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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @07:09PM
How efficient is the JS mining code? I'm thinking it's not that efficient.
But if it's efficient enough and many people don't plug in then Starbucks could still make money since they're not paying for the mining hardware.
Otherwise it's probably someone else making money from Starbucks and their customers...