[2021-09-08] Suffolk county worker charged with running illegal mining farm

[DaveF]

From: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/crime/cryptocurrency-long-island-suffolk-sini-1.50355683

The covert Bitcoin mining, which went undetected for several months, cost county taxpayers at least $6,000 in electricity and put important county infrastructure at risk, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy Sini said.

Sini said authorities executed search warrants on Aug. 19 and found 46 cryptocurrency mining devices, which require high levels of electricity to run, hidden in six different rooms — including under removable floorboards and inside an unused electrical wall panel. Authorities believe Naples had been operating at least 10 of the machines since February.

Starting with I live in Suffolk and am amazed that any county employee would put in that much effort to do anything, including mining.

I have been seeing things like this more and more. And am starting to wonder if plugging in miners at work to use their electric is the new, bringing along a 5 gallon gas can when filling up the company car and getting some for yourself. Although the dollar amount is more, it's still just stealing from work and should be treated as such.

But you do have to appreciate hiding a miner in an unused electrical wall panel

-Dave

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[stompix]

Oh yeah, there is a Suffolk county in the US also I was starting to think about what's happening in good old England with all these electricity stealing cases lately. I wonder what gear that was, no way you could put a 3kw machine in those spaces, 10 miners for a few months and $6k, that would mean about 100$ per miner per month in damages, assuming they had 10c when calculating those, so at max something as powerful as an S9.

I have been seeing things like this more and more. And am starting to wonder if plugging in miners at work to use their electric is the new, bringing along a 5 gallon gas can when filling up the company car and getting some for yourself.

I had the same discussion with a colleague at work, he was wondering how long it's going to take before somebody makes some suitcase like miners packed with graphic cards and comes at work, plug this in, and pouts it under his desks and mines for free, then leaves as nothing happens with everyone else. I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm sure he's not the only one who thought about it.
Imagine snacking at McDonald's while having a miner under your feet plugged to the wall. 

[Woodie]

Oh yeah, there is a Suffolk county in the US also I was starting to think about what's happening in good old England with all these electricity stealing cases lately.

Am pretty sure these caught up in this are just experimenting to see if this is profitable,  anyone playing to mine long term wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of the law because they risk losing their investment once caught.

I had the same discussion with a colleague at work, he was wondering how long it's going to take before somebody makes some suitcase like miners packed with graphic cards and comes at work, plug this in, and pouts it under his desks and mines for free, then leaves as nothing happens with everyone else. I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm sure he's not the only one who thought about it.
Imagine snacking at McDonald's while having a miner under your feet plugged to the wall. 

Lol I like how you just thought out of the box and am certain someone out there is thinking of exactly this kind of plug and play package to mine some crypto but this kind would mean that it's hardly mining 24/7 which is the best way to get optimal results.

Btw this sounds like something found in some James Bond movie

[DaveF]

Oh yeah, there is a Suffolk county in the US also....

There are many Suffolks in the USA

Lol I like how you just thought out of the box and am certain someone out there is thinking of exactly this kind of plug and play package to mine some crypto but this kind would mean that it's hardly mining 24/7 which is the best way to get optimal results...

Tough call, if electricity is costing you 2/3 of your revenue and now you can mine for free 8+ hours a day while at work, it's kind of wash.
If your electric cost is above that doing that "works" for you until you get fired.

-Dave

[bbc.reporter]

Oh yeah, there is a Suffolk county in the US also I was starting to think about what's happening in good old England with all these electricity stealing cases lately. I wonder what gear that was, no way you could put a 3kw machine in those spaces, 10 miners for a few months and $6k, that would mean about 100$ per miner per month in damages, assuming they had 10c when calculating those, so at max something as powerful as an S9.

I have been seeing things like this more and more. And am starting to wonder if plugging in miners at work to use their electric is the new, bringing along a 5 gallon gas can when filling up the company car and getting some for yourself.

I had the same discussion with a colleague at work, he was wondering how long it's going to take before somebody makes some suitcase like miners packed with graphic cards and comes at work, plug this in, and pouts it under his desks and mines for free, then leaves as nothing happens with everyone else. I know it sounds ridiculous but I'm sure he's not the only one who thought about it.
Imagine snacking at McDonald's while having a miner under your feet plugged to the wall. 

Cryptocoins that use the RandomX mining algorithm can be mined with CPUs. Similar argument. Would it be considered stealing if I plug a laptop with a powerful Ryzen CPU in a coffee shop to mine and do my work while I drink a cup of coffee?

[DaveF]

Cryptocoins that use the RandomX mining algorithm can be mined with CPUs. Similar argument. Would it be considered stealing if I plug a laptop with a powerful Ryzen CPU in a coffee shop to mine and do my work while I drink a cup of coffee?

So long as the coffee shop allowed you to plug in your laptop while working then probably not. Since if instead of being a crypto miner, you were a graphic artist and plugged in a high end laptop with a power hungry graphics card and the coffee shop then it's all the same.

But it's not about a coffee shop providing a service so you sit there and drink more coffee, it's about your job and plugging in equipment that you should not be plugging in.

-Dave

[SFR10]

Christopher Naples, 42, of Mattituck, turned himself in to authorities Wednesday morning and was charged with third-degree grand larceny, public corruption, computer trespassing and official misconduct. Naples pleaded not guilty and was released without bail at his arraignment.
~Snipped~
Sini said Naples admitted to owning and installing the devices when confronted by investigators.

Am I the only one who thinks the parts I've bolded, contradict each other?

Before Naples' alleged mining was uncovered, county employees working in the building housing the clerk's office had complained about the air conditioning and slow internet connections, which Sini attributed to the strain on the building's energy resources due to the mining.

The last time I checked, mining ^{[as a whole]} only used an insignificant amount of the network bandwidth, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's another corrupt employee doing something else in that building!

I wonder what gear that was,
~Snipped~
so at max something as powerful as an S9.

I couldn't watch the video from the above link ^{[subscription-based]}, but judging by the looks of the miners and the PSUs ^[screenshot] I think you might be right ^{[for the most part]}.
^{- I wonder why they had to slap stickers on any of the parts that said Bitmain and Antminer [it's still obvious who manufactured those when you check the exact placements of the stickers].}

anyone playing to mine long term wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of the law because they risk losing their investment once caught.

There's more:

• Naples faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the top count against him.

[stompix]

Christopher Naples, 42, of Mattituck, turned himself in to authorities Wednesday morning and was charged with third-degree grand larceny, public corruption, computer trespassing and official misconduct. Naples pleaded not guilty and was released without bail at his arraignment.
~Snipped~
Sini said Naples admitted to owning and installing the devices when confronted by investigators.

Am I the only one who thinks the parts I've bolded, contradict each other?

Not a fan of US laws, the whole procedures, and differences in the same country but this can happen here in Europe too.

You can be under investigation as a suspect in theft when a company accuses you of doing so and you can present yourself to the police, admit the action but plead not guilty on charges depending on what they are. For example, you can claim that the company was paying a fixed price per month for energy, not a metered one so your consumption would have not affected the budget nor that it put anyone in danger.
This is the case with the charge of larceny, he can contest that he did not steal anything, he used a resource that was already paid for, and the party didn't face losses or damages, he can dismiss the charge of public corruption as he did nothing against the community nor he accepted any bribe, also deny the computer trespassing as we don't know what his setup was, he might have used a private way to connect to the internet as for the official misconduct, this is a bit tricky, it's way too vague but I don't think he has chances of getting away with it.

To give an example, this happened to my cousin about ten or so years ago, he had to pick a damaged truck late in the night, arrived at his office at around 3 am to thought of getting his laptop it as it was Friday and he had no personal computer no nothing and had a weekend to waste. Unfortunately for him, the Monday shift saw some supplies missing and the boss accused him of stealing. He did go to the police on his own, he admitted being Friday night without previous consent inside the building and not just in the parking, but denied he took anything else and lucky for him he was filmed coming out of the building with just the laptop in his hand and no other luggage the security cameras from the next-door building. The charges were dropped but it was an ugly incident.

[SFR10]

~Snipped~
For example, you can claim that the company was paying a fixed price per month for energy, not a metered one so your consumption would have not affected the budget nor that it put anyone in danger.
~Snipped~

Thank you for providing an explanation and an example ^{[makes sense]}, but seeing that they've already given estimated damage for the electricity "alone", then we're probably dealing with a submetered electricity on the building in question.

I don't think he has chances of getting away with it.

Same here... I'm curious to see the extent of his punishment ^{[because of his background (might have an influence), I'm guessing it'll be just a few years]}.

[DaveF]

Same here... I'm curious to see the extent of his punishment ^{[because of his background (might have an influence), I'm guessing it'll be just a few years]}.

I am going to say it depends on how good his lawyer is.

At a guess, he is going to have to pay back the money that the county paid for the additional power.
Since the power is metered and you can get a general idea of how much power each miner took and if he can prove when it was put in. And then it's a bit more math to figure out the cost of the additional cooling. Add to that amount a bit of a penalty and the theft charges should be dropped / reduced to probation at that point.

For the other things he is accused of, it depends how bad it was.

If he setup a separate VLAN for his equipment that kept it away from the rest of the network and he did it properly then it's one thing.
If he put unknown / unapproved equipment on the network and set it up so that the data his miners used was of a higher priority then the rest of the users then it's another.

As an IT person, who deals with security a lot it's easy to see how this could become a case less about mining and more about what IT can and cannot do with the network that is under their control.

Since this is local to me, and since I am in the IT world, I am going stay out of a large portion of any discussion about it since my view really is. 'Nail his ass to the wall, he was screwing around with miners and costing the county I live in extra money while my taxes were paying his salary'

-Dave