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Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

bbc.com

1–10 of 112 posts

Re: Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

#5

So...doesn't this mean their website will start getting flagged as malware? Many security companies flag CoinHive as malware...

yes it's likely that these domains end up on some list.

E.g.:

   $ curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZeroDot1/CoinBlockerLists/master/hosts|grep salon.com
   0.0.0.0 worker.salon.com

Re: Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

#6

I think it’s a good thing. Better than sacrificing journalistic integrity for clickbait that helps drive more ads

> I think it’s a good thing. Better than sacrificing journalistic integrity for clickbait that helps drive more ads

err ... they are doing both.

Re: Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

#8

So...doesn't this mean their website will start getting flagged as malware? Many security companies flag CoinHive as malware...

yes it's likely that these domains end up on some list. E.g.: $ curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZeroDot1/CoinBlockerLists/master/hosts|grep salon.com 0.0.0.0 worker.salon.com

Yikes, you'd think a media company would be smarter than to use a software that returns hundreds of articles about malware as the top results of a google search for its name.

Re: Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

#9

I think it’s a good thing. Better than sacrificing journalistic integrity for clickbait that helps drive more ads

Now the incentive is to keep the user on the site longer. Excessively long articles?

More video, unskippable ads. Interactivity, asking for user input. Articles read by video chatbots.

Re: Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs

#10
If this is done without explicit permission from the user, I can see it being some sort of hacking offence.

So yes, I run adblockers. I will also run coinblockers. You're not going to be mining on my laptop processor and battery. Not yours.

If you don't want me reading your stuff for free (which is perfectly reasonable!) then block me, instruct your server not to send content on those terms. I'm happy with that. But I will not render your ads, nor run your mining script.

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