[2018-02-09] BBC: Russian nuclear scientists were mining BTC on supercomputers

[laurenB7742]

Russian nuclear scientists arrested for 'Bitcoin mining plot'


Russian security officers have arrested several scientists working at a top-secret Russian nuclear warhead facility for allegedly mining crypto-currencies.

The suspects had tried to use one of Russia's most powerful supercomputers to mine Bitcoins, media reports say.

The Federal Nuclear Centre in Sarov, western Russia, is a restricted area.

The centre's press service said: "There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining."

The supercomputer was not supposed to be connected to the internet - to prevent intrusion - and once the scientists attempted to do so, the nuclear centre's security department was alerted. They were handed over to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian news service Mash says.

"As far as we are aware, a criminal case has been launched against them," the press service told Interfax news agency.

In the Cold War the USSR's first nuclear bomb was produced at Sarov, during Joseph Stalin's rule.

The top-secret town was not even marked on Soviet maps and special permits are still required for Russians to visit it.

The Federal Nuclear Centre reportedly employs up to 20,000 people and its supercomputer boasts a capacity of 1 petaflop, the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.



Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43003740

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[aso118]

This has been a problem, not only in Russia but in other countries as well. Years ago, there were reports that rogue users of government computers had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of computing time, to get bitcoin worth a few thousand dollars. This is the equivalent of diving for pennies in the computing world.

[darkangel11]

They were probably being underpaid and AFAIK Russia isn't increasing it's nuclear arsenal, at least officially. Those poor scientists were probably not only underpaid but also bored to death. Now they won't have a chance to be bored, as they'll be working their asses off in some Siberian mine. Smart guys like them can't be put in the gen pop with mafia. They might get a good job offer there or run away and sell their knowledge somewhere. 

[Schirer]

They were probably being underpaid and AFAIK Russia isn't increasing it's nuclear arsenal, at least officially. Those poor scientists were probably not only underpaid but also bored to death. Now they won't have a chance to be bored, as they'll be working their asses off in some Siberian mine. Smart guys like them can't be put in the gen pop with mafia. They might get a good job offer there or run away and sell their knowledge somewhere. 

They were not bored to death. Why do you think there is a supercomputer in Nuclear facility? Just because they can?
Nowadays big countries with acces to resources dont test nuclear bombs physically any more, test are carried out virtually by computing thus thesupercomputers.

In any case thats sad, because i would have wanted to know how they did and what they did with their RIG 

[BitHodler]

It happens everywhere. Students using their university systems to mine crypto with. Bank employees mining crypto while being at work. Russian nuclear scientists using super computers at their 'work', etc.

What's next? It will be quite difficult to surpass Russian nuclear scientists mining with super computers. Either way, while we make fun of this, it is actually illegal to do so, and may even result in severe penalties.

Especially in case of these Russian nuclear scientists. I may be old fashion here, but you at all times need to respect and abide by the policies within your working environment. If not, then the consequences are for you.

[hatshepsut93]

I don't think they were really trying to mine Bitcoin, unless they were just messing around or being stupid, because even a supercomputer wouldn't give any noticeable returns from mining Bitcoin, so they are most likely have tried to mine Monero or some other CPU/GPU coin. And anyway, it sounds like a dumb idea, because for all these years there was so many reports of stuff getting caught with unauthorized mining at their jobs, so people should be really discouraged from trying it, because they are so likely to get caught.

[Kemarit]

The point here is that they take advantage of the system to their own benefits. I don't think that they are underpaid, they are scientist and I'm sure they have been paid handsomely by Putin to keep their Nuclear System up to par. So I really doubt that they can get away it, heavy punishment is to be expected to be handed down. IF they are students, you will understand it, but scientist? I don't know what logical reasons for them to mined except for financial gains. Greed really takes over, even for those we really think are the most intelligent person around.

[placergold]

wow, their secrets will be gone with the coming of bitcoins, not a fun exchange for them...

[darkangel11]

They were probably being underpaid and AFAIK Russia isn't increasing it's nuclear arsenal, at least officially. Those poor scientists were probably not only underpaid but also bored to death. Now they won't have a chance to be bored, as they'll be working their asses off in some Siberian mine. Smart guys like them can't be put in the gen pop with mafia. They might get a good job offer there or run away and sell their knowledge somewhere. 

They were not bored to death. Why do you think there is a supercomputer in Nuclear facility? Just because they can?
Nowadays big countries with acces to resources dont test nuclear bombs physically any more, test are carried out virtually by computing thus thesupercomputers.

In any case thats sad, because i would have wanted to know how they did and what they did with their RIG 

I was laughing from the fact that officially they aren't testing any new nukes? Why would they need to it if they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
There should be no production or testing of new nuclear weapons among the cosigners.
They didn't do anything with it. They were just planning to use it for mining and went online with it which was immediately recognized as a security breach and stopped by the security. That was dumb of those scientists. They could cause a huge leak of information or expose the servers to an attack much like what happened in Iran.