Mining on 40 computers

[Genrobo]

Most of the universities where I live have documents you sign upon entering, that indicate anything you come up with using university resources is owned by the university.
(I live by 2 major medical research universities, and 2 major enginerring universities.)
I assume that would include Bitcoins. :x

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[Freakin]

Seti@Home is VERY different from Bitcoin.  Most Unis would say "oh that's cool" if you were contributing to S@H.

If you were instead using uni resources to earn something that went in your personal pocket that (in the media) is commonly linked to buying illegal drugs online, they'd be singing a different tune.

This just isn't worth it for CPU mining because it is so power-inefficient.

[supa]

For educational purposes maybe, but surely not for resale or commercial gain.

This forum needs multiquote...

Conveniently, as of right now, BitCoins aren't a recognized currency.  Nothing is being purchased or sold in the mining operation - he's not producing currency nor transferring currency nor "selling" anything commercially.

The Student Agreements of most campuses include patentable items - you can't patent a produced BitCoin.

You also can't claim production royalties or ownership on electronically produced assets on commercial applications such as Ebay auctions, Craigslist, PGP keys, Dwolla and Paypal.

So, again, people are jumping to wild conclusions.

The only legitimate concern, as expressed several times, is even if you used 40 machines it's still not very efficient.

[Freakin]

For educational purposes maybe, but surely not for resale or commercial gain.

This forum needs multiquote...

Conveniently, as of right now, BitCoins aren't a recognized currency.  Nothing is being purchased or sold in the mining operation - he's not producing currency nor transferring currency nor "selling" anything commercially.

The Student Agreements of most campuses include patentable items - you can't patent a produced BitCoin.

You also can't claim production royalties or ownership on electronically produced assets on commercial applications such as Ebay auctions, Craigslist, PGP keys, Dwolla and Paypal.

So, again, people are jumping to wild conclusions.

The only legitimate concern, as expressed several times, is even if you used 40 machines it's still not very efficient.

if you think that would protect someone from disciplinary action from a superior who actually knew what was going on then you're delusional.

Bitcoins are worth money.  Electricity cost to produce them on otherwise idle machines is non-negligible.  You are transferring resources the school pays for that have a real cost directly into your pockets, and doing a pretty poor job of it.

[eturnerx]

Idleing 24/7 is WAYY different than 100%/100% The electric bill auto-magically jumped $800 a month?

Yeah, but these computers are used for rendering 3D graphics, and sometimes the students leave them on whole nights just to render, we're allowed to.

theft is theft

Amen. The Unis I've been associated with have no problem with their resources being used for outcomes that support course work and/or legitimate research projects. They have all had computer use policies that prohibit commercial activity on them - this is in part because they must software sellers some assure that the software they're getting at cheaper rates will only be used in education.
Doing this - if caught - is a pretty open and shut disciplinary case.

[Haxxy]

Hmm...

Is it even possible to be caught doing this? Suppose the computers in question are on public user accounts. If you simply set up the account and all of the software using the public computers, isn't it impossible for you to be traced unless someone physically witnesses you doing it? After all, even the bitcoin address is untraceable...

[viktorism]

I've now tried this on small scale with bitcoinplus running on 3 computers over the night. It generated a total of 0.0110132 BTC. Probably won't try it with all 40 computer as it seems to be quite a hassle.

theft is theft

What would I be stealing? Who's losing anything? As I said, the computers are used for rendering 3d graphics occasionally anyway, and then they're also using the schools render farm. So bitcoin mining is actually using less electricity than usually.

To be honest, I don't even think the IT technicians at the uni would mind. I know one of them who's involved in the Pirate Party, and pretty open to new innovative ideas. I'd be surprised if he haven't tried this himself.

[viktorism]

Hmm...

Is it even possible to be caught doing this? Suppose the computers in question are on public user accounts. If you simply set up the account and all of the software using the public computers, isn't it impossible for you to be traced unless someone physically witnesses you doing it? After all, even the bitcoin address is untraceable...

If they were public computers, probably no. They could trace it to me though, through the key cards used to get into school. These computers, unfortunately, requires one to sign in on all of them.

[supa]

I've now tried this on small scale with bitcoinplus running on 3 computers over the night. It generated a total of 0.0110132 BTC. Probably won't try it with all 40 computer as it seems to be quite a hassle.

theft is theft

What would I be stealing? Who's losing anything? As I said, the computers are used for rendering 3d graphics occasionally anyway, and then they're also using the schools render farm. So bitcoin mining is actually using less electricity than usually.

To be honest, I don't even think the IT technicians at the uni would mind. I know one of them who's involved in the Pirate Party, and pretty open to new innovative ideas. I'd be surprised if he haven't tried this himself.

Over night for 3 computers generating 0.01BTC is scalable if you could cut down some of the waste in the process.  For example, if you made a good revisor image and could quickly boot all of the computers, that scales to 0.4BTC per 10 to 12 hour period (depending on campus hours).  That's possibly 0.4BTC per night for 7 nights = 2.8BTC x 4 (month) = ~8BTC.

If you could reduce the waste (setting up PCs, etc) and streamline it or include other individuals to assist (maybe you could split with one of the IT admins?) you would have a constant trickle of coins.

Even better - if your IT staff is as "interesting" as you say, perhaps you could set up your own individual pool or convince them to upgrade GPUs.  In most cases, I'm sure the students would be particularly enthused to see cards capable of faster rendering (you said you had students using the machines to render, right?).

And for whoever said I was delusional about whatever...  If any of you believe that BTC is an officially usable and measurable asset *at this point in time*.... I'm not the delusional one.   You could very well use the project in purely academia and never exchange the coins.

For an analogy - is the school entitled to coins someone earns playing WoW on their personal laptop that is connected to the schools WiFi?  Some schools sponsor a "game night" where users can install and play games on the PCs - what if they play WoW on the network on a school owned PC?  Are you stealing resources for an asset that *might be* exchanged for cash?  What government agency/school/university is going to attempt to sue all of the WoW players because that entity is entitled to a virtual currency the player earned in-game as a result of using that entity's resources?

Surely WoW assets have an extremely larger liquidity market.

[Haxxy]

If they were public computers, probably no. They could trace it to me though, through the key cards used to get into school. These computers, unfortunately, requires one to sign in on all of them.

So I suppose you'd crack the local admin password on each of the machines (which is remarkably simple) and set up the miner as an "all users" startup program. The only problem with that is that it's time consuming.


Just speculating, by the way. I love speculative hacking. =P

EDIT: Wait, you have to literally use a key card to sign into the computer? That's a bit odd, isn't it?

[supa]

So I suppose you'd crack the local admin password on each of the machines (which is remarkably simple) and set up the miner as an "all users" startup program. The only problem with that is that it's time consuming.


Just speculating, by the way. I love speculative hacking. =P

EDIT: Wait, you have to literally use a key card to sign into the computer? That's a bit odd, isn't it?

I think he meant manually sign on...  On a side note, there was a lab that I visited before that required all users authenticate via SmartCards.  It's been built into Windows GINA for quite a while and of course PAM for 'nix, too.  Biometrics are another one that are common in some places - not for security, but for ease of access.  Most Biometrics systems (cough*lenovo*cough) just store the users password along with a biometric key.  When a user swipes their finger - it just provides their normal password.  The opposite of improving security.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa375457(v=vs.85).aspx

In order to "simply" break an admin password, you need physical access and the ability to change the boot media.  At that point, it would be much simpler to use the revisor image I keep rattling on about...... with a little work, you could easily set up a service (init.d script) to automatically start mining on boot with no GUI.  A crond to reboot or shutdown and there's absolutely no trace you were there.

I only mention "no trace" because the goal is to keep the machines production ready - not for the legal implication of evidence.