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

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

#21

Post by darawk »

damnstraight wrote: post #6
sumitgt wrote: post #3

Actually, why is this not a potential legitimate business model? I let you stream content for free and you let me mine cryto-coins with your spare CPU cycles while you watch. Isn't that better for people who don't like all the tracking by ads?

It only really makes sense with browser-level cpu scheduling. Otherwise there's no real way to throttle the amount of cpu these bitcoin miners take from you. Without that, I think people are unlikely to be sympathetic and they'll be snagged by ad blockers rapidly: consent is the cornerstone of products people like.

It's possible to throttle. Perform n hashes, wait 100ms, repeat.

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

#22

Post by flukus »

lurker456 wrote: post #18
ruytlm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense while the coins have value; I wonder what value they would retain if every website started doing this. Also, I question whether it's a sensible use of electricity on the whole.

I hate it being done without informed consent. It's also a huge waste of electricity. On the plus side it could lead to micropayment funded instead of ad-funded sites.

> I hate it being done without informed consent.

I'm more worried about the precedent, "informed consent" can always be buried deep in a T&C document.

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

#23

Post by seandougall »

darawk wrote: post #21
damnstraight wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only really makes sense with browser-level cpu scheduling. Otherwise there's no real way to throttle the amount of cpu these bitcoin miners take from you. Without that, I think people are unlikely to be sympathetic and they'll be snagged by ad blockers rapidly: consent is the cornerstone of products people like.

It's possible to throttle. Perform n hashes, wait 100ms, repeat.

Certainly it's possible for the script author to throttle. Not so much for the web site visitor.

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

#24

Post by thephyber »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #15

Is this a violation of the CFAA? Without explicit permission to do this, it seems an awful lot like unauthorized use

I'm not a lawyer, so my opinion is worth what you paid for it, but...

Without an authentication bypass, I don't think the CFAA applies (last I perused it).

The end user probably doesn't have standing under CFAA unless the website's ToS suggested they would not act this way. If you, as a web visitor, visit a website you are largely at the mercy of whatever plugins they load onto your browser during that session. In exchange for access to the content on the site, the website owner can steal your data (tracking + analytics), your bandwidth (autoplay advertising videos), and the processing resources associated with loading a webpage (or whatever else you can do in a webpage).

The website's owner might be able to bring a case against the person who injected it, perhaps (depending on who it was and who authorized it). The infraction may not be "breaking into" a computer as the CFAA requires if it was a CBS/Showtime employee/contractor who did it. It is almost certainly grounds for some sort of punitive employment / civil action if it wasn't a requested feature by CBS/Showtime.

The fun part about the law is that the gray areas aren't all defined ahead of time. Web visitors can sue or attempt to bring criminal charges and we get to watch how it unfolds in the courts.

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

#25

Post by chii »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #11
maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which coin is worth mining on a CPU at all?

Monero? Existing botnets earn $50,000/day mining on people's computers at night while finding ways to spread to additional ones. A single computer earns pennies, a couple hundred thousand earn way more.

A customer base of hundreds thousands doing streaming will cost you way more than $50k/day.

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

#26

Post by superkuh »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #15

Is this a violation of the CFAA? Without explicit permission to do this, it seems an awful lot like unauthorized use

Everything is a violation of the CFAA. It's just a matter of who it is rocking the boat. They could just as easily make a ToS that would make it a violation of the CFAA to disable the monero miner.

I don't see any problem with crypto-miners on pages for revenue though. They're no more resource stealing or annoying that the typical JS 'web app' that pass for websites these days.

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

#27

Post by pharrington »

sumitgt wrote: post #3

Actually, why is this not a potential legitimate business model? I let you stream content for free and you let me mine cryto-coins with your spare CPU cycles while you watch. Isn't that better for people who don't like all the tracking by ads?

These aren't free streaming services, and there was no disclosure, let alone consent, about the mining.

edit: And CBS most likely never ordained the mining to begin with.

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

#28

Post by jaxn »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #13
sumitgt wrote: post #3

Actually, why is this not a potential legitimate business model? I let you stream content for free and you let me mine cryto-coins with your spare CPU cycles while you watch. Isn't that better for people who don't like all the tracking by ads?

It is, but the difference here is that the contracted developer added it to mine coins for themselves.

That seems likely to me too, but did the article say that? Or is there another source?

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

#29

Post by jopsen »

seandougall wrote: post #23
darawk wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to throttle. Perform n hashes, wait 100ms, repeat.

Certainly it's possible for the script author to throttle. Not so much for the web site visitor.

I hope it's just a matter of time before browsers start to throttle sites...

Or maybe search rankings will be affected by CPU usage, and bandwidth.

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

#30

Post by KGIII »

chii wrote: post #25
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero? Existing botnets earn $50,000/day mining on people's computers at night while finding ways to spread to additional ones. A single computer earns pennies, a couple hundred thousand earn way more.

A customer base of hundreds thousands doing streaming will cost you way more than $50k/day.

It doesn't have to completely cover the costs, only offset it some and be used in conjunction with other income generation methods.

Personally, I don't mind it so long as it is both fully disclosed and the ramifications fully explained - both in an accessible manner to a layperson. So long as they do that, I'm okay with it. I'm more okay with it if they give the user a simple means to opt out in a meaningful fashion.

Now, chances are exactly none of those conditions will be met in the real world. But, in principle, I am okay with it.

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