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Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#51

Post by rav »

charcircuit wrote: post #11

I imagine Nvidia doesn't own the rights to the complete source code of the driver. Even if they wanted to open source it things move slow in big companies.

I would imagine that ownership of Nvidia's drivers would be more clear cut than most open source projects. Wouldn't it only be Nvidia's employees and contractors that have worked on the driver code? Then by default Nvidia would own the rights.

If Nvidia doesn't own the code, do you then imagine they're in a sort of licensing agreement with the rightsholders that allows them to distribute the binary blobs but not the code?

I don't understand what situation would lead a corporate-sponsored closed source project such as Nvidia's drivers to be in a position of complicated ownership.

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#52

Post by ofrzeta »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #46
imilk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions? I'd struggle to name 3.

I couldn’t name 3 baseball players, but that doesn’t mean none exist. It just means I’m ignorant of baseball.

Still "millions of stories" is quite the exaggeration. Or do you count "someone bought and sold crypto coins" as a story?

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#54

Post by randomhodler84 »

DangitBobby wrote: post #40
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Positive PR from "helping gamers" 2. Product segmentation (nvidia also make mining cards)

3. To actually help gamers and other legitimate users of GPUs

I’m sorry you are being outbid by another guy who wants to mine with a graphics card, but who are you to say that guy securing a censorship resistant and decentralized monetary system is less legit than your leisure time amateur rocket league tournament?

If the owner uses it to train a ML model? Is that legit then? Or can general purpose GPUs only be single purpose for games. For gamers?

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#55

Post by modeless »

0xedd wrote: post #42
Godel_unicode wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is that driver source being open could help the (tiny!) Linux gaming community, but I agree. This is about mining.

Percentage wise it looks small but numbers are impressive. Monthly active steam users using Linux was reported at over 1 million last year https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/

That will easily double in the next year with the release of the $399 Steam Deck and accompanying Proton and Steam improvements. Linux is finally about to become a serious gaming platform. (No thanks to Nvidia)

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#56

Post by dmitriid »

weq wrote: post #45
fjfbsufhdvfy wrote: post #12

So when do we ban cryptocurrencies already? The only use of this crap is crime.

You realise crypto is more stable then most developing worlds governments? Does that mean the use only use of 3rd world country money is crime, too? What about iphones that expire after 10yrs of usage and get bricked by the manufacturer? is that a better use of your USD? really, what is the scam? Cause if u invested in bitcoin 10 yrs ago, u could trade that now for a new car without a sweat. They were right. The cryp…

> You realise crypto is more stable then most developing worlds governments?

It's not.

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#57

Post by oofabz »

nojs wrote: post #8

> Nvidia introduced LHR in February 2021 with the launch of its GeForce RTX 3060 models. Three months later, the company brought LHR to its GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, and 3060 Ti graphics cards. The reason: to make the cards less desirable to people mining Ethereum and possibly other types of cryptocurrencies. What a bizarre move. Why would they do this?

It was an attempt to decrease demand for the cards, thereby reducing price.

The simplest market solution to high demand and inadequate supply would be to raise the price of the cards. This would maximize short-term profits but Nvidia felt it was not the right strategic move. Why not? Here are some guesses:

- pricing gamers out of the GPU market would damage Nvidia's historical market - video games

- pricing AI users out of the GPU market would damage an exciting new market Nvidia is working very hard to cultivate

- tying a large fraction of your business to cryptocurrency is risky given the volatility of that market

I think Nvidia sees gaming and AI as viable long-term markets and feels very invested in maintaining the health of those markets and Nvidia's participation in them. They are much less interested in cryptocurrency mining customers because they don't see a long-term future for themselves there. Nvidia is willing to take a short-term hit to profits to get more of their products into the hands of gamers and AI researchers.

However Nvidia has not completely forsaken short-term profitability. They have substantially raised the price of GPUs and they are making considerable amounts of money selling GPUs to miners. They are trying to take a middle path and balance competing interests.

Re: Cybercriminals who breached Nvidia issue one of the most unusual demands ever

#59

Post by schappim »

squarefoot wrote: post #4

I would rather outlaw cryptocurrencies for being a harm for the planet with their crazy energy demands, besides also fueling criminals.

Would seem to be a rather misinformed comment even to a crypto-layperson.

I’m surprised we don’t have a chorus of cyptofiles informing you that crypto emits less greenhouse gases than the traditional banking system, and there are coins/tokens that don’t require melting chips to establish proof of work.

I can’t talk to the use of crypto currencies for crime, but I would be surprised if the total volume of transactions were greater than that of traditional currencies (ie cash).

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