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Salon Magazine Mines Monero On Your Computer If You Use an Ad Blocker (bbc.com)
dryriver shares a report from BBC: News organizations have tried many novel ways to make readers pay -- but this idea is possibly the most audacious yet. If a reader chooses to block its advertising, U.S. publication Salon will use that person's computer to mine for Monero, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. Creating new tokens of a cryptocurrency typically requires complex calculations that use up a lot of computing power. Salon told readers: "We intend to use a small percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." The site is making use of CoinHive, a controversial mining tool that was recently used in an attack involving government websites in the UK, U.S. and elsewhere. However, unlike that incident, where hackers took control of visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency, Salon notifies users and requires them to agree before the tool begins mining.
People use adblockers because they have no trust in websites to not abuse their computers, eg. by installation of malware through the served ads. Websites so far have refused any kind of responsibility for what happens to your computer as a direct result if visiting them without an adblocker installed.
So now Salon goes out of their way to use malware if you DO have an adblocker installed. You have to ask yourself what kind of shit is in their ads if that's their mentality. If they can get away with making a bit of money off a portion of their visitors, why not make it off ALL their visitors, adblocker or no?
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Suddenly far-left Salon isn't so concerned about climate change, the environment or that currencies like Bitcoin "enable alt-right extremists".
First, an ad blocker can and will block such scripts, too. Second, they are using someone else's resources without their consent. Is this legal? Or wire fraud?
You know that when you make an ad-hominem attack on a comedian who says unkind things about Mr. Trump you are basically signalling to the world that you've lost the argument and this is all you have left.
Oliver's new season started last night. Haven't seen it yet but I'm guessing you don't have any specific criticisms of its content.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Amen, I am actually cool with this practice. I have always been in favour of some kind of micropayment for enjoying commercially produced content. I am just offended by advertising.
I always wanted to pay something like $0.02 per page. Paying about 1X10E-4 or E-5 Watt-hour instead sounds like a great compromise.
Your user id says you're on old fart, but your comment says your a naive youngling. All you'll get with that permissive attitude is sites with cryptominers and ads. Most newspapers exist because someone wants to influence the public. The fact that the public used to pay for that too is testament to the influencers' power of persuasion. Sites like Salon don't provide a product. They spread opinions. There are a few people whom I would pay to hear their opinion, but Salon isn't among them. They ought to pay me to read what they want me to read. They, just like most other "news" organizations, must at some point realize that they are just one more voice who wants to be heard, not a voice that people want to hear.
He's a fucking comedian.
This is like writing an article about how insightful Dave Chapelle is on transgenderism.
I love his comedy, and I even agree with his stance on the issue, but he's still just a fucking comedian.
This is especially true for people like Oliver, because he makes all his political points interspersed with jokes, and gets all riled up.
Then when you call him out on some bullshit it's all "I'm just a fucking comedian why are you acting like I have to live up to the same standard as the news".
Yeah, no. Fuck that.
Amen, I am actually cool with this practice. I have always been in favour of some kind of micropayment for enjoying commercially produced content
I'm not and I think you are out of your mind if you are cool with this. They are the ones who have a shitty business model dependent on me subsidizing them with my computer resources and attention. I block ads mostly because I don't like being tracked and I don't trust them with the data. I will block anyone trying to do that and if that costs them money that is no my problem. They certainly don't get to use my computer to mine money without contracting with me to do it first. They can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned if they try to do that behind my back.
Also bear in mind that I might be using my company's computer to read that website. Lots of people including me do not have the authority to allow a third party to use company computers for such a purpose without the express permission of the company even if the company is cool with the reading a Salon article.
The arrogance of Salon is kind of breathtaking here.
I always wanted to pay something like $0.02 per page.
That's fine but I don't think you've done the math on the cost per page if you think $0.02/page is reasonable. For me that could easily top $50/day at that sort of price point. You're mileage may vary but I think it will be more expensive than you realize. I don't have a principled objection to pay-as-you-go (sans ads of course) but I'm not about to pay that sort of ridiculous rate. I do subscribe to websites I find valuable (several of them) but most of them don't offer me enough value to bother. Salon certainly does not. And if I'm not willing to subscribe it seems unlikely I'm going to be ok with giving them a free pass to run up my power bill and slow down my computer.
Paying about 1X10E-4 or E-5 Watt-hour instead sounds like a great compromise.
Not to me it doesn't. If they want to approach me directly and offer such a deal then fine but they do not get to just go ahead and do it because I happened to load one of their articles with an ad blocker active. If they want to put up an offer when the web page loads that's fine. I can take the offer or leave it. (and I assure you I will leave it) But if they simply go ahead and start trying to mine bitcoin on my computer without asking me first, now we have a fight.
It's the Ad agencies who should be worried.
I wouldn't mind Salon and some other news agencies using my computers to mine for e-coins. Essentially it's a micropayment system in lieu of seeing ads.
If this catches on, Salon may just rid of ads completely and use crypto-mining to generate money.
The plus side of this is that the more you read the site, the more you pay. If you just go to them because of click-bait, you won't stay on their pages long and end up not generating a lot of money for them.
Sounds like a win situation for the newspaper (they make money) and the reader (no ads). The Ad agencies lose out. But who cares about them?
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CoinHive defaults to using 40% or less of your CPU.
How is that possible? CoinHive is JavaScript. JavaScript runs in a sandbox, and does not have access to CPU usage info.