If your University had a supercomputer on campus...

[GoldenAngel]

Would you try and mine some BTC with it? I'm possibly weighing it up, probably get in trouble though...

I can look up the specs if you like but the thing has like 60,000 cores in it from memory. Not sure what the GPU would be like.

[crazyates]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: There are a couple of reasons why you would not want to do this, some technical, some legal. First thing, 60,000 cores would be a lot, but CPU mining is pretty insignificant compared to GPUs, and now ASICs. I'm gonna guess at 6-10MH/s per core, so you're looking at ~350GH/s to 600GH/s. This would be pretty nice! Not worth the power, tho. Then there are legal issues. If you're university is OK with you doing this, and they know what it is, then you're all set. If they don't know what you're doing, and they find out you're just stealing company hardware and consuming thousands of KWh worth of power, then you're in trouble. People have lost their jobs over stealing company power and using company equipment for BTC mining without consent, so I'd imagine a University wouldn't be all that different.

[mokahless]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: There are a couple of reasons why you would not want to do this, some technical, some legal. First thing, 60,000 cores would be a lot, but CPU mining is pretty insignificant compared to GPUs, and now ASICs. I'm gonna guess at 6-10MH/s per core, so you're looking at ~350GH/s to 600GH/s. This would be pretty nice! Not worth the power, tho. Then there are legal issues. If you're university is OK with you doing this, and they know what it is, then you're all set. If they don't know what you're doing, and they find out you're just stealing company hardware and consuming thousands of KWh worth of power, then you're in trouble. People have lost their jobs over stealing company power and using company equipment for BTC mining without consent, so I'd imagine a University wouldn't be all that different.

Perfect. Exactly this.

There was also a poster a while back who asked a similar question about all the desktop computers at his company as he apparently had Admin access. He was stupid enough to use the same username everywhere and was easily found on google for his real identity, matching his job that he described here. He was fired.

So if "get in trouble" means you will be kicked out of your courses, this is obviously not worth it.

[goxed]

The supercomputer in our campus only allows 2048 cores for 24hrs max.

[-ck]

The supercomputer in our campus only allows 2048 cores for 24hrs max.

Considering a 7970 GPU contains 2048 shaders which are as good as cores...

[AzN1337c0d3r]

Pretty sure that clusters are firewalled and won't have public internet access.

[vonross2012]

It's called Theft.

Not a good idea.

[Micon]

Would you try and mine some BTC with it? I'm possibly weighing it up, probably get in trouble though...

I can look up the specs if you like but the thing has like 60,000 cores in it from memory. Not sure what the GPU would be like.

1)  don't listen to the haters.  Get bitcoind on that fat bitch ASAP

2)  University student in trouble for tinkering with the supercomputer at the university he paid for?  no way.  Slap on the wrist at worst.  in 1998 (lulz I'm old now) when in college and no1 knew about the free 10 mb of webspace each student had for free (lulz again) I collected all my friends' webspace and made a direct-download .mp3 sharing site.  Boy did I make that netradio banner monies!  Was called in eventually for my "kid shit" crime, they asked me what I was doing and I was like "sharing music with my friends obv" some lolertastic investigation was held, nothing came of it.  I think I signed something saying I would not use University machines for cybercrime (i am pretty sure it said something like cyber-squatting actually.  really wish I would have saved the form)

3)  pool minded for 20 hrs should yield you ~ $1k USD or so.   Gotta try it IMO

[vvic]

It's called Theft.

Not a good idea.

how is that a theft? Misuse of university equipment intended for educational purpose only at most. After he's done with, whole equipment will stay where it is Power? Heh, most universities I've been in (ie UW, UO, NDSU, etc) waste power like crazy anyway. That computer consumes a lot of power as is and I don't think it's being turned off at night. If you are CS student, just tell them you are doing a research. in 2001 lots of students were researching Kazaa Some people did that SETI@home crap on university computers. Believe me, there is lots of misuse is going on

[crazyates]

1)  don't listen to the haters.  Get bitcoind on that fat bitch ASAP

2)  University student in trouble for tinkering with the supercomputer at the university he paid for?  no way.  Slap on the wrist at worst.  in 1998 (lulz I'm old now) when in college and no1 knew about the free 10 mb of webspace each student had for free (lulz again) I collected all my friends' webspace and made a direct-download .mp3 sharing site.  Boy did I make that netradio banner monies!  Was called in eventually for my "kid shit" crime, they asked me what I was doing and I was like "sharing music with my friends obv" some lolertastic investigation was held, nothing came of it.  I think I signed something saying I would not use University machines for cybercrime (i am pretty sure it said something like cyber-squatting actually.  really wish I would have saved the form)

3)  pool minded for 20 hrs should yield you ~ $1k USD or so. Gotta try it IMO

Wow. I was really hoping that outside of the BFL hate, you might be a decent guy. Apparently I was wrong.

Believe me, there is lots of misuse is going on

So because everyone else is misusing the university's scientific research facilities, means it's Ok for you to do it too? But hey, you're profiting from it, so it's OK, right?!

[vonross2012]

I agree it's a weak case for theft but it's at least shaky.
A lot of universities take tax money, and that's theft.
So in the mind of most that justifies it.

[dogie]

I agree it's a weak case for theft but it's at least shaky.
A lot of universities take tax money, and that's theft.
So in the mind of most that justifies it.

There was a case recently in the US where an employee was jailed for stealing company resources, because he was bit-mining on their PCs.

[jermwerty]

Lets look at the numbers a little better:

First off, an i5 or i7 only gets about 5Mhash around 3.3Ghz.  Essentially you can figure 1Mhash per core, but considering a lot of supercomputers use even weaker CPUs it could be much less.

http://www.top500.org/lists/

Lets take the 6th fastest supercomputer in the world - SuperMUC - iDataPlex DX360M4, Xeon E5-2680 8C 2.70GHz, Infiniband FDR as those would probably have similar performance to an i5 or i7.

Total cores:  147,456

So thats ~147Ghash.  Your schools computer is probably much much weaker.  But now consider TWO Avalon ASICs are 136Ghash.

Lets restate that:  The 6th fastest supercomputer in the world likely is around the speed of two Aavalon ASICs for bitcoin mining purposes.

Also note the stated power usage for this supercomputer is 3,422,670 watts.  That is a bit over $8K a day in electricity assuming $0.10kWh power costs.  (3,422,670/1000*0.10*24)  The Avalons will cost $2.88 per day.

Also note that will generate a bit over $900 in coins per day (at todays mtgox price and difficulty), but you (ie the school) would be losing over $7000/day in power costs alone.

Moral of the story:  Don't be an idiot.

[crazyates]

First off, an i5 or i7 only gets about 5Mhash around 3.3Ghz.  Essentially you can figure 1Mhash per core, but considering a lot of supercomputers use even weaker CPUs it could be much less.

I'm assuming you're looking at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Intel

A 3770K gets 5.2MH/s.
The i5 2500, i7 2600, i7 920, and a lot of other high-end CPUs are closer to 20MH/s, if you know what you're doing and using the latest software. So because of this, your numbers are a little off. You should be getting more than 1MH/s per core.

[Evan]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: There are a couple of reasons why you would not want to do this, some technical, some legal. First thing, 60,000 cores would be a lot, but CPU mining is pretty insignificant compared to GPUs, and now ASICs. I'm gonna guess at 6-10MH/s per core, so you're looking at ~350GH/s to 600GH/s. This would be pretty nice! Not worth the power, tho. Then there are legal issues. If you're university is OK with you doing this, and they know what it is, then you're all set. If they don't know what you're doing, and they find out you're just stealing company hardware and consuming thousands of KWh worth of power, then you're in trouble. People have lost their jobs over stealing company power and using company equipment for BTC mining without consent, so I'd imagine a University wouldn't be all that different.

Perfect. Exactly this.

There was also a poster a while back who asked a similar question about all the desktop computers at his company as he apparently had Admin access. He was stupid enough to use the same username everywhere and was easily found on google for his real identity, matching his job that he described here. He was fired.

So if "get in trouble" means you will be kicked out of your courses, this is obviously not worth it.

 no he was stealing PCs and selling them on ebay

[dogie]

Its worth pointing out that a large number of super computers are GPU farms. I know Oxford University's newest one is a massive GPU farm, although unfortunately its Nvidia.

[Marrs]

Its worth pointing out that a large number of super computers are GPU farms.

SANAM in Saudi Arabia has 420 FirePro S10000 cards, each of which is basically a pair of 7950s. So SANAM could theoretically mine at 840 * 550 MH/s = 462 GH/s.

462 GH/s is a bit less than the hash rate of 7 Avalons.

To the OP: If you're an authorized user on the system and know some friendly faculty in the department that "owns" the system, I say go for it. You can justify it as a learning experience. Worst case, you'll have to surrender the bitcoins you mine but you'll still have the bragging rights.

If you are not an authorized user, don't do it. You will definitely get expelled.

[mokahless]

Considering a 7970 GPU contains 2048 shaders which are as good as cores...

First off, an i5 or i7 only gets about 5Mhash around 3.3Ghz.  Essentially you can figure 1Mhash per core, but considering a lot of supercomputers use even weaker CPUs it could be much less.

What? I'm cpu mining with pooler cpu miner (--algo sha256d) on p2pool and getting 4MH/s on a SINGLE CORE on my x6 1090t.

I'm assuming you're looking at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison#Intel
A 3770K gets 5.2MH/s.
The i5 2500, i7 2600, i7 920, and a lot of other high-end CPUs are closer to 20MH/s, if you know what you're doing and using the latest software. So because of this, your numbers are a little off. You should be getting more than 1MH/s per core.

What he said.

I think the rest of you should consider looking at what program and version each of these people are using on the hardware comparison list at the linked wiki. You will note that certain programs appear to have never been updated while others are using older versions. Modern versions of still-updated CPU miners perform as I have described above. Or am I missing something here?

[theowalpott]

I have access to a ~4000 (probs manage ~12 GH/s) core cluster and there's no chance I'd risk running a miner on it. While I might not get in a huge amount of trouble for it, it'd piss off the admins and if there's someone you want to keep on your side, it's them.

For example, I desperately need to run for a week straight on 256 cores (had to multiple times in the past 3 months).. I ask nicely, they make me my own little queue to submit my work to, and I'm set. If I've been caught mining BTC (and you would be caught by any half-decent admin, the network comms would give you away for one thing), they're gonna tell me to wait in line like everyone else and it'd effect my work. That isn't worth the $1000 or so I'd make in the few days before they notice.. my career in academia is worth a lot more than that.

[Aseras]

I work for a research institution of a large university. There are several "supercomputer" clusters you can "rent" time on. None of them are fast for this kind of work. The best may be a large Tesla cluster and even 1 avalon is much faster than it is.

they may work better for litecoin though.