Does anyone else see a problem with this?

[matt.collier]

This article is an interview with someone who is using their employers computer lab to mine for bitcoins.  The employer happens to be a school somewhere in New York.  The article does not say if the school is publicly or privately funded.  The person being interviewed indicates that he is doing this for personal gain and says:

Is that illegal?

Well, Bitcoins are legal. Using the computers to do this? I am pretty sure that’s a grey area. I’d be hard-pressed to tell you which law I was breaking. I am pretty sure my employers wouldn’t be thrilled if they found it though.

Really!? This person doesn't think stealing electricity and other resources from their employer is illegal?  This is not like stealing office supplies for person use.  This is like stealing office supplies and opening up an office supply store.

@IT Director, your ignorance of the law and lack of a moral compass is surprising, and the fact that you were willing to be interviewed about this is even more surprising.  I think you should either desist immediately, or take the idea of using school resources in this fashion to your employer and put the gains towards something that will benefit the school.  Unfortunately, the 60 CPUs you have available for this purpose will likely not make for a compelling case in favor of this project.

[brocktice]

Yeah this is stealing electricity from his employer. Dumb idea. If the uni kept the btc it'd be another story.

[Horkabork]

Sure, it's stealing electricity, but I think that anyone who has worked in a university or IT environment will tell you that an awful lot of projects are done only for fun, personal gain, or just to dick around. You're almost expected to do this. In the very least, it's a corollary benefit to spending your life in the comparatively poorer area of academia rather than industry.

And that model has done very well, historically. Many, many projects have been inspired by or directly realized from "a dude who was selfishly messing around with university machinery."

[brocktice]

I have worked in a university IT department. I understand the argument, but it's wrong in this case. Unless the uni has unmetered electricity, which it may, this will substantially increase their electrical bill. This is not screwing around after hours or during a dead part of the workday with an idle computer or three.

[BitterTea]

This guy is a douche who has no business talking to people about Bitcoin, since he barely even understands it himself. He actually referred to the unauthorized use of his employer's computers as an "investment".

[benjamindees]

Schools that have a central plant or certain wholesale pricing often need to maintain a constant minimum load.  So they do things like leave all the lights on at night.  I don't know whether that's the case here though.

[mewantsbitcoins]

The internet. It's the place where one idiot writes about another idiot doing stupid things. Once it gets published, a lot of people with no life care about it.  Fascinating!

[Horkabork]

The internet. It's the place where one idiot writes about another idiot doing stupid things. Once it gets published, a lot of people with no life care about it.  Fascinating!

This is how I will explain the internet to people when I finally finish my time machine.