory (and I tentatively do), then there are lots of concrete legal doctrines to hook it to.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#146

Post by thinkloop »

curun1r wrote: post #106
thinbeige wrote: post #60

Today I read that The Pirate Bay tested this new form of monetization (running a miner in you browser). I thought that might solve website monetization finally. We still have to figure out stuff like battery draining on mobile but it is the first step and I can buy some Monero which is well suited for JS/CPU mining (or in other words, it doesn't have a huge upside when mined on GPUs). And what do I see here? That bef…

Ugh...no. The carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is already borderline-unconscionable, and that's with purpose-built hardware that achieves efficiency beyond what consumer-grade equipment can. Moving mining onto consumer hardware and implementing it in JavaScript is a huge step backwards.

The idea that mining is a waste is a bit strange to me - of course it is a waste, that is the genius insight of it all. Waste is the most powerful thing, it is pure cost, the hardest thing to do, raw sacrifice. There are no tricks or shortcuts to over-taking the blockchain, just pure cost and waste. If the proof-of-work had value and could be sold, it would make the network less safe, and less predictable, subject to the whims of the market for its output, and able to fund its attackers while they attack. Proof-of-work is a nice way of saying proof-of-waste.

There are other types of consensus mechanisms, like proof-of-stake, that are much more energy efficient, with their own set of pros and cons. They should, and will, exist; but there will still always be at least one proof-of-waste blockchain. Waste is the gold-standard of expense.

The environment issue is a societal one. We need to move to clean energy, and we are.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#147

Post by IamCarbonMan »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #141
IamCarbonMan wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's entirely possible that I can run my application within the arbitrary limitations that you have set for me. I have a MongoDB and Express stack primarily. Sorry that I didn't know that online.com™ can host my application with 8 gigs of RAM for just $9 a month. I came into this damn thread wondering if maybe someone thought this was a good idea from the point of view of user experience. I don't care whatso…

Sounds like olyou should take a refresher ethics course. And if not that, a business course because you're just going to drive your idea into the ground the way you're going. There's your feedback. By the way, users will instantly close your game if you cause their cpu fans to spin up to 100% Good luck with your doomed project :)

Also, who said this was a business? I'm a goddamn 22-year-old webdev, I don't give a fuck about ethics or conservation or profit margins. My doomed project is the same goddamn project it has been since I started working on it, and your smug opinion of the optional feature it took me five minutes to implement doesn't change that.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#148

Post by gkya »

saimiam wrote: post #134
gkya wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather pay with my wallet than with my battery. And I'll pay only what I buy. Lock me out if I don't pay, or tell me to GTFO, and I'm totally fine with it, but you can't pick my hypotethical-pocket because I opened up your page. This is like charging window-shoppers. And like a sibling comment says, if this catches on, most web sites will do both, i.e. ads + client-side mining. One nice day publishing industry wi…

> rather pay with my wallet I'm going to throw my solution in the ring for HN's consideration - https://Datajoy.us/fupm.html : lets make paying for content so simple that both you and the domain owner can happily set it up and let it do its thing behind the scenes as you surf the web. Right now, it is being trialed for blogs and other top level domain content providers. First payments will be made Oct 1st.

Looks interesting. Maybe you should submit it here for discussion and publicity.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#149

Post by tokenizerrr »

IamCarbonMan wrote: post #147
tokenizerrr wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like olyou should take a refresher ethics course. And if not that, a business course because you're just going to drive your idea into the ground the way you're going. There's your feedback. By the way, users will instantly close your game if you cause their cpu fans to spin up to 100% Good luck with your doomed project :)

Also, who said this was a business? I'm a goddamn 22-year-old webdev, I don't give a fuck about ethics or conservation or profit margins. My doomed project is the same goddamn project it has been since I started working on it, and your smug opinion of the optional feature it took me five minutes to implement doesn't change that.

You're looking to monetize. That makes it a business. If not we're back to square one, skip out on a Starbucks and just pay for your server costs yourself rather than fucking over your users :)

Maybe if you manage to create something worthwhile people will be willing to pay you some money. It's not like you need much of it for a single server. Consider it an opportunity to learn how to not piss away money/time.

Re: Show HN: No Coin – A browser extension to block coin miners

#150

Post by saimiam »

gkya wrote: post #148
saimiam wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather pay with my wallet I'm going to throw my solution in the ring for HN's consideration - https://Datajoy.us/fupm.html : lets make paying for content so simple that both you and the domain owner can happily set it up and let it do its thing behind the scenes as you surf the web. Right now, it is being trialed for blogs and other top level domain content providers. First payments will be made Oct 1st.

Looks interesting. Maybe you should submit it here for discussion and publicity.

Thank you. I have submitted it before - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197728

If there's interest, I can resubmit it as a new Show HN thread.

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