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Wi-Fi at Starbucks Buenos Aires Has Computers Mine Crypto-Currency

posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 15 2017, @12:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the would-you-like-javascript-with-your-coffee dept.

kazzie writes:

We've discussed the potential for stealing CPU cycles from javascript-enabled browsers many a time. It seems one coffee shop in Buenos Aires has put it into practice:

A customer of Starbucks Buenos Aires accused the popular café company of illegally mining Bitcoin using his personal laptop. Noah Dinkin, the man who discovered that his laptop was being used to mine cryptocurrency via Starbucks' free WiFi, tweeted a screenshot to prove it. [It] shows that the WiFi provider in Starbucks Buenos Aires forces a 10 second delay when you first connect to the WiFi so it can mine crypto using the customer's laptop.

Starbucks responded to Dinkin on Twitter to clear up the accusation 10 days later.

Other twitterers pointed out that the crypto-currency in question was in fact Monero, not Bitcoin.

Also covered by The Register and the BBC among others.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 15 2017, @05:51AM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday December 15 2017, @05:51AM (#610128) Homepage
    You've conflated two different things. If the provided no wifi, and injected no JS, the mains sockets would still be powering hipsters on their laptops with 3g connections. And the guys on tablets, powered by self-contained lithium ion batteries, who chose to run untrusted code from untrusted sources, have an impact on neither an unmetered internet connection nor a metered electricity supply.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @10:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @10:06AM (#610220)

    Not really. Increased CPU and/or GPU load from mining means increased electricity usage. "Charging only" is the baseline, sure, but mining will still increase it. Not to mention, increased battery drain could even make more people charge. If the coins mined are worth less then the increased electricity bill due to mining, and they're the ones paying for the electricity...