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from the would-you-like-javascript-with-your-coffee dept.
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.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday December 15 2017, @06:34AM
I see you don't mean free like in the "free as Wikipedia that annoys me with donation requests even after I donated".
Of course it can't detect I donated, I'm not gonna let them put a tracker on me or create a user/passwd with them.
Yes, living in Europe affords one to not be selfish, I know that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford