Russian Scientists Arrested for Using Supercomputers For Mining

rgMekanic

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In a report from international Business Times, a number of Russian nuclear scientists were arrested for allegedly using lab equipment to mine for cryptocurrencies. The report, originally on Russia's Interfax News Agency, said the engineers were working at the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics. The lab is located in the closed city of Sarov, is fenced off and heavily guarded by the Russian military. The city intended to be cut off from the outside world, and the computers are supposed to be isolated and disconnected to prevent outside intrusion.

The article states that the group was caught when they attempted to connect to the internet, and alerted the security department. For scientists they really weren't all that smart. I want to make a blyat' coin joke, but can't think of one. Big thanks to KD5ZXG for the story!

"Similar attempts have recently been registered in a number of large companies with large computing capacities, which will be severely suppressed at our enterprises, this is technically a hopeless and criminal offense," Tatyana Zalesskaya, head of the research institute press service noted. She did not specify the number of detainees.
 
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I wonder how many hashes they were getting...
Approximately zero, since they weren't connected to the internet. That or near zero, as it shouldn't have taken long to discover any unauthorized attempts at changing network settings.
 
I can't believe they stopped them. Couldn't they solve every block in like 4 hours? I would imagine this was on purpose, and jeez wouldnt they just make their own as a test to see how long it would take? Not really thinking these guys, if you have any form of security as a service (be it internal or external) you are going to notice this FAST.
 
In Russia, coin mines you.

(sorry, not my best attempt at humor)

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Someone at my company did this in our data center PoC lab (Think 80 racks of servers, compute pods with experimental stuff from nvidia and intel, etc, along with some boring networking equipment), around 2011, he got fired pretty quickly.
 
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the mine...?

Sounds awful when said that way.
 
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Anyone here smart enough to speculate how many MH/s these supercomputers could theoretically calculate?
 
If bitcoin mining was still possible on CPU's, I could run it on several servers at night since I'm the entire IT department :p
Wouldn't cost the company anything since electrical power is included in our lease. Just have to make sure I don't turn myself in :confused:

I did use it for some server testing/stability years ago and ended up with about half a bitcoin which I eventually used to buy some new hardware.
 
wow, who would have thought. Will they be banned from Supercomputer gatherings same as the 2018 Winter Olympics?
 
I remember way back in college I ran a Seti@home process on the department's server through a command line prompt, about 2 days later the sysadmin yelled at me for using a ton of the CPU.
 
We had someone that was hosting a pornographic website where I work at about 8 years ago. Somehow, he was caught via the use of a company issued Blackberry phone. Personal phone charges had to be paid by the individual, but I think he tried to pass some of his other business dealings to the org. Apparently it was running for over 6 months. He worked in IT, so probably was ok at covering his tracks. Ok, he wasn't that good since he got caught (and fired).
 
We had someone that was hosting a pornographic website where I work at about 8 years ago. Somehow, he was caught via the use of a company issued Blackberry phone. Personal phone charges had to be paid by the individual, but I think he tried to pass some of his other business dealings to the org. Apparently it was running for over 6 months. He worked in IT, so probably was ok at covering his tracks. Ok, he wasn't that good since he got caught (and fired).
Well at least he was attempting to better mankind. :rolleyes:
 
This reminds me of the "totally fake" Russian PCI slot computer that had 6 missile CPUs that ran Linux and runs Seti@Home. Circa July 2000.

In this instance, this was real and real stupid of the scientists. Now they might lose funding and their jobs to a bunch of crypto nerds if Russia figures out that mining was FAR more lucrative than the research.
 
Would you really want your DHS to use their 172 1080ti in clusters to mine crypto?
 
If I decided to setup a mining rig, I'd do it at the office too. I've already got a connection directly out through a router that is more cock ring than condom :)
 
I remember way back in college I ran a Seti@home process on the department's server through a command line prompt, about 2 days later the sysadmin yelled at me for using a ton of the CPU.

Back in like... what... 99? I worked with a guy who thought it was his mission in life to install Seti@home on ever single computer he could lay hands on. Including all the servers. Kind of a neat idea I guess, but he eventually got canned for it. Or for being a worthless employee (which he totally was, that dude could avoid work like his life depended on it), not sure which. Regardless, no aliens have chimed up to say it was his efforts that made the difference. :)
 
Back in like... what... 99? I worked with a guy who thought it was his mission in life to install Seti@home on ever single computer he could lay hands on. Including all the servers. Kind of a neat idea I guess, but he eventually got canned for it. Or for being a worthless employee (which he totally was, that dude could avoid work like his life depended on it), not sure which. Regardless, no aliens have chimed up to say it was his efforts that made the difference. :)
99 hmmm it was grad school so that sounds about right. Besides this in the physics & astronomy department servers, and it was a state school too so no heavy research that might require massive computer time at all, it was simply a process that used up 100% of the cpu time when they weren't in use, and that pissed off the SysAdmin :D I just was curious how fast it could crunch through data compared to my home computer, and actually was a bit disappointed in the results. Besides I just ran it through a shell off my account, not like I really installed it :D

And while yeah his efforts were not that useful, Seti@home really kind of paved the way for distributed computing to the public.
 
If bitcoin mining was still possible on CPU's, I could run it on several servers at night since I'm the entire IT department :p
Wouldn't cost the company anything since electrical power is included in our lease. Just have to make sure I don't turn myself in :confused:

I did use it for some server testing/stability years ago and ended up with about half a bitcoin which I eventually used to buy some new hardware.
There is still Monero...
 
Someone at my company did this in our data center PoC lab (Think 80 racks of servers, compute pods with experimental stuff from nvidia and intel, etc, along with some boring networking equipment), around 2011, he got fired pretty quickly.

depending how much btc he got before being noticed, in todays value it mightve been worth it
 
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