Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity • Hacker News Board

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#81

Post by mytailorisrich » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely normal evidence for raiding cannabis farms. I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

They don't raid a place based on high electricity consumption or heat alone. They do when this is not expected and suspicious based on other factors as well.

For instance a domestic property or, in this case, a warehouse that officially uses no electricity.

If you rent a warehouse to run your official glass baubles manufacturing business then no-one is going to bat an eyelid about heat or electricity use.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#82

Post by staticautomatic » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

mewwts wrote: post #67

why_only_15 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to pay $50k in electricity to mine a $40k bitcoin, it would be better to just turn off the mine and buy the bitcoin directly.

Not if you have all that money tied up in an old mining rig which has close to zero resale value.

Can mining rigs be repurposed for anything useful?

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#83

Post by darkcha0s » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

scatters wrote: post #58

kleiba wrote: post #21

I say: combine the two (cannabis farming and bitcoin mining)!

Unfortunately the laws of thermodynamics will get in the way. Cannabis farming uses electricity to build organic chemicals and outputs waste heat at 40°C; bitcoin mining uses electricity to solve equations and outputs waste heat at 40°C. There's not really any way to use the waste products of one as an input to the other.

Just scalp enough 3090's with RGB lighting and you might just have enough light/wattage to grow

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#84

Post by knorker » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

drexlspivey wrote: post #45

amelius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you get electricity for free.

It still is unless you get the GPUs for free as well

Who says they wouldn't be stolen too?

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#85

Post by jhgb » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:47 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #44

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #11

Based on heat and people coming and going, police assumed it was a cannabis farm . Based on that incorrect conclusion, they raided the place. Flimsy evidence.

The heat thing is even more ridiculous, given that farmers have shifted to LED lighting for years now precisely to avoid heat emission that can be picked up by police copters...

> to avoid heat emission that can be picked up by police copters

Sounds like farmers need some kind of heat rejection system.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#86

Post by throwaway0a5e » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:47 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #81

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

They don't raid a place based on high electricity consumption or heat alone. They do when this is not expected and suspicious based on other factors as well. For instance a domestic property or, in this case, a warehouse that officially uses no electricity. If you rent a warehouse to run your official glass baubles manufacturing business then no-one is going to bat an eyelid about heat or electricity use.

>They don't raid a place based on high electricity consumption or heat alone.

Sure. But it puts you on the kind of list you don't want to be on and from there there's a good chance they screw you for something stupid because they don't like to come up empty handed after spending resources surveilling you and not finding what they were looking for.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#87

Post by simias » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:48 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely normal evidence for raiding cannabis farms. I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

These activities would certainly be legally incorporated and easy to cross reference.

I also suspect that these ovens don't run 24/7. If they use their drones on a Sunday outside of work hours they can probably weed out (ha) many false positives.

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#88

Post by tomatotomato37 » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:48 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

pjc50 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely normal evidence for raiding cannabis farms. I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

An unregistered smelter using large amounts of stolen electricity is still commiting a crime, just not an interesting one

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#89

Post by sokoloff » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:49 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #25

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #11

Based on heat and people coming and going, police assumed it was a cannabis farm . Based on that incorrect conclusion, they raided the place. Flimsy evidence.

A report from the public, unusual activity for the location, lots of heat that can't be explained by official electrical usage and, probably, not explained by the registered or zoned usage (probably light industrial). Sounds like more than enough to get a warrant.

I personally would hope that wouldn’t be enough (at least in the US).

I don’t see anything in the above list of facts that rises to articulable probable cause that a specific crime is being committed. (Maybe you could tighten the analysis a bit to get to PC that electricity or gas are being stolen. I’d be OK with that.)

Re: Sandwell Bitcoin mine found stealing electricity

#90

Post by Ensorceled » Fri, May 28, 2021, 12:49 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #81

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure what more you'd reasonably expect to find. Literally any sort of activity that uses electrical ovens. I can think of dozens of processes for the manufacture of plastic, ceramic and metal items where you're gonna want to bake stuff. Edit: Apparently it wasn't obvious I was disagree about the assertion that "Based on heat and people coming and going" is normal justification for raiding a pot grow op and…

They don't raid a place based on high electricity consumption or heat alone. They do when this is not expected and suspicious based on other factors as well. For instance a domestic property or, in this case, a warehouse that officially uses no electricity. If you rent a warehouse to run your official glass baubles manufacturing business then no-one is going to bat an eyelid about heat or electricity use.

Especially with your big sign out front: "Gloria's Glass Globes" and, also, you'd probably be paying for all that electricity with a check from Gloria's Glass Globes Ltd.