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NSF Researcher Suspended For Mining Bitcoin

Posted by Unknown on from the probably-shouldn't-do-that dept.

PvtVoid (1252388) writes "In the semiannual report to Congress by the NSF Office of Inspector General, the organization said it received reports of a researcher who was using NSF-funded supercomputers at two universities to mine Bitcoin. The computationally intensive mining took up about $150,000 worth of NSF-supported computer use at the two universities to generate bitcoins worth about $8,000 to $10,000, according to the report. It did not name the researcher or the universities."

10 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by Shadowmist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is pretty much at the lowest of the low category, Someone who takes up taxpayer funded computer time to mine Bitcoin, should essentially be barred for life form the facility... and that's for starters.

    1. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by MiniMike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Many of those systems have no (or minimal) idle time. Also, this misuse caused them to consume more power, and increased the wear on the systems components. There was a real impact from this. The $150k indicates a lot of cpu time was consumed for this, but TFA doesn't indicate how much- certainly more than would have been 'spare time'.

    2. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Where is it written that a "supercomputer" must be efficient and cheap to run?

      FWIW, at this point, any "general use" computer is not efficient to mine bitcoin - it only makes sense to use custom-designed ASICs. Unless you get free power, then use as many CPUs and GPUs as you want, but even the cost of the hardware components is going to be pricey compared to your return.

    3. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by iroll · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...because you buy time on modern supercomputers all the time, and can give us the real scoop, right?

      --
      Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
    4. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I may not buy supercomputer time, but I sell to the good ole' US of A's government quarterly. I promise, the OP is probably closer to the truth than you think. That 150k may have been only a day of sporadic use in total.

      I know the radio portion of our software we sell for iOS, we charge over $800/yearly for per device license... Not including the support contract, the server software, the database software, the server support contract, the database support contract, the web ui software and matching support, the sharepoint connector and matching support, the Microsoft Lync connector and matching support....

      I'm not saying the government pays a lot of money, but, my Porsche is blue.

    5. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ...because you buy time on modern supercomputers all the time, and can give us the real scoop, right?

      It's a fantasy in as much as the police reporting the "bust" of 4.8m worth of pot, actual street value probably 80k. Or the MPAA/RIAA saying that piracy costs 70 trillion* in lost revenue every year.

      *may or may not be true based on how well we can massage and fudge the fuck out of the numbers.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    6. Re:Throw the book... maybe literally at him. by lagomorpha2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      well, most likely the computers werent being used for anything else at the time. he was probably only running it in spare time.

      Using close to 100% of processing resources would definitely increase overall power consumption for the computers in question. This would result in increased overall cost of operation.

      And yet still less wasteful of money and resources than the vast majority of university administrators.

  2. $150,000? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is that figure just based on some arbitrary appraisal of the the machine's time or what?

  3. And then used it for Piracy by high_rolla · · Score: 5, Funny

    And then imagine if he used that $8000 to buy a computer and an internet connection and downloaded a few pirated songs doing literally $trillions in damage.

    My estimates are that he could easily have downloaded enough pirated content with that much internet to cause enough damage to bankrupt the entire world.

    --
    Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
  4. Re:give them probation.... maybe felony if necessa by ultranova · · Score: 4, Funny

    He appropriated a taxpayer resource to line his pockets.

    So basically, he's the very model of a good capitalist, sharing the costs and keeping the profits. Why should he be punished for his entrepreneurship? Why do you hate freedom so much?

    Bald eagles cry tears of blood, red like the flag of Soviet Union, over your post.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.