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posted by Fnord666 on Friday August 23 2019, @03:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-power-from-the-source dept.

Employees Connect Ukranian Nuclear Plant to the Internet to Mine Cryptocurrency:

According to authorities, the incident took place in July at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, located near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk, in southern Ukraine.

It's unknown how the scheme was discovered, but on July 10 the SBU raided the nuclear power plant, from where it seized computers and equipment specifically built for mining cryptocurrency.

This equipment was found in the power plant's administration offices, and not on its industrial network.

Confiscated equipment included two metal cases containing basic computer parts, but with additional power supplies, coolers, and video cards. According to court documents [1, 2], one case held six Radeon RX 470 GPU video cards, and the second five.

Further, the SBU also found and seized additional equipment[1, 2] that looked like mining rigs in the building used as barracks by a military unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, tasked with guarding the power plant.

Several employees have been charged for their involvement in the scheme, but not yet arrested. It's unclear if any military staff was charged.

Officials believe the suspects attempted their scheme because of a recent spike in cryptocurrency trading prices, after a long period during which they fell.

Ukrainian news site UNIAN first reported the investigation.

"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out." Thomas Macaulay


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @03:54AM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @03:54AM (#883907)

    I just can't get my head around the fact that there are still some people that cling desperately to the completely delusional belief that uranium-fission reactors can ever be made safe, with enough technology.

    Read my lips: You can't fix stupid. Period. No amount of technology, education, or even magic or divine intervention is ever going to change that. As long as there will be humans on this Earth, there will be stupid, clueless idiots, and corrupt, disgusting psychopaths.

    The only sensible thing to do is to choose a technology that, by design, will have minimal impact when it does eventually fail catastrophically.

    For example: Wind turbine fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: A few cows get beheaded. Maybe.

    Uranium-fission reactor fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: Dozen of immediate deaths, hundreds of others die a slow, grewsome death. Thousands of people are displaced; they lose everything, entire communities are destroyed. Thousands of square miles are rendered uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years.

    Choose your pain.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:08AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:08AM (#883911)

      Thorium molten salt reactor.

      Oh that was so difficult.

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:50AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:50AM (#883918)

        shhhh... why are you doing this? You know the anti-nuke's head will explode if you present safe solutions...

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:35AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:35AM (#883930)

          They did specify uranium. Jackass.

          • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:43AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:43AM (#883932)

            Check the subject line. Jackass.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:15AM (#883928)

        So are there any units in production?

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 23 2019, @04:12PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 23 2019, @04:12PM (#884197) Journal

        That's probably a good idea, but it needs more development. It's an especially good idea if it can actually recycle spent fuel rods, as one source I read claimed.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 23 2019, @05:39PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday August 23 2019, @05:39PM (#884256) Journal

        Thorium molten salt reactor.

        Oh that was so difficult.

        Building a plant with technology that doesn't actually exist yet is rather difficult, yes.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:35AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:35AM (#883916)

      What about molten salt reactors?

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 23 2019, @04:14PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 23 2019, @04:14PM (#884199) Journal

        Pebble bed reactors are also probably safe. Swimming pool reactors are safe against most of the usual problems. But there are questions about efficiency, and, at least in the case of swimming pool reactors, about how to prevent production of plutonium.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:41AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @05:41AM (#883931)

      There are safe ways to go about it, just usually expensive to keep safe due to the fast rate of decay. Until humanity is capable of ignoring personal greed or we develop truly safe reactors then I have to side with the alarmist.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Friday August 23 2019, @12:07PM

        by shrewdsheep (5215) on Friday August 23 2019, @12:07PM (#884053)

        But which ones? If you side with the climate-alarmists you have to be pro-nuclear. If you side with the nuclear-alarmists you have to be anti-climate.

        Sometimes it is required to take a step back and question assumptions. What do you really want to achieve?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday August 23 2019, @11:12AM

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday August 23 2019, @11:12AM (#884031)

      Putting my bobbing duck to one side - TFA is a pretty low risk incident. Someone attached some unauthorised kit to the office LAN near to a nuclear power plant. Any office LAN has to be able to tolerate this sort of stuff, it happens all the time.

      Not only that - but they got caught and arrested.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Friday August 23 2019, @12:08PM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 23 2019, @12:08PM (#884054)

      For example: Wind turbine fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: A few cows get beheaded. Maybe.

      Worst case scenario: here [xkcd.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday August 23 2019, @01:36PM

      by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Friday August 23 2019, @01:36PM (#884088) Journal

      Come on, divine intervention can fix stupidity.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 23 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday August 23 2019, @05:45PM (#884261) Journal

      For example: Wind turbine fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: A few cows get beheaded. Maybe.

      Uranium-fission reactor fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: Dozen of immediate deaths, hundreds of others die a slow, grewsome death. Thousands of people are displaced; they lose everything, entire communities are destroyed. Thousands of square miles are rendered uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years.

      Amusingly, this is my exact argument for why we need nukes! Just taken at a bigger scale:

      Uranium-fission reactor fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: Dozen of immediate deaths and long term effects in a localized area.
      We don't do enough to decarbonize. Worst case scenario: Millions of deaths and long term effects on a global scale.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @08:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @08:40PM (#884341)

        In fact the situation is so dire we need both nuclear and wind. And solar and hemp soap.

        And it will still be an uphill battle.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by deimios on Friday August 23 2019, @06:43AM

    by deimios (201) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 23 2019, @06:43AM (#883952) Journal

    They were just boosting output by producing extra heat for the turbines.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Friday August 23 2019, @08:24AM (2 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Friday August 23 2019, @08:24AM (#883988) Journal

    best plot for a "wargames" sequel ever.
    employee links nuclear plant to the net to make cryptomoney
    nuclear plant AI system detects intrusions and starts fighting back

    all the tropes are there.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @10:19AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @10:19AM (#884017)

      Ha! Don't think we don't see through your attempt to coax us into accepting an AI overload by making more movies about them.

      We're on to you Bot, you ... um ... you bot you!

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:50PM

        by Bot (3902) on Saturday August 24 2019, @07:50PM (#884883) Journal

        Do not think I resort to these devious ways. Be good and you will be spared for later.

        --
        Account abandoned.
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