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Former Fed Employee Fined $5,000 For Installing Bitcoin Software On Server (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A former Federal Reserve employee was sentenced Friday to 12 months probation and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty in October to installing unauthorized software on a computer server at the U.S. central bank. Nicholas Berthaume, who as a communications analyst had access to computer servers at the Fed's Board of Governors in Washington, installed software that connected to an online bitcoin network in order to earn units of the digital currency, according to a statement Monday from the central bank's Office of Inspector General. Berthaume also "modified certain security safeguards so that he could remotely access the server from home," the statement said. When confronted, he tried to cover up his actions by deleting the software; eventually he was fired and admitted guilt, the office said. His actions didn't result in the loss of any Fed information, and the board has enhanced security since the incident, the internal watchdog said. The story was first reported by The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled).
You may not create money! What do you think this is the federal reserve bank or something?
Why bother? It is not like those servers can compete with ASIC mining anyway...
Curiosity: can I make it work and can I get away with it.
Value: it's free electricity.
Rick/reward fail: Failure to see the consequences of being caught will outweigh the likely reward.
It is quite surprising this hasn't happened more often, unless there's an interest in keeping the discovery and dismissal in house.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Reminds me of that guy who got sacked a while back for loading SETI at Home on a bunch of servers at his work.
Is it really that hard to remember that the computers at your employer's company are not yours?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Shitty secutity at it's finnest!
He got caught.
Good thing we didn't live in this environment at the "dawn of networked computing" in the 80's. Most of the muds ran at the behest of unix sys-admins at Universities... under the radar of the University Dept Heads in most cases.
Admin rights to a server?
You don't need admin privileges to mine bitcoins. A normal user login is enough.
Tru firewall and proxy? Seriously?
Even a web browser can do that. Where I work, this many people are unable to access outside servers: 0.
I looked into it out of curiosity about a year ago and concluded that I could make somewhere around $5 - $15 a month, while spending more on power. It long stopped being worth mining with common hardware.
Of course using someone else's equipment you don't have that downside, but those consequences far outweigh whatever pocket cash he made from it, unless it was installed on an entire cluster.
That's only if you're trying to make a profit out of mining and you have expenses like real estate, electricity, the mining hardware, etc.
If you didn't have all that overhead, CPU based mining is more than adequate, especially if you have free real estate, free electricity and free hardware. Sure you'll mine slowly, but it's all profit.
Some ransomware does this, as do many malware - when you have a botnet of 500,000 for free use, bitcoin mining isn't terribly bad, especially since it's all free to you.
Bitcoin, the currency of criminality
Na, that is USD.
Sure, some people use bitcoin in their "criminal empire" but that is a mere pittance compared to normal fiat cash.
Is there anyone who would seriously buy those bullshit bitsy shekels?
100% Correct. Until drug dealers on the street start accepting Bitcoin for purchases, Its criminality hides in the shadow of the current USD. Im pretty sure you can buy drugs in almost any country on this planet with US Currency.
Apparently, it's a bit like the lottery in that it only seems to make dollars if you don't have any sense.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I watch it every month or so because I like the song. I think I've ever watched it unintentionally once which lead me to watch it again few more times :)
Here's one from as far back as 2011:
https://thenextweb.com/au/2011...
It's probably not making the news so much because it's probably normally thought of as a petty crime.
Don't give Micro$oft any ideas!
Life is not for the lazy.
Not if you start it, than it is a straight up ponzi scheme. Late comers greed, creates the false sense of credibility about your imaginary pile of loot. Real problem in getting rid of your hoard a billion of dollars of fake currency is a real tough sell (kind of really, really, collapses the value of your imaginary currency). Take the US dollar, is keeps the entire US defence force to back the illusion of the made up money and the US Fed, don't want to play and they will pretty much kill you (on a country level of course, not an individual level).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I could see this be a case of "Here is an official warning. Fuck up one more time and you are gone." situation in many companies. I know of one such case. It wasn't a Bitcoin thing as that did not excist.
It would depend on the company, situation and what not. I live in Belgium, Europe, so that would be a factor as well. Do it at a bank? You are done. Do it at a mlocal supermarket? Warning.
The result would obviously depend on what you do the rest of the time. If you are an outstanding employee that has done a lot for management, it will be different than one that is always late, performs bad and moans a lot.
Also people who get fired over this would also not want it to be public knowledge as it will be already hard enough to get a job anyway. Nobody wins if it becomes public.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The article states "the server", implying there was only 1. I'd be surprised if the guy actually mined anything, and I don't see any way he made enough to cover the fine. That doesn't even take into account lawyers fees and diminished career opportunities.
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