The Pirate Bay Is Running a Secret Cryptocurrency Miner

Megalith

Megalith

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The operators of The Pirate Bay have added a Javascript-powered cryptocurrency miner to the site as a new way to generate revenue, but people aren’t happy about it: the miner, provided by Coinhive, mines Monero coins by utilizing visitors’ resources. Users have reported a dramatic increase in CPU usage when they browse certain pages.

The miner does indeed appear to increase CPU usage quite a bit. It is throttled at different rates (we’ve seen both 0.6 and 0.8) but the increase in resources is immediately noticeable. The miner is not enabled site-wide. When we checked, it appeared in the search results and category listings, but not on the homepage or individual torrent pages.
 
Ha. Just tried it and sure enough, went from 2% to 22% from the main page to the search results.
 
shadiness? from people who supply the grey market with not so legit wares?

BASTARDS.

wait no, that's not it.

nope par for the course.

im_shocked.gif
 
I'll let you suck my unused CPU hardware for no advertisements.

There's an innuendo in there somewhere.
 
The real issue isn't so much that it's happening, but that it's going on behind the scenes w/o users knowledge or consent. It's got less to do with piratebay itself than it does with the internet as a whole as this behavior will end up becoming more widespread like adverts have become and both slow our PC's down more and empty our pockets in both cases you can argue it's the same result as the more ad's they feed us the more bandwidth it uses and requires and in turn more CPU/GPU power it requires from out systems. This mining thing takes it to a whole new level of sleazy however or it could if they intended it to. It's probably not a major issue as it is right now, but something to be self aware of at least. Welcome to the internet aka the wild wild west.
 
knowom said:
The real issue isn't so much that it's happening, but that it's going on behind the scenes w/o users knowledge or consent. It's got less to do with piratebay itself than it does with the internet as a whole as this behavior will end up becoming more widespread like adverts have become and both slow our PC's down more and empty our pockets in both cases you can argue it's the same result as the more ad's they feed us the more bandwidth it uses and requires and in turn more CPU/GPU power it requires from out systems. This mining thing takes it to a whole new level of sleazy however or it could if they intended it to. It's probably not a major issue as it is right now, but something to be self aware of at least. Welcome to the internet aka the wild wild west.
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It amazes me people say piracy isn't theft, but will bitch if a shady site uses a little more of their cpu power. If people don't like it then they shouldn't go to pirate bay and steal.
 
wizzi01 said:
It amazes me people say piracy isn't theft, but will bitch if a shady site uses a little more of their cpu power. If people don't like it then they shouldn't go to pirate bay and steal.
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Just as devils advocate here - Did you consider copying a VHS tape and giving it to a friend as piracy or theft? Some would argue it's the same thing only in modern times with modern resources, and plenty of people didn't give a crap about that. That's simplifying the issues a bit however I did find it interesting when I read that back when people were copying VHS tapes a portion of the money from the sale of the original movie went to entities like the MPAA. Now with DVDs it doesn't happen hence it being a bigger deal. Obviously there's a big difference between giving to 5 friends and giving to 500,000. Not saying I think that by the way. I am somewhere in the middle.
 
Very interesting.

Just tested this myself and they certainly are using CPU cycles for something, after visiting the site for a few seconds CPU usage definitely increased with an adblocker enabled. Notice the corresponding jump in network usage just before the increase/decrease in resource usage:

Pirate Bay opened:

IjzpZ0Dh.png


Pirate Bay closed:

b3TuhTGh.png
 
so we need to have a law passed that will force that website to pay all CPU owners who visit that sight and have that site use their CPU power. And if that doesn't work they need to pass a law for the law that did not pass and then open a class action law suit so that other laws can be passed ... that way there will be many laws that no one will enforce, rather than just a few laws that no one will enforce
 
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You guys don't know that your CPU is being used when it shouldn't be based on temperature? That is the first sign a program is using more than it should. A torrent tracker should not be using much at all.
 
doz said:
You guys don't know that your CPU is being used when it shouldn't be based on temperature? That is the first sign a program is using more than it should. A torrent tracker should not be using much at all.
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you underestimate how much it takes to heat up a watercooled dual Xeon setup. Or how about my other rig that uses a arduino and thermoelectric plate to keep the CPU exactly at ambient. It's been awhile since I have even checked what program was using what resources and honestly I would be 100% ok with a site doing this
 
Converge said:
Just as devils advocate here - Did you consider copying a VHS tape and giving it to a friend as piracy or theft? Some would argue it's the same thing only in modern times with modern resources, and plenty of people didn't give a crap about that. That's simplifying the issues a bit however I did find it interesting when I read that back when people were copying VHS tapes a portion of the money from the sale of the original movie went to entities like the MPAA. Now with DVDs it doesn't happen hence it being a bigger deal. Obviously there's a big difference between giving to 5 friends and giving to 500,000. Not saying I think that by the way. I am somewhere in the middle.
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I only had one vcr at a time and it was never a dual deck one. I just think it's funny the people stealing are crying because their resources are being stolen.
 
_l_ said:
so we need to have a law passed that will force that website to pay all CPU owners who visit that sight and have that site use their CPU power. And if that doesn't work they need to pass a law for the law that did not pass and then open a class action law suit so that other laws can be passed ...
Click to expand...

Maybe they should just enforce the laws and start going after the people stealing.
 
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cdabc123 said:
you underestimate how much it takes to heat up a watercooled dual Xeon setup. Or how about my other rig that uses a arduino and thermoelectric plate to keep the CPU exactly at ambient. It's been awhile since I have even checked what program was using what resources and honestly I would be 100% ok with a site doing this
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Don't care what your setup is... A CPU jumping 30-40% usage will create heat especially if it's for prolonged periods like mining. It would be noticeable.
 
doz said:
You guys don't know that your CPU is being used when it shouldn't be based on temperature? That is the first sign a program is using more than it should. A torrent tracker should not be using much at all.
Click to expand...

You stare at you CPU temp all the time or something? Who the fuck has the time for that, I just want my shit to work and not need to monitor it 24/7.
 
doz said:
Don't care what your setup is... A CPU jumping 30-40% usage will create heat especially if it's for prolonged periods like mining. It would be noticeable.
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It only increases when sitting on the search screen and category listing. How long do you really spend there? I download from TPB pretty often and I can tell you I have never used the category page and spend about 20 seconds on the search results. I would never notice it at that point. That said, my cpu range is about 20 degrees between 0% load and 100% load, so a 20% increase would barely be noticeable, not that I would be watching my temperatures during browsing anyways.
 
I've got CPU temperature showing in my dock and the way the miner jumps cores I can assure you that I wouldn't notice an increase in temperature surfing TPB.

Do you drive down the road just staring at your tacho?
 
Just tested, CPU temp increased from 33 degrees C to 40 degrees C, occasionally jumping to around 42 degrees C.

Apart from that the system remained dead silent, no increase in fan speeds at all. Had no one mentioned what TPB were doing, I wouldn't have necessarily noticed straight away that my CPU cycles were being used.

X2m4iYwh.png
 
BulletDust said:
Just tested, CPU temp increased from 33 degrees C to 40 degrees C, occasionally jumping to around 42 degrees C.

Apart from that the system remained dead silent, no increase in fan speeds at all. Had no one mentioned what TPB were doing, I wouldn't have necessarily noticed straight away that my CPU cycles were being used.

X2m4iYwh.png
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Pretty much. Unless I stayed on the page, I would never notice it.

How long did you sit there to hit 40?
 
auntjemima said:
Pretty much. Unless I stayed on the page, I would never notice it.

How long did you sit there to hit 40?
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It hit 40 fairly quickly, about one to two minutes. Sat there for ten mins and temps just went up and down around 40. They're being very clever, it's like they're trying to hide any temperature increases by cycling the load and therefore processor temps.

This is on a Xeon equipped Dell T5500 with stock OEM cooling.
 
i just want free, and no ads. Fuck your server bills....
free free free. weeeeeeeeeeeee

Alright, I'm out. Gotta go watch a shitty cam of "It".
 
who cares. If you're going to use their site then help them out.

I really wish HardOCP would do this. I would totally leave my window open for them to earn bitcoin. I think I can handle 22% of my CPU for them.
 
Damn... Non-observant people around here. Carry on, I guess I am in the minority.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
No thank you. I'd rather just support the site directly via patreon. Using my PC's resources for mining is just a roundabout way of getting my donation via my electrical bill.
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in the current mining environment for every dollar I spend in power they would make more then one doller in coin. Seems like a good deal to me
 
Its pretty easy to see them doing it. All those spikes are just sitting on any page other than the home page. And they're making pretty good use of the CPU when they do it. The flat spots are when changing back to their home page. Can't miss it.

upload_2017-9-16_21-45-10.png
 
This seems like a really good idea. I would much prefer sites suck down some CPU power while I surf instead of showing me ads.
 
It's easy to say you support this now for this or that site, but I think you'd be singing a different tune if it became as widespread as regular ads.
 
This is an interesting concept.

What would start a large company with a few hundred thousand employees, all with computers, from adding this as a background service limited to a certain % of CPU/GPU resource? The hardware is already there since all your employees already have systems...
 
My system is folding when I am just web browsing so they wouldn't get anything from me anyway :p I am sure most people here are folding for 33.
 
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