[ANN][AUTO-SWITCH] Profit-switch auto-exchange pool: CleverMining.com

[brooklynite]

Just a question to everyone who was affected: what backup mining pool(s) do you have configured in your miners?

Middlecoin
HashCows

Mine is set to mine NET, on www.bitcoop.tk as backup, good returns.

[koolkiwikat]

Well something is wrong
My hashrate is Zero on the speedo yet my average is normal over 24hours??....I have earnt 0.00725 BTC when Im usually around 0.023BTC for the same time period, I have a 4.2 mhash rig, Im running BAMT 1.5.2 and nothing has changed in my config over the last few days

[Meeho]

Are you sure you are still connected to CleverMining? There are a lot of hijack attacks going on lately.

[ghur]

Let's look at this from a different vector.

I don't use cgminer, but these miners come with a certain amount of remote management right?

Can affected users confirm these ports are exposed to the internet? Possibly you use it yourself to monitor your miner while away from the house?

Wouldn't it be more plausible an exploit was found in the miner's API that allows an attacker to issue such commands?
Try changing your API password to something much stronger?

[Burnie]

Let's look at this from a different vector.

I don't use cgminer, but these miners come with a certain amount of remote management right?

Can affected users confirm these ports are exposed to the internet? Possibly you use it yourself to monitor your miner while away from the house?

Wouldn't it be more plausible an exploit was found in the miner's API that allows an attacker to issue such commands?
Try changing your API password to something much stronger?

That was my first thought also, that either the API or the API manager was breeched.
- open port for the API, API web management with weak or no password, etc

[MrGrave]

I believe adding ** "no-client-reconnect" : true  ** to your config file may stop the redirect/hijack.  I have been redirected twice prior to using this line in my config file. 

[black007miner]

Let's look at this from a different vector.

I don't use cgminer, but these miners come with a certain amount of remote management right?

Can affected users confirm these ports are exposed to the internet? Possibly you use it yourself to monitor your miner while away from the house?

Wouldn't it be more plausible an exploit was found in the miner's API that allows an attacker to issue such commands?
Try changing your API password to something much stronger?

That was my first thought also, that either the API or the API manager was breeched.
- open port for the API, API web management with weak or no password, etc

I have no open ports for API, or Web Management. I use PFSense for my router/firewall. I have a dedicated laptop with fresh install of Win 7 with Logmein, then SSH onto the Rigs from that point.

[no1ninja]

Sounds like a good time to use WireShark, or a good packet sniffer.


As for the dude that says its not worth it mining, I think you should start a facebook page and get others to join so you guys can sell your GPU's on ebay.  If you get enough miners onboard, our profits should go up quite a bit.   


I am all for OTHER people getting out of this gig.

[ghur]

Let's look at this from a different vector.

I don't use cgminer, but these miners come with a certain amount of remote management right?

Can affected users confirm these ports are exposed to the internet? Possibly you use it yourself to monitor your miner while away from the house?

Wouldn't it be more plausible an exploit was found in the miner's API that allows an attacker to issue such commands?
Try changing your API password to something much stronger?

That was my first thought also, that either the API or the API manager was breeched.
- open port for the API, API web management with weak or no password, etc

I have no open ports for API, or Web Management. I use PFSense for my router/firewall. I have a dedicated laptop with fresh install of Win 7 with Logmein, then SSH onto the Rigs from that point.

This is quite puzzling.

Particularly because of how there have been reports from pretty much all multipools (which are the most likely targets, or rather the most likely to report it due to having the majority of all scrypt miners).

I'm not buying the idea the stratums themselves are compromised at least. Especially on multipools the stratum servers are quite custom. It's unlikely all of these have a common attack vector.

Has anyone reported having this issue using a miner that is not based/derived from cgminer? Like a cudaminer user?


But yes, looks like we're going to need some packet logs from before through after a switch occurred.

As for the dude that says its not worth it mining, I think you should start a facebook page and get others to join so you guys can sell your GPU's on ebay.  If you get enough miners onboard, our profits should go up quite a bit.   

On a serious note though, we'll hit a shut-off point for GPU users in countries with high electricity costs soon.
These users might actually do well in selling off their GPUs to recoup some of the investment.

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.
As long as they bring in more than they cost in electricity (which is really low for these units), they'll keep running.
Of course the owner might not see ROI if profitability keeps dropping, but that still won't cause the owner to shut down the unit. At most they'll sell the unit and it'll keep on chugging for a new owner.

Nutshell: Total scrypt hashrate is going to keep climbing for a while.

[comeonalready]

On a serious note though, we'll hit a shut-off point for GPU users in countries with high electricity costs soon.
These users might actually do well in selling off their GPUs to recoup some of the investment.

Most certainly... but for many miners, that shutoff point will occur anywhere from one day to two months or more after gpu mining becomes unprofitable as far too many miners will not realize their lack of profits until one or two electricity bills arrive.

[ghur]

On a serious note though, we'll hit a shut-off point for GPU users in countries with high electricity costs soon.
These users might actually do well in selling off their GPUs to recoup some of the investment.

Most certainly... but for many miners, that shutoff point will occur anywhere from one day to two months or more after it becomes unprofitable as the great majority of miners will not realize their lack of profits until one or two electricity bills arrive.

I would hope serious miners calculated their electricity costs and don't let themselves caught off guard like that

[comeonalready]

On a serious note though, we'll hit a shut-off point for GPU users in countries with high electricity costs soon.
These users might actually do well in selling off their GPUs to recoup some of the investment.

Most certainly... but for many miners, that shutoff point will occur anywhere from one day to two months or more after it becomes unprofitable as the great majority of miners will not realize their lack of profits until one or two electricity bills arrive.

I would hope serious miners calculated their electricity costs and don't let themselves caught off guard like that

And what percentage of the posts that you have read in this forum and others like it would you say have actually given you that idea?  There are indeed some very intelligent people around, but at times they seem to be few and far between, or completely silent.

From the one message alone of yours that I have read, I can easily assume that you likely know your tipping point.  Can you really say the same of others?

[Frankthechicken]

My CGminer is old (3.1) so does not support client.reconnect command. just got a dead pool and switched to my backup pool (coinshift i think).

maybe you guys can use older version

This is the version I am using.  So far so good.  I did have cgminer hang twice on one rig in the last few days, once where GPUs went idle, and another when they kept running submitting 100% rejects to CM.  I think those instances were unrelated though.

Is there a main thread to discuss this specific issue anywhere?

[Telek]

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.

Except, of course, when the new ASIC farms come online in the next 3-6 months, and everyone switches away to nScrypt and other algorithms which these ASICs can't handle.

At the moment the ROI for a Gridseed is in the 9-12 month range (accounting for difficulty), and I have little faith that straight Scrypt based coins will remain profitable for that long.

I think GPU mining will remain the best long term bet for quite some time now.

[comeonalready]

...
So what happened here is:

1. Miner got disconnected from its legitimate pool.
2. It tried to reconnect, but was connected to a fake pool instead.
3. This fake pool immediately ordered it to reconnect to a different IP, effectively redirecting it to another pool.
4. The miner connected to 190.x address and started mining on a malicious pool.

The mystery is why user was connected to a fake pool after being disconnected from legitimate pool.

This is probably some kind of MITM attack as the user was connected to a fake pool after disconnection. The question is where this MITM attack was performed.

Your pool operator Terk seems to have an excellent grasp of what is going on in this hashpower theft attack.  

If I could add a point or two, if the mitm attack is a dns hijack, in #2 above, if a server host name is configured in miner client, and that server host name is still contained with the operating system's cache of host name to ip address mappings, then the miner should connect back to the legitimate server when a stratum connection breaks.  However, if the cache entry has already expired, then the server host name would need to be resolved again and possibly receive an illegitimate ip address in return.

So in the very short term in order to minimize your attack surface, you could disable external host name to ip address resolution, by hard coding a server ip address into the miner configuration, or by creating a static host name to ip address mapping in your operating system's version of a hosts file.  Either of these attack mitigations must be accompanied by disabling client.reconnect messages in your miner software (for now), in case the mitm attack is affecting more than just dns resolution.

In #3 above, the hashpower thieves are likely using client.reconnect to capture your miners at an illegitimate server if they are unable to steadily maintain the mitm attack.  For without it, you miner would just connect back to the legitimate server if that hijacked stratum connection were to break.

Terk, if you have a minute, I would really like to get your perspective as a pool operator on this stratum mining protocol enhancement suggestion.  Thanks.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=433634.msg5867183#msg5867183

[no1ninja]

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.

Except, of course, when the new ASIC farms come online in the next 3-6 months, and everyone switches away to nScrypt and other algorithms which these ASICs can't handle.

At the moment the ROI for a Gridseed is in the 9-12 month range (accounting for difficulty), and I have little faith that straight Scrypt based coins will remain profitable for that long.

I think GPU mining will remain the best long term bet for quite some time now.

I honestly don't think crap coins are ready for ASIC, this isn't bitcoin, most people are middle mining them for something tangible.   Once ASIC comes on the scene it will just kill the coin.  Bitcoin had really good distribution when ASIC hit the network, the crap coins will die fast when ASIC miners come on the scene...   and I doubt they will be able to recoup their investment, the market will drop fast.   Right now its working because of the distribution, screw that up further and it will be a very dead horse.   

[ghur]

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.

Except, of course, when the new ASIC farms come online in the next 3-6 months, and everyone switches away to nScrypt and other algorithms which these ASICs can't handle.

At the moment the ROI for a Gridseed is in the 9-12 month range (accounting for difficulty), and I have little faith that straight Scrypt based coins will remain profitable for that long.

I think GPU mining will remain the best long term bet for quite some time now.

My point is not about ROI about rather about running cost.
These gridseeds have a very low cost to keep running, which means they'll continue to account for a large amount of the network for scrypt coins, even while profitability continues to drop.

And yes, my point is GPUs will either shut down or switch, thus leaving ASICs as only viable scrypt miners.
While ROI is relevant for the purchase of new units, it is not for the large amount of existing units already out there.
Existing units will keep running until the profit drops below the cost of running them.

But I already addressed all of that in my earlier post.

[no1ninja]

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.

Except, of course, when the new ASIC farms come online in the next 3-6 months, and everyone switches away to nScrypt and other algorithms which these ASICs can't handle.

At the moment the ROI for a Gridseed is in the 9-12 month range (accounting for difficulty), and I have little faith that straight Scrypt based coins will remain profitable for that long.

I think GPU mining will remain the best long term bet for quite some time now.

My point is not about ROI about rather about running cost.
These gridseeds have a very low cost to keep running, which means they'll continue to account for a large amount of the network for scrypt coins, even while profitability continues to drop.

And yes, my point is GPUs will either shut down or switch, thus leaving ASICs as only viable scrypt miners.
While ROI is relevant for the purchase of new units, it is not for the large amount of existing units already out there.
Existing units will keep running until the profit drops below the cost of running them.

But I already addressed all of that in my earlier post.

I don't know about the low costs of running things.  Right now 1Mh required 300 watts.  I have heard that power is the barrier in producing these ASIC's that can mine scrypt.  AMD and NVIDIA have been spending millions in R&D to get these chips to be more efficient.  Heard that even at 20nanos these things still suck power.  They would love to omit those power connectors and keep you from needing to upgrade your power supply.   I can't see how some fly by night is going to beat AMD and NVIDIA on R&D.
 

The one offering I am hearing about is the Titan, its clearly stated that the miner can be pre-ordered without a Power Supply.  You should ask yourself, why a $10,000 miner is lacking a powersupply.   Perhaps the requirements are going to be steep.  Lets say 100Mh, is cut down to 150watts per 1Mh, which blows away the big boys like AMD and NVIDIA by 100%,  that still requires a 15,000 watt power supply.   What these preorders don't tell you is that you may need to spend another 10 grand on the powersupply unit, and maybe even require 3 phase power to run your miner.


So far, there is not even a jpeg of one of these units, and I sure have not seen the specs of how much power one of these Titans will suck, and that is as much of a consideration as the 10K pre-order price.

[comeonalready]

Those who have gridseed units (and didn't pay stupidly much for it) will be able to survive a much larger profitability drop before reaching a point where they have to shut down.

Except, of course, when the new ASIC farms come online in the next 3-6 months, and everyone switches away to nScrypt and other algorithms which these ASICs can't handle.

At the moment the ROI for a Gridseed is in the 9-12 month range (accounting for difficulty), and I have little faith that straight Scrypt based coins will remain profitable for that long.

I think GPU mining will remain the best long term bet for quite some time now.

My point is not about ROI about rather about running cost.
These gridseeds have a very low cost to keep running, which means they'll continue to account for a large amount of the network for scrypt coins, even while profitability continues to drop.

And yes, my point is GPUs will either shut down or switch, thus leaving ASICs as only viable scrypt miners.
While ROI is relevant for the purchase of new units, it is not for the large amount of existing units already out there.
Existing units will keep running until the profit drops below the cost of running them.

But I already addressed all of that in my earlier post.

I don't know about the low costs of running things.  Right now 1Mh required 300 watts.  I have heard that power is the barrier in producing these ASIC's that can mine scrypt.  AMD and NVIDIA have been spending millions in R&D to get these chips to be more efficient.  Heard that even at 20nanos these things still suck power.  They would love to omit those power connectors and keep you from needing to upgrade your power supply.   I can't see how some fly by night is going to beat AMD and NVIDIA on R&D.
 

The one offering I am hearing about is the Titan, its clearly stated that the miner can be pre-ordered without a Power Supply.  You should ask yourself, why a $10,000 miner is lacking a powersupply.   Perhaps the requirements are going to be steep.  Lets say 100Mh, is cut down to 150watts per 1Mh, which blows away the big boys like AMD and NVIDIA by 100%,  that still requires a 150,000 watt power supply.   What these preorders don't tell you is that you may need to spend another 10 grand on the powersupply unit, and maybe even require 3 phase power to run your miner.

So far, there is not even a jpeg of one of these units, and I sure have not seen the specs of how much power one of these Titans will suck, and that is as much of a consideration as the 10K pre-order price.

From what I read recently, 10 gridseed units, each of which contains 5 gridseed chips, are capable of scrypt hashing at 3 - 3.4MH/s at a total power consumption of 100 watts, or 10 watts per gridseed unit, presumably plus whatever it costs to run the device to which they are connected (computer, special purpose controller, whatever).

That comes to just about 35ish watts per 1MH/s, which is a lot less than the 150 watts per 1MH/s figure you suggest for a future generation asic device.  And the gridseeds are available and running now.  This compared to GPUs which consume a bare minimum of approximately 250 watts per 1MH/s at present?

[no1ninja]

From what I read recently, 10 gridseed units, each of which contains 5 gridseed chips, are capable of scrypt hashing at 3 - 3.4MH/s at a total power consumption of 100 watts, or 10 watts per gridseed unit, presumably plus whatever it costs to run the device to which they are connected (computer, special purpose controller, whatever).

That comes to just about 35ish watts per 1MH/s, which is a lot less than the 150 watt figure you suggest.  And the gridseeds are available and running now.

That is awesome if that is the case, but, I still am a bit skeptical.   Pre-orders are good way to get to play with people's money.  There is every reason for a company to be less than truthful, or embellish their offering in order to secure that pie.

How much heat does the chip generate at that performance level, how long can it sustain it, how much cooling do you need.   A raw MH/s doesn't mean much, it could be a peak, it could be what they got in a short time span.   What is the life of that chip when it runs that hard, etc...   These are all things AMD and NVIDIA have to deal with, before they shoot their mouths off. 

I also have a feeling these things will be DOA when they are given to the customer, I don't mean they won't function, but I think the manufacturer will weigh the profit/loss ratio of when to give you your miner.   We will see them on the network long before a singe pre-order is filled.