Slashdot Mirror
GPGPU Bitcoin Mining Trojan
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."
It's actually known as mining, not minting, even though it still makes sense. :D
A digital currency called Bitcoins, you say? Intriguing, tell me more!
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
This "digital currency" sounds fascinating - I wonder why Slashdot's never covered it before?!
no, why would they?
Gold mined by slaves is still gold, and I guess the same applies here.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
I'm sure the crackers will enjoy spending their virtual pennies on any of the varied goods and services available within the Bitcoin economy: herpes, home brewed acid, and yaoi themed web sites.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Good god, the "not backed by anything" argument again. Please come up with something that has at least a tiny contact with reality. Bitcoin has been criticized enough that you should be able to find a relevant criticism fairly easily with google.
Modern currencies typically aren't backed by anything. They only have value because people trust they have value. This works just fine for established currencies and we've already seen it works surprisingly well even for extremely tiny currencies like bitcoin.
You're wrong.
Modern currencies are backed by the governments which issue them. More bluntly, modern currencies are backed by modern government's ability to tax the labor of their citizens and imprison them if they do not pay. You trust that the currency is worth something in part because of the trust that everyone places in the currency itself (the prices that people set for goods), but also because the government buys services and goods (labor and goods), sells rights and services (user fees, police service, defense), and transacts in that currency (meaning that citizens of that government pretty much need to transact in that currency, at least in part, as well).
BitCoin cannot imprison me if I do not pay it in bitcoins. BitCoin does not inconvenience me in the least if I refuse to accept it. BitCoin only marginally inconveniences me if I decide not to pay for goods using it. BitCoin is not "backed by anything" tangible, such as gold, or practical, such as a need to use it. There's your substantial contact with reality.
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
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.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.