Tim Hornyak reports that National Science Foundation (NSF) has banned a researcher for using supercomputer resources to generate bitcoin. According to the semiannual report to Congress by the NSF Office of Inspector General, the computationally intensive mining used about $150,000 worth of NSF-supported computer use at the two universities to generate bitcoins worth about $8,000 to $10,000 (PDF). The universities told the NSF that the work was unauthorized, reporting that the researcher accessed the computers remotely, even using a mirror site in Europe, possibly to conceal his identity. "The researcher's access to all NSF-funded supercomputer resources was terminated," the office wrote. "In response to our recommendation, NSF suspended the researcher government-wide."
The incident follows a similar case in February in which a researcher at Harvard University was caught using supercomputer resources to mine dogecoin. The researcher was barred from accessing the computer resources.
(Score: 2) by keplr on Wednesday June 11 2014, @05:17AM
Misappropriating computer resources. It's basically the same thing as when I play solitaire on my work computer. These heathen scientists don't realize that every clock cycle is sacred!
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday June 11 2014, @06:43AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈