...I can't quite agree with him, that's a blatant breach of agreement...
Incorrect. There was and still is no agreement to provide Coiledcoins. There is no agreement promising not to use the completed POWs for other calculations besides those promised to the users.
By HIM, I meant Luke. I'll try to be very precise here:
1. Eligius is a merged-mining-enabled Bitcoin-Namecoin mining pool.
2. A pool is an service which helps miners to do their job (mine Bitcoins and Namecoins) by splitting the task of mining into smaller work units. By definition this is what a pool does and is the only thing a pool does.
3. Luke agrees to provide his pool's services to the miners.
4. The miners agree to process the work units received from Eligius, thereby effectively authorizing Luke to use their computer systems' resources strictly for the purpose of mining Bitcoins and Namecoins.
5. However, Luke has allegedly been using his users' hashing power for his own, private purposes.
6. Thus, even if at no cost to the miners, Luke is violating the agreement with his miners by misusing the pool (using it outside of the agreed-upon scope).
7. His pool's use of the miners' resources is therefore unauthorized.
8. Unauthorized use of a computer system is considered a crime.
By continuing the alleged attacks, Luke puts himself in a very dangerous position should any Eligius miner choose to litigate.
That's why I advise Luke to cease any alleged attacks using Eligius' resources.
1. It can also be CLC merged mining pool as can every other BTC pool in existence. This is the mathematical definition of CLC, any BTC miner can also produce CLC with no additional work. Whether or not a pool chooses to take advantage of this is up to the operator. Whether or not the pool operator chooses to pass on the rewards is up to the operator.
2. Why is it the only thing? Is there a contract that states it will not have any alternative sources of revenue (like advertising)? Providing work and rewards is the minimum a pool must do, there is no upper bound (explicit or implicit) as to a pools functionality. That is like saying the Google is search, and only search, and they made Gmail and now I am FURIOUS because my AOL mail account is less valuable!
3. The miners agree to use Luke's service, in return for some portion of the rewards. The size and shape of that portion is entirely up to the pool operator. Too little rewards, fewer miners. Too great of a reward, pool costs too much to maintain.
4. Luke does not use their systems resources at all. They ask for work, the pool provides the work, they complete the work, they return the completed work, the pool checks the work and gives them their reward. The only thing the pool does is provide work, check the completed work, and provide the reward. The pool does no calculations and runs no code on the users machine.
5. Luke did not "use" their hashing power. He used the results of their hashing power. The result is information. The hashing power is the conversion of electricity into information. No hashing power was used above and beyond that required to hash for BTC.
6. There was no agreed upon scope as you state it. There was no EULA and no official statement as to what services would be provided.
7. Again, he did not use the pools resources. He used the result of the pools resources. The result is information. The pools resources are the conversion of electricity into information.
8. He executed no code on any of his users computers. All information from the users of the pool was given to the pool in exchange for fixed rewards of BTC & NMC. All BTC & NMC rewards were paid. Further use of that information was not covered by any agreement between the users and the pool owner. Furthermore, since Luke created the blocks in question, he owns the copyright on them. The users are paid for the shares they submit. Nothing more than that.
As to litigation. One must prove harm. Since Luke currently controls all CLC coins in accordance with the CLC spec, I don't see how he broke any laws. If anyone should be litigated against, it is the creator of CLC for making exaggerated claims as to the security and viability of the CLC blockchain.
