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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

#621

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

ehnto wrote: post #66
DangitBobby wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely support making GPUs less attractive to miners. I'd buy a card that could be remotely disabled when usage patterns matched crypto mining if it meant I could spend MSRP on a modern card.

Is there some practical way to delineate the two product usages that isn't arbitrary I wonder? Maybe make mining only cards more performant and affordable than consumer graphics cards, so that consumer cards will drop in price from less demand? I find it hard to believe that a use case specific device wouldn't be able to dethrone graphics cards as the better choice for miners at the right price, and it should be chea…

Just wait. GPU mined currencies is pretty much exclusive to Ethereum which has dedicated plans to migrate away from PoW. Monero is set on PoW but uses a psuedo random mining challenge to thwart dedicated hardware and target all purpose CPUs - its targeting, not sure if its what you want.

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

#622

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

thn-gap wrote: post #369
breakfastduck wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care what the use case is. I don't support artificial performance limitation on expensive hardware. It's as simple as that.

I do care when this use case is harmful. We shouldn't need to limit hardware for specific usages, but we already see that people won't stop themselves from wasting energy and accelerating world climate if this gives you more wealth and power. I'd also be up for limiting all military weapons from being so destructive across the globe for example. It's mind blowing how we managed to create so many harmful tools in such…

Likening Crypto Mining to military weapons is ridiculous. Not to mention you as those taking your position on crypto often to have painfully failed Chesterton's Fence.

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

#623

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #533
keymon-o wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably not that informed on who does what artificially and intentionally, but I still don’t see a point in justifying gaming usage over crypto usage. As far as destroying the planet argument goes, gamers could equally be limited to using a specifically designed devices for optimal gaming and entertainment purposes. Apart from the ability to check the GPU health, GPU providers could easily implement some hardwa…

>gamers could equally be limited to using a specifically designed devices for optimal gaming and entertainment purposes. We are trying, but crypto-bros are buying our cards. C'mon pay a bit more attention.

If video games are that important to you buy a video game console. The availability there is also bunk and has nothing to do with mining - claiming something which uses energy is automatically 'bad' is silly and relies on common ignorance and frustration. Cars use energy, lights use energy, video games use energy - crypto is new and you don't understand it past that fact that it uses energy so you can't tolerate it. If you don't want to get rid of everything which uses considerable energy then you need to determine the value of each thing individually, and if you say crypto is worthless, you should have a non-circular reason for that claim. Clearly the market disagrees with you.

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

#624

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #535
Zpalmtree wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't entitled to cheaper video cards just because you don't like what other people are doing with them

Seeing as Nvidia agrees with me, I think you are wrong. In any case the sales have started to drop so if Nvidia doesn't do anything after crypto fad ends they'll be out of business since people aren't buying their GPUs anymore.

So you believe that Nvidia needs crypto to survive but knowingly and intentionally hampers their cards' mining performance? You seem confused.

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

#625

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

paulmd wrote: post #601
Zpalmtree wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't entitled to cheaper video cards just because you don't like what other people are doing with them

Conversely miners aren't entitled to cheaper video cards just because they built a business around consumer hardware. Companies seeking to maximize their revenue is very much the nature of the free market. It's their business, you don't get to tell them how to run it. You're a customer in a market, if you don't find the product acceptable then you can go elsewhere. There are competitors offering products as well, and…

> Miners have responded to the shift in the power dynamic by throwing a tantrum and attacking and blackmailing their suppliers. Bioshock nailed it: laissez-faire is great when you're the one on top, but as soon as someone else out-competes you, or exerts their own market leverage, it's an unfair and ridiculous imposition on your own right to profit, and it's time to shout and flip the game board.

#notAllMiners

All you're saying is that businesses should sell to whoever makes them the most profit - so how does that explain Nvidia cutting value and lowering the price of their cards to sell to gamers rather than miners?

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

#626

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

DethNinja wrote: post #370
larsrc wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrencies have shown that you can transform energy into money without any of that messy middle step of doing something useful.

How is that different than central bank printing? Print money and hand it to your buddies so that they buy new yachts instead of producing anything of value? At least with crypto we know where the money is going and potentially how it is spent. I can’t believe people still argue against cryptocurrencies in 2022 when it has completely proved itself superior to fiat in every way possible, including overall energy usage…

Nice red flag: people that claim crypto is bad because it uses energy are people that actually trust Elon Musk's arbitrary opinions. Elon knows less about cryptocurrency than a fair amount of degenerate twenty year old speculators.

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

#627

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #152
schappim wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

...but I would be surprised if the total volume of transactions were greater than that of traditional currencies (ie cash). You cannot compare the two. If you are poor and someone gives you crypto, you still won't have better food or a better apartment until you turn the crypto into cash. It isn't surprising that a less useful, simple form of transaction notation (which is really what money is and always has been) ha…

Symptom of being early, or more precisely, of having low liquidity comparatively. When the market cap increases liquidity rises and price stabilizes which lead to the final requirements for layer 1 of a currency.

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

#628

Post by Handytinge »

flatiron wrote: post #504
cornegidouille wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, although they are threatening to release slightly more than just the drivers ("the complete silicon, graphics, and computer chipset files"). But the legal vs. illegal access is definitely interesting and probably not something they took into account. I don't see, say, AMD stealing from "publicly stolen" technology, I can't imagine the insane lawsuit that would ensue. Maybe some Chinese company mi…

who would fab their chips though? i can only imagine tsmc getting an obvious nvidia knock off and refusing to fab it for them for fear nvidia would take their cards somewhere else to fab.

Your argument doesn't make sense. If TSMC are the only people who can fab them, why would they been concerned about Nvidia going elsewhere? If there is an elsewhere, that's where the chips can be fabricated.

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

#629

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #237
cbozeman wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also worthless, because they just keep printing them and giving them away to VCs You literally just described what's happened with fiat currencies in the past decade. Endless printing of money and giving it away to big banks. I guess you'll see it eventually randomhodler84.

Except fiat currencies have a value in the market based on the economies of the countries that issue them. I have yet to see a cryptocurrency that has a value in the market based on anything other than "a bigger fool might come along".

I guess you don't understand what value the seal of approval a dollar has - for that is what Bitcoin generates but without the backdoor devaluation and cronyism of private banking.

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

#630

Post by Handytinge »

hyperman1 wrote: post #268
feanaro wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think nVidia will want to see the release of all of its chip schematics? That's an interesting position, but I fail to see how that would be a good idea for them. Perhaps if they are hoping the hackers will be apprehended before Friday.

It's a standard rock vs hard place situation. But 1) why should nVidia trust the attackers? nVdia might give in, and the files might still be leaked. The attackers should be able to guarantee they won't release the files AND nobody steals the files from them. Hard sell for the attackers, especially with a kid profile . 2) These files are legally toxic. You can't look at them and then publicly act on their content. So…

> These files are legally toxic. You can't look at them and then publicly act on their content

I keep reading this, but is this just a US issue? I assume people in other countries can look and clone these?

Given close to half the worlds population live in India and China, and the US make up < 5% of the worlds population, this doesn't seem like a big concern.

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