Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
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Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#2> the purveyor of the apps subsequently earned thousands of Dogecoins
So like 5 bucks?
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#3This is alarmingly similar to the ESEA situation where ESEA (a premium membership gaming community) discreetly built a bitcoin miner into their anti-cheat client [1], fried some users' graphics cards and were found out then fined $1MM. [2]
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4292672/esea-gaming-network... [2] http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/e-sports/
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#4This is pretty hilarious. Given how small the load can be to automatically contribute hashes to a pool for ___coin, I expect more of these in the future, but smarter. Runs for 5 seconds per minute on ten million devices for six months? That's no joke with some of the hardware out there.
It's this close to a victimless crime (that is, unless the victim gets their CPU/GPU fried, as has happened with these nets before). But what about apps that use spare cycles while you're plugged in, or above 75% battery, or between hours x and y, to mine dogecoins for charity? People would voluntarily submit to that!
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#5I think what surprises me most about this situation is that even though the supposed offending apps, Songs in particular has been downloaded and installed between one and five million times but only possibly generated the author a few thousand Dogecoin. Seems like a big risk for a few dollars, wouldn't advertisements be more profitable option?
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#6This could be an interesting model to do out in the open. Rather than covertly mine cryptocurrency, say that the app is free if you contribute hashes to a pool, or you can buy the premium version that doesn't.
Almost like the "slow" version vs the "fast" version of an app.
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#7for all that trouble why don't they(makers of these apps) just buy a pc with a pair of reasonable ati cards?
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#8This is pretty hilarious. Given how small the load can be to automatically contribute hashes to a pool for ___coin, I expect more of these in the future, but smarter. Runs for 5 seconds per minute on ten million devices for six months? That's no joke with some of the hardware out there. It's this close to a victimless crime (that is, unless the victim gets their CPU/GPU fried, as has happened with these nets before).…
It's still stupid. Mobile devices are orders of magnitudes worse than PCs at the integer arithmetic required for cryptocurrency mining.
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#9I think what surprises me most about this situation is that even though the supposed offending apps, Songs in particular has been downloaded and installed between one and five million times but only possibly generated the author a few thousand Dogecoin. Seems like a big risk for a few dollars, wouldn't advertisements be more profitable option?
Doesn't the app have ads in addition to the mining aspect?
As someone pointed out in a similar past thread, 1 coin for $0 of energy is still an infinite profit.
Re: Apps with millions of Google Play downloads covertly mine cryptocurrency
#10These schemes mostly just convert electricity to cryptocurrency. The electricity is almost always more expensive than the value, but the app authors aren't paying the bill.
If you're plugging in your 5W charger for less than half the day, the limit is maybe $2/year/user, assuming you can get away with it for a year...