Mystery miner at it again? | Bitcointalksearch.org

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

Quote from: Steve on April 18, 2011, 09:48:32 PM

I suspect, if it's a botnet, that whoever is using it has discovered that they can't mine full time and unload everything they mine without significantly pushing the market down. So, they might be mining for a while, until they collect some amount of bitcoins then they switch to something else lucrative while they unload the bitcoins over time...once finished unloading (and perhaps when done with the other activity) they go back to mining again to load back up on bitcoins.

Yep you are probably right. Funny how bitcoin is practically a botnet owner's dream - free money!

Steve

hero member

Activity: 868

Merit: 1008

I suspect, if it's a botnet, that whoever is using it has discovered that they can't mine full time and unload everything they mine without significantly pushing the market down. So, they might be mining for a while, until they collect some amount of bitcoins then they switch to something else lucrative while they unload the bitcoins over time...once finished unloading (and perhaps when done with the other activity) they go back to mining again to load back up on bitcoins.

TiagoTiago

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Firstbits.com/1fg4i :)

I wouldn't consider it being beyond them to actually build farms with cheap purpose built hashing cards

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

Interesting article. Although it does not give details about what kind of cpu and ram they use I would imagine they aren't wimpy servers .

If google ever build a gpu compute cluster I can see them easily reapplying that cheap but plentiful philosophy -maybe a giant collection of super cheap microatx boards each with a radeon 5770 card or something similarly cheap and power efficient.

Raoul Duke

legendary

Activity: 1358

Merit: 1002

Quote from: allinvain on April 18, 2011, 05:53:12 AM

What that box got? A dual cpu (amd opteron perhaps) with boatload of RAM? I don't think a group of those servers can compare to the power of even a humble 5770.

Well, read the full article, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10209580-92.html

They really have a LOT of them...

But that being said, you all must know, and Google themselves admited it, their service was made to work on cheap hardware, that's right CHEAP hardware... and that's what they have.
Cheap hardware, but lots and lots of it... Grin

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

What that box got? A dual cpu (amd opteron perhaps) with boatload of RAM? I don't think a group of those servers can compare to the power of even a humble 5770.

Raoul Duke

legendary

Activity: 1358

Merit: 1002

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Cryptoman on April 16, 2011, 11:59:11 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

It's Google doing trial runs of Bitcoin mining. They do it for a while and then shut it down, refine their setup and start it back up again.

Are you serious?

Think about it. Google is the biggest company that backs free, open software and culture. Google also happens to more servers than Intel, Rackspace, Microsoft and Amazon combined.

If Google wants to use Bitcoin for adsense or whatever they'd need a large supply to fund it. Buying Bitcoin in the mass quantities that Google would need is currently impossible, but since they have many servers to work with it's easier for them to mine it themselves.

Once they have their supply, they'll announce their involvement. They can't announce it early because the news that Google is working with Bitcoin would cause the the value of Bitcoin to rise dramatically. If they play their cards rights, they can mine whatever amount they need and when they announce it that amount will be worth 1, 5, 10, 100 or whatever times as much.

But mostly I'm just rumour mongering Cheesy

Although who else would have the resources to drop that much power into the network at random?

Would they be using THIS server architecture to mine? Cause that's all they have in their container DC's...

xf2_org

member

Activity: 98

Merit: 13

Quote from: Garrett Burgwardt on April 16, 2011, 12:36:34 PM

I'm fairly certain that Google the entity has done nothing and probably not even much noticed bitcoins, but one particular employee used his 20% project time to make a bitcoin client. It seems there is widespread belief that Google the corporation cares about bitcoins - all signs point to them not even really knowing about it, or at least not planning on doing anything with it so far.

+1 agreed

Thank you for re-injecting some realism.

Garrett Burgwardt

sr. member

Activity: 406

Merit: 256

Quote from: allinvain on April 16, 2011, 12:26:06 PM

Quote from: Cryptoman on April 16, 2011, 11:59:11 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

It's Google doing trial runs of Bitcoin mining. They do it for a while and then shut it down, refine their setup and start it back up again.

Are you serious?

lol who knows, but don't forget they DID write a java based bitcoin client..well someone from their organization, so I'm not sure if there is a formal "plan" to make bitcoin their next thing. However, let's put it this way, if Google adopts bitcoin in some major way then it's mainstream all the way baby! And rather quickly too!

I'm fairly certain that Google the entity has done nothing and probably not even much noticed bitcoins, but one particular employee used his 20% project time to make a bitcoin client. It seems there is widespread belief that Google the corporation cares about bitcoins - all signs point to them not even really knowing about it, or at least not planning on doing anything with it so far.

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

Quote from: Cryptoman on April 16, 2011, 11:59:11 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

It's Google doing trial runs of Bitcoin mining. They do it for a while and then shut it down, refine their setup and start it back up again.

Are you serious?

lol who knows, but don't forget they DID write a java based bitcoin client..well someone from their organization, so I'm not sure if there is a formal "plan" to make bitcoin their next thing. However, let's put it this way, if Google adopts bitcoin in some major way then it's mainstream all the way baby! And rather quickly too!

Cryptoman

hero member

Activity: 726

Merit: 500

Quote from: ?? on ??

It's Google doing trial runs of Bitcoin mining. They do it for a while and then shut it down, refine their setup and start it back up again.

Are you serious?

LMGTFY

hero member

Activity: 644

Merit: 503

Quote from: Cryptoman on April 16, 2011, 11:01:15 AM

I noticed a brief surge to over 1 Terahash/s on bitcoinwatch.com the day I started this thread. It was probably just a string of good luck and got averaged out on the sipa charts.

Cool, thanks. There is a spike on sipa, but it's followed by an equivalent fall. If I'd seen the spike as it was happening I'd have been concerned too!

Cryptoman

hero member

Activity: 726

Merit: 500

Quote from: LMGTFY on April 16, 2011, 10:34:56 AM

Looking at bitcoin.sipa.be, I'm not seeing anything unusual. I can see MM off to the left, but the current part of the graph just looks to me like the usual ups and downs of network growth. Is there something else that makes us think Mystery Miner has returned?

I noticed a brief surge to over 1 Terahash/s on bitcoinwatch.com the day I started this thread. It was probably just a string of good luck and got averaged out on the sipa charts.

LMGTFY

hero member

Activity: 644

Merit: 503

Looking at bitcoin.sipa.be, I'm not seeing anything unusual. I can see MM off to the left, but the current part of the graph just looks to me like the usual ups and downs of network growth. Is there something else that makes us think Mystery Miner has returned?

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

Quote from: Raulo on April 16, 2011, 09:18:53 AM

You don't need SDK to mine if you use CAL instead of OpenCL. Catalyst drivers suffice. And even with OpenCL, I believe you only need dynamic libraries not the full SDK suite.

However, you underestimate the number of CPU zombies you can cheaply "rent":
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.70515

Jesus...30 mil botnet you can rent! Wow. Ok, now excuse me while I cash out some of my bitcoins, pay that monthly rent and go make back some bitcoins. Lather, rinse, and repeat Tongue

Raulo

full member

Activity: 238

Merit: 100

You don't need SDK to mine if you use CAL instead of OpenCL. Catalyst drivers suffice. And even with OpenCL, I believe you only need dynamic libraries not the full SDK suite.

However, you underestimate the number of CPU zombies you can cheaply "rent":
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.70515

allinvain

legendary

Activity: 3080

Merit: 1080

Quote from: Mahkul on April 16, 2011, 05:32:22 AM

Quote from: allinvain on April 15, 2011, 05:25:43 PM

Quote from: xf2_org on April 14, 2011, 11:30:09 PM

Quote from: j16sdiz on April 14, 2011, 11:15:12 PM

I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do

It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...

But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!

Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"... Tongue

Gamers don't usually install SDKs

True! Very good point. I don't think it would be very practical for a botnet/trojan to install an SDK without the user's knowledge, but it still is theoretically possible. Could the SDK not be "trimmed down" somehow?

However, if the incentive is great enough I think someone out there will at least seriously attempt to do this. The same people - or type of people - that are responsible for the spam sending trojans/botnets who make millions off of viagra and all kind of shit they spam people with are going to see this as yet another cash cow. As long as it is fairly easy for them to liquidate BTC into whatever national currency they prefer it will be a breeze for them to make money. The thing is this does not really harm bitcoin as a whole, but it does take away in a sense bitcoins from miners that otherwise would've mined them in a more traditional and dare I say "honest" fashion of investing in their own hardware and using their own electricity instead of STEALING it or hijacking it from someone else.

LMGTFY

hero member

Activity: 644

Merit: 503

Quote from: VPoro on April 16, 2011, 05:25:07 AM

First of all, hello everyone, long time stalker but first post here

This Mystery miner - would Compute4Cash be a candidate for this? They pay for "WorkUnits", and do not explain what they are used for, the calculations are done with GPU's and they even have a list of WUs/hour for various cards which greatly reminds me of the wiki list for Bitcoin...

A brilliant idea from the owner idd if it is; pay people a fraction of what they could be earning with the actual pooled mining and rake in loads of profit for yourself ;p

Compute4Cash is mining bitcoins: the site owner eventually came clean here on this forum when exposed.

Mahkul

sr. member

Activity: 434

Merit: 251

Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.

Quote from: allinvain on April 15, 2011, 05:25:43 PM

Quote from: xf2_org on April 14, 2011, 11:30:09 PM

Quote from: j16sdiz on April 14, 2011, 11:15:12 PM

I can't imagine what kind of damage a botnet can do

It seems likely that most botnet machines would be lower-powered, without capable GPU. So, you'd need a really, really big CPU mining botnet basically...

But what if the botnet intrustion code was smart enough to search for a suitable GPU (it would not care about mining efficiency so it would go for both ATI and AMD)!!

Imagine the hashing power such a botnet could achieve. Imagine all those poor games who are left scratching their head wondering why their system lags and why temps spike "myseriously"... Tongue

Gamers don't usually install SDKs

VPoro

full member

Activity: 201

Merit: 100

Decentralized Ascending Auctions on Blockchain

First of all, hello everyone, long time stalker but first post here

This Mystery miner - would Compute4Cash be a candidate for this? They pay for "WorkUnits", and do not explain what they are used for, the calculations are done with GPU's and they even have a list of WUs/hour for various cards which greatly reminds me of the wiki list for Bitcoin...

A brilliant idea from the owner idd if it is; pay people a fraction of what they could be earning with the actual pooled mining and rake in loads of profit for yourself ;p

Topic: Mystery miner at it again? (Read 6872 times)