As someone who's used the Odyssey cluster extensively, I can add that the most nodes I've run consecutively is ~ 500. While there are ~ 4000+ nodes on the cluster there's no way any single user could run that many simultaneously.
Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
81–90 of 91 posts
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a back of the envelope calculation. In theory (by supply-demand idea), you would make a negligible profit mining bitcoins. Each bitcoin is worth about $600. If our supply-demand assumption is true, the $2,160,000 dollars of Bitcoins that come into existence every day, that's also about $2,160,000 of electricity used. Or about 18,000,000 kWh per day. Or about 9,000,000 kg of C02 per day (9000 metric tonnes). Th…
The frantic addition of mining hardware (observable in the hash rate) contradicts this.
How so? It would seem to me to say nothing on the issue. The added hardware may be a mix of profitable and non-profitable machines. The question is where is the equilibrium now and over time?
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#83I'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.
I would like to see folded coins.. That is, protein folding. I'm definitely not qualified to suggest this, but it seems like proteins are kind of like hash values in their one way process structure.. I wonder if protein foldings are finite in number like bitcoins?
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#84From the article, Odyssey's Top500 page: http://www.top500.org/system/175596
It debuted in 61st place in 6/2008. By 11/2010 it had fallen to 434 and has since dropped entirely off the list.
At 6 years old it's fairly long in the tooth now.
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#85This was a young researcher who's access to the cluster was never revoked when they left a few years ago.
Original e-mail Harvard sent last week:
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Dear all,
I really hate having to send notes like this to our community - especially one as smart, gifted and talented as you all are, but anyway here goes...
Yesterday we were alerted to an unfortunate situation by one of our community members using the cluster who spotted an anomaly with a set of compute nodes.
Long story short, a "dogecoin" (bitcoin derivative) mining operation had been set up on the cluster consuming significant resources in order to participate in a mining contest.
I do want to also quickly state that we do not inspect, examine or look at algorithms and codes that are executing on the cluster, we respect your science and assume we are all good citizens. However, in the course of business, or as happened yesterday, if we are alerted to unexpected behavior we always investigate the cause of any issue.
So, to put this simply:
Harvard resources can not be used for any personal or private gain or any non research related activity.
Accordingly, any participation in "Klondike" style digital mining operations or contests for profit requiring Harvard owned assets to examine digital currency key strength and length are strictly prohibited for fairly obvious reasons. In fact, any activities using our shared resources for any non scientific purpose that results or does not actually result in personal gain are also clearly and explicitly denied.
As a result, and as guidance and as warning to you all, I do need to say that the individual involved in this particular operation no longer has access to any and all research computing facilities on a fully permanent basis.
Don't let this happen to you.
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#86Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Define non-negligible and show us some numbers. Mining is supposed to be difficult.
Most of the numbers floating around the internet and nearly every mainstream news piece about bitcoin's energy consumption are wrong. They cite an outdated statistic maintained by blockchain.info that assumed everyone was using a GPU even when nearly all of the network was ASICs. I would estimate the current network (25Ph/s) averages around 2-5W per Gh/s, leading to 50-125MW total power use. bbosh in this thread is o…
I haven't cited any statistic from blockchain.info, and haven't considered hardware at all. All I have done is employ economic argument, which I think makes sense. It doesn't matter whether or not particular individuals are using ASICs. All that matters is that, collectively, they are making only a tiny profit (if any). This argument doesn't require consideration of hash-rate or particular hardware at all.
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though it is the dead of winter and we just had a major snow storm role though my furnace hasn't turned on in days. My mining equipment provides sufficient heat to keep my house warm on it's own.
Have you tried to calculate whether you make more money from mining than you would save by switching to a more cost effective way of heating your home, without electricity?
I'm not sure I understand your question. My mining equipment is profitable on it's own the fact that it totally eliminates my need to burn natural gas to heat my house is just an extra fringe benefit to the tune of $100 /month in the winter months.
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you tried to calculate whether you make more money from mining than you would save by switching to a more cost effective way of heating your home, without electricity?
I'm not sure I understand your question. My mining equipment is profitable on it's own the fact that it totally eliminates my need to burn natural gas to heat my house is just an extra fringe benefit to the tune of $100 /month in the winter months.
The assumption is that heating with gas/wood/coal whatever is cheaper than heating with electricity - is the profit made from mining including that - your point stands though.
Re: Harvard supercomputing cluster hijacked to mine Dogecoin
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The frantic addition of mining hardware (observable in the hash rate) contradicts this.
How so? It would seem to me to say nothing on the issue. The added hardware may be a mix of profitable and non-profitable machines. The question is where is the equilibrium now and over time?
I can't offer a strict logical proof, but I very much doubt that the hash rate is doubling month over month due to unprofitable hardware being brought online.