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Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

arstechnica.com

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Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#11

Post by eli »

mkeung wrote: post #3

If cryptocurrencies become mainstream, this will be a bigger problem I think. Even things like "free" electricity are attractive for mining purposes, ex: universities, businesses, etc. If every student setup mining, it adds up (at the university / business' expense). If I am the one paying for an office at $500 a month that includes all electricity usage, is it fair to plug in a ton of mining hardware and profit / su…

Is it fair? That's a moral question. Kinda feels like stealing to me. And, anyway, if you were using electricity at a large enough scale to make this interesting, somebody would likely notice.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#12

Post by pavel_lishin »

mkeung wrote: post #9
cmelbye wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dead simple problem to fix. Just don't allow for unlimited free access to resources used for crypto currency mining.

but in a large building / campus, they can't possibly monitor electricity usage per individual or company occupying the space without upgrading the infrastructure significantly.

I'm imagining a future where every 'public' power outlet has a credit card reader attached.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#13

Post by pavel_lishin »

eli wrote: post #11
mkeung wrote: post #3

If cryptocurrencies become mainstream, this will be a bigger problem I think. Even things like "free" electricity are attractive for mining purposes, ex: universities, businesses, etc. If every student setup mining, it adds up (at the university / business' expense). If I am the one paying for an office at $500 a month that includes all electricity usage, is it fair to plug in a ton of mining hardware and profit / su…

Is it fair? That's a moral question. Kinda feels like stealing to me. And, anyway, if you were using electricity at a large enough scale to make this interesting, somebody would likely notice.

At which point does it stop being fair usage of a resource, and become stealing?

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#14

Post by heydenberk »

I'm hopeful that future cryptocurrencies won't be so energy-intensive to mine. Bitcoin is already a non-negligible contributor to global CO2 emissions, believe it or not.

EDIT: Reversible computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing) is a possible way to have computationally difficult proof-of-work while minimizing energy consumption.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#15

Post by chc »

heydenberk wrote: post #14

I'm hopeful that future cryptocurrencies won't be so energy-intensive to mine. Bitcoin is already a non-negligible contributor to global CO2 emissions, believe it or not. EDIT: Reversible computing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing ) is a possible way to have computationally difficult proof-of-work while minimizing energy consumption.

How do you make something incapable of being energy-intensive but still difficult? The more computers have to work at something, the more energy they use. I'm not the world's leading expert, but I don't see a way around that.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#16

Post by WizzleKake »

heydenberk wrote: post #14

I'm hopeful that future cryptocurrencies won't be so energy-intensive to mine. Bitcoin is already a non-negligible contributor to global CO2 emissions, believe it or not. EDIT: Reversible computing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing ) is a possible way to have computationally difficult proof-of-work while minimizing energy consumption.

Define non-negligible and show us some numbers.

Mining is supposed to be difficult.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#17

Post by wmf »

steveklabnik wrote: post #5
logfromblammo wrote: post #2

I have heard people say that scrypt is better than SHA256 as a basis for cryptocurrency because it doesn't put all the network power in specialist ASIC boxes, but then stuff like this happens. Do you think Harvard would have paid for a custom-build scrypt-coin miner if someone wrote a real academic proposal for it?

There have been some claims that an scrypt ASIC is coming soon, but I think it's mostly vapor so far.

Gridseed is shipping. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=477709.0

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#18

Post by jcampbell1 »

mkeung wrote: post #6
steveklabnik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been some claims that an scrypt ASIC is coming soon, but I think it's mostly vapor so far.

From my understanding, scrypt ASICs have been held back by the cost of memory hardware as scrypt requires more memory usage. There has been talk of forking existing scrypt currencies to require even more memory to counter ASICs further but so far I think only a few new coins have done this.

My understanding is the scrypt currencies use the lowest possible memory factor, which was just stupid.

Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin

#19

Post by antonios »

heydenberk wrote: post #14

I'm hopeful that future cryptocurrencies won't be so energy-intensive to mine. Bitcoin is already a non-negligible contributor to global CO2 emissions, believe it or not. EDIT: Reversible computing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing ) is a possible way to have computationally difficult proof-of-work while minimizing energy consumption.

Here you go: http://www.nxtcrypto.org/

100% Proof of stake, 1 minute blocks, no mining.

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