GPGPU Bitcoin Mining Trojan 258
An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers have unearthed a piece of malware that mints a digital currency known as Bitcoins by harnessing the immense power of an infected machine's graphical processing units. According to new research from antivirus provider Symantec, Trojan.Badminer uses GPUs to generate virtual coins through a practice known as minting. That's the term for solving difficult cryptographic proof-of-work problems and being rewarded with 50 Bitcoins for each per correct block."
Typo (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually known as mining, not minting, even though it still makes sense. :D
Re:Typo (Score:1, Informative)
Just to get the facts straight (Score:5, Informative)
Fiat currency: Basically every major world currency is by fiat now. There are good arguments both ways, but if you feel strongly about this, I hope you keep all your assets in gold instead of USD, which isn't backed by anything.
CPU: The CPU/GPU cycles aren't wasted. They provide the security for BTC by making it computationally infeasible to double-spend (you'd need to out-compute the rest of the network). If you know a better way to do this in a decentralized way, speak up!
Why BitCoin and Slashdot: Because it's the intersection of the networking, cryptography, economics, freedom from central authorities, and futurism. Perhaps you don't care, but collectively, it's stuff we're interested in. I don't suggest BitCoin as an investment (the value is driven more by speculation than need at present - you'll lose your shirt unless you have experience in forex and penny stocks), but it's absolutely an interesting topic for discussion - even if only so we can find the flaws and start thinking about how to start Bitcoin2 without them.
Disclosure:
My present holdings: < 5BTC
My market position: no orders open or planned
My business: The making and selling of physical goods and services (legal, non-BTC-related)
My goal: a stable, international currency with no central authority taking a percentage of every sale I make or controlling my funds
let's clear up some minsinformation (Score:1, Informative)
By the way, what's the US dollar backed by? What are most of the currencies in the world backed by? They're all backed by the fact that people know other people will accept them for goods and services and the fact that you can exchange them for another currency. That's true for bitcoins as well. They're at around $10.80 US per bitcoin right now and that's set 100% by unrestricted free trade at the exchanges. You can turn BTC into USD in under 24 hours for free with a wire transfer for this entire month and at a $5 fee after this month (since they had technical problems with Bank of America) and if you wanted a printed check mailed, that's free permanently. That alone is creating value because epople know they can always get "real" money for their coins. I've personally bought some nice cabling and computer parts with BTC and sold even more for BTC. No bullshit ebay and paypal fees or locked paypal accounts or massive delays or anything. You just send a payment and it's instant and free. You don't have to prove your address or be over 18 or any of that whole song and dance. So yeah, people are using it, they're continuing to use it, and the overall usage volume since last year has increased by about 100x and at least 10x since May. Oh anf FYI, a lot of mining rigs are running partially or completed on solar and wind so don't forget that.
You better get used to it or at least read up on how it works before you hate on it because it's not going anywhere and you'll probably eventually be using it.
Re:Why? Bitcoin and Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Modern currencies are backed by the banks which issue them.
FTFY. Most "currency" in circulation these days is just numbers in bank accounts. Which arrived there as deposits paid from loans or credit cards. Backed by the bank's asset ledger, which includes a significant percentage of housing loans...
Cash, printed and / or issued by the government or central bank is insignificant in comparison.