Principal Fired For Using School's Computer Room To Mine Cryptocurrency (bbc.com)

"A Chinese headmaster has been fired after a secret stack of crypto-currency mining machines was found connected to his school's electricity supply," writes the BBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report: Teachers at the school in Hunan became suspicious of a whirring noise that continued day and night, local media report. This led to the discovery of the machines, which were mining the crypto-currency Ethereum. They racked up an electricity bill of 14,700 yuan [£1,600, or about $2,100]...

The headmaster had originally spent 10,000 yuan on a single machine for use at home, but allegedly decided to move it to the school after he saw how much electricity it consumed... A total of eight mining machines were installed in the Hunan school's computer room between summer 2017 and summer 2018... The deputy headmaster also became involved in the scheme and allegedly acquired a ninth machine for himself in January, which was also installed at the school. The computer network in the building became overloaded as a result of the mining activity, according to reports, and this "interfered" with teaching.
All the money earned through the mining operation has now been claimed by the local official responsible for "discipline inspection."

Comments

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire cryptomining philosophy laid out bare here: Cause and convert someone else's electricity spending into personal profits.

If Enron was still around, they definitely would be lobbying in favor of cryptocurrency.

Re:LOL

[sg_oneill]

It can be done ethically; miner powered water heater for example.

No it can't. Its a mathematical nonsense to suggest it can be.

Any useage of power is always a fairly simple equasion of X: work + Y: entropy. You can try and reclaim as much of y was possible and thats fine, but its the x thats the problem here. When your cryptomining the y part doesn't distinguish between "A: Did I find the code" and " B: Didn't find the code" for a more accurate A + B + Y, and the whole key to cryptocurrencies being secure and fair is on B being as high as possibly so the best you could hope for as a SYSTEM is a low A , a low Y and a high B. But for the purpose of energy conservation B is as bad as Y, because ultimately its competing with a system that has no B at all.

And heres the crunch: Nobody seems to have a use-case for bitcoin that makes having that "B" factor in there at all make sense. Its a gigantic amount of wasted energy for no gain that simply doesn't have to exist. We're a decade or so into cryptocurrency and we're still looking for its use-case (Its not anonymous, its hopelessly vunerable to fraud, it behaves in a manner that is economically absurd for a currency, its expensive as a unit of trade and its unstable as a speculative investment).

Its a mathematically inescapable waste of energy in an era where wasting energy is the worst thing we could be doing as a species. Lets shelf this idea until we've unleashed Fusion , or big space-mirror power or something that means "B" doesn't matter anymore

Whirring Noise?

[Crash Dummy Redux]

He have bought the German-engineered Be Quiet silent case fans to replace the cheap Chinese knockoffs.

Re:So why is this a thing?

[MikeDataLink]

Is there some continuing delusion that cryptocurrency serves any real purpose?

There is little doubt in my mind Crypto-Currency is the future of currency. Just not in any of the current iterations. But just like any other technology we must keep iterating before we get to the product that actually works. iPad wasn't the first tablet after all.

Discipline Inspector?

[JaneTheIgnorantSlut]

Sounds like an interesting job. How do I apply?

Not fired for mining

[gnasher719]

He wasn't really fired for mining crypto currency. He was fired for adding $2,100 to the school's electricity bill, plus probably causing significant wear on eight computers owned by the school. Absolutely should have been fired for that.

I also would completely agree that crypto currency mined on school computers, with the electricity paid for by the school, should be property of the school.

Re:Not fired for mining

[Hognoxious]

He was fired for excessive greed, i.e. not giving a percentage to the right people.

Proof Chinese are more intelligent!

[William Baric]

I doubt a single school principal has the knowledge to do this here.

Re:So why is this a thing?

[Alwin Henseler]

Is there some continuing delusion that cryptocurrency serves any real purpose?

Cryptocurrency != wasting electricity. That's a problem with -some- current coins, specifically Bitcoin.

I'd be happy to switch cash payments to some electronic equivalent, provided it comes with the same attributes as cash. Afaik such an e-coin doesn't exist yet (Bitcoin in its current form isn't it, that's for sure!). But I suspect that's only a matter of time. And when such an e-coin gains traction, traditional banks (and perhaps even governments) will be in trouble for sure.

The current crypto-currency craziness is kind of a Wild West shootout, where it's being figured out what works & what doesn't. Once that's fleshed out, the railroads will come, new towns will be built & bank robbery will be a rare occurrence. Figurative speaking, of course...

Re:So why is this a thing?

[sg_oneill]

There is little doubt in my mind Crypto-Currency is the future of currency.

I'd say the evidence so far is not only has this ship left shore, but it sunk at the first hurdle.

Cryptocurrencies are a solution to a problem nobody has.

I originally wrote a huge list of problems bitcoin has, from its economic absurdity to its poor security to its lack of anonymity, but these are things that could be argued in circle all week. The fact is, the hype died, people lost a lot of money , and all the venture capital is going elsewhere. At the end of the day, unless someone can come up with an adult use-case that isn't "A thing we can already do, but with blockchain for some reason" its a failed experiment.