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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

#61

Post by duskwuff »

labster wrote: post #53
indiv0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a similar note, I wonder how much money the Chinese government could make if they used the method they used to DDoS Github [0], but instead to load crypto-coin mining JavaScript onto every Baidu user's computer? Then again, that seems like one of the fastest ways to make the average citizen actually angry at the Great Firewall. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/massi...

The Chinese government is working hard to decrease pollution, not add additional stress on the power grid. Incentives change when you're the one responsible for all the externalities.

The GFW works both ways. That attack injected code into Chinese browsers viewing sites outside the GFW, but it could just as easily inject code into browsers outside the GFW viewing Chinese sites...

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

#62

Post by duskwuff »

yuhong wrote: post #43
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.

It would be fun if AES-NI support was added to JavaScript engines, though it would need a standard.

As far as I'm aware, AES calculations aren't a component of any cryptocurrency.

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

#63

Post by CoryHallpdp11 »

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.

adblock-nocoin-list

https://github.com/hoshsadiq/adblock-nocoin-list/

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

#64

Post by niklabh »

It's just some developer who injects coin-hive code on the website he manages hoping to make a quick buck. Executives will never direct to mine from user considering the incredible low ROI. And the dev is HN reader as the coin-hive post was on top some days ago.

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

#65

Post by beedogs »

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?

You know what's even better than that?

Downloading the 1080p torrent off TPB.

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

#67

Post by pocketsquare2 »

hellbanner wrote: post #4

The web seriously sucks. One thing I admire, at least in theory, about Xbox 360 games or iOS apps is the limited access a specific program can run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiqioE1zGCw talks about this Why is the overwhelming majority of networked software still not secure, despite all effort to the contrary? Why is it almost certain to get exploited so long as attackers can craft its inputs? Why is it the cas…

> In this talk we'll draw a direct connection between this ubiquitous insecurity and basic computer science concepts of Turing completeness and theory of languages. We will show how well-meant protocol designs are doomed to their implementations becoming clusters of 0day, and will show where to look for these 0day. We will also discuss simple principles of how to avoid designing such protocols.

Sounds like you want the next-gen version of what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu was supposed to be. Unfortunately while you were discussing the above with like-minded peers other people were shipping things that users (not designers, users) want. The latter always trumps the former.

I agree with you philosophically - how could you not - but how do you have your cake and eat it, too, in this regard? Xanadu was impossible enough, and expecting to have all its trappings with the best parts of TimBL seems like the recipe for a classic Borges tragicomic short story.

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

#68

Post by brailsafe »

I bet some clever person on the marketing team just went ahead and inserted the tag. My first experience on a large corporate dev team was eye-opening. While the core product code was version controlled and reviewed, the marketing team had the power to insert any kind of scripts onto the page without clearance. In theory, anything new on the page would require many ridiculous meetings. In practice, they could and did put in whatever through a third-party like New Relic.

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

#69

Post by brailsafe »

kentonv wrote: post #12
hellbanner wrote: post #4

The web seriously sucks. One thing I admire, at least in theory, about Xbox 360 games or iOS apps is the limited access a specific program can run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiqioE1zGCw talks about this Why is the overwhelming majority of networked software still not secure, despite all effort to the contrary? Why is it almost certain to get exploited so long as attackers can craft its inputs? Why is it the cas…

> EDIT: Sandstorm was looking to fix user permissions for individual programs on computers (they went defunct/bankrupt/no-longer-developing last I heard). I'm still developing, just not full-time.

Nice job on that house you have there. Looks like you might even be able to play Warcraft 3 over LAN without spending the entire party trying to get it set up.

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

#70

Post by icanhackit »

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?

> why is this not a potential legitimate business model?

I was thinking the same thing the other day when I first heard about it. One of the main issues with existing subscription models is that some people only want to consume a small fraction of what is available from a service provider (news, music, video etc) yet have to pay a not-insignificant fee for access to everything. A good example would be the latest Star Trek series only being available in the US via CBS All Access (thankful that I'm in a country where it'll be available on Netflix).

If I could lease out my CPU for a real-time exchange of services, that'd suit me just fine. I already have accounts with an energy provider and ISP, so it's one fewer monetary relationship I need to worry about.

You could be asked on a per view basis, so by default all sites are blocked and need to ask for the exchange to be approved. You could also white-list trusted sites, or for a set period approve all requests not unlike a software firewall e.g. Little Snitch paired with an ad-blocker.

This is something the W3C should standardise at the browser level so it's not inefficient and works across different browsers effectively. It could potentially save journalism and other business models that don't jive well with existing subscription/payment structures.

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