Bitcoin

[Dog Pants]

[Anery]

I'd never heard of this before this thread but now I'm seeing it everywhere In fact the very first website I went to had a comment about it. And now RPS. Is it entering a new age of popularity or something?


I still don't understand how it works.

Bitcoins are generated by folks crunching numbers on their machines, these generate some kind of bitcoin IDs. RPS were concerned as it had been uncovered that a company producing anti-cheat software was using it to take advantag of others and crunch numbers on machines with it installed. Which is dark stuff indeed, I'm curious as to where that puts them legally...any law types here?

[FatherJack]

a company producing anti-cheat software was using it to take advantag of others and crunch numbers on machines with it installed. Which is dark stuff indeed, I'm curious as to where that puts them legally...any law types here?

It's still rather unclear whether it was the company doing it, or an individual. It sounds as if it's a well-liked/respected/essential person within the company who they do not wish to publicly reprimand.

What they've done, and as the ever-increasing amount hints may even still be doing, is use other people's computers, increasing their electricity costs and the wear-and-tear on their GPU to make themselves money. That's like someone "borrowing" your car every night, using it as a taxi, driving around with their foot to the floor, then filling up the tank, resetting the mileage and putting it back before you notice. I'm pretty sure that's still stealing.

I would expect the individual to face internal disciplinary action unless the company choose to scapegoat them - adding code to subvert customer's machine should have been unthinkable, even as a joke and certainly shouldn't have found it's way into release code.

As a company, they should expect messages from lawyers. Simply giving the money (x2, admittedly) they basically stole to charity hardly comes across as contrition - what do the people whose GPUs have been run ragged get?

Legally, I don't know how it works - does something have to be demonstrably damaged before a claim can be made, or is the fact that it was used without asking enough? The fact it was used questionably to make money for a third party can only strengthen their guilt.

[ProfHawking]

Soo.. been in the news again

Just curious, did anyone else put some money in bitcoin in the end? How are you guys doing?
I traded some of mine (badly) but what's left is worth (theoretically) about 6 times as much as my original investment at present. I wish I'd just sat on them tho