On 09/28/2017 06:18 AM, Mirimir wrote:

On 09/27/2017 10:09 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:

...

Pirate Bay, Showtime caught forcing visitors to mine cryptocurrency for them https://www.rt.com/news/404820-piratebay-showtime-cryptocurrency-mining/

------------ Strange, but sharing just for curiosity...

c.

I get that some are promoting CPU-based cryptocurrency mining as an alternative funding source for websites. Ideally, this would replace tracking and advertising, and not just add to it.

Ideally, end users would be told on arrival that the site is going to load arbitrary software onto their systems and eat up their CPU capacity. I don't see how 3rd party JS bitcoin mining could have any impact on tracking (surveillance) other than adding a dimension to existing browser fingerprinting methods. Or why a corporate provider would decide to forgo their advertising revenue just because an additional cash cow has been implemented.

From a privacy perspective, CPU load is clearly better than tracking. From a usability perspective, sluggishness from CPU load is arguably better than distraction from ads. Plus network load, especially for low-bandwidth users. And by the way, these are Javascript, not malware drops, so mining ends when you leave the website.

The only people who have any privacy on the networks now are those who use filter plugins to block advertising content and restrict javascript execution. I would expect those same users to "just say no" to mining for bitcoins, and/or doing any other distributed processing function the nominal bitcoin miners may choose to perform.

Many have proposed micropayments as an alternative funding source for websites. This proposal is similar. It's just that you're mining the payment while you browse. Rather than buying some token, perhaps a cryptocurrency, and then paying with it. It's a lot simpler, and requires no user setup.

Personal information that end users are not aware they are giving up (regardless of how often we tell them) is already cryptocurrency, in that "crypto" means hidden: The small amount of information contributed per session qualifies as a "micro" payment. The markets where that information is bought and sold qualify for the "crypto" designation, as the end users are not aware that such markets exist or how that commerce may impact their lives.

It'd also be better from an equity perspective, I think. Even if micropayments for website use were low, they'd be a greater burden on people with less money. But everyone browsing a website has the requisite device. However, devices with weaker CPUs would need to work harder, and requisite mining might take longer, so there is some inequity.

People who have massively powerful systems may not notice a performance hit; people who don't will. Same for bandwidth: The mining process will need to phone home constantly, reporting its state so the next user can pick up where the last user left off. On the equity side, State sponsored surveillance agencies like Google and The Facebook can make money because their massive user base will find coins for them; but small time operators will be locked out of that income - it takes a /lot/ of cycles to find one bitcoin or equivalent. More likely, the small time operators would be offered micropayments by mining brokers, in exchange for incorporating links to the brokers' JS miners into their HTML: More or less the same as today's advertising networks, except no bonus payments for click-throughs and end user purchases. If offered bonus payments in the ultra-rare event that one of their site visitors finds a coin, those small time operators would participate in an opaque lottery where the only way to know who won is to trust the casino.

Anyway, an interesting development.

Verily. A new front where Big Data will further degrade the overall performance of the Internet by shoveling even more garbage onto end users' systems. Before anyone asks, yes I would like to see large parts of today's commercial website infrastructure "fall down go boom" for want of rapidly growing profit margins. What can I say? The net social and political impact of "services" like Google and The Facebook has been destructive so far. Only a tiny minority of end users know they are being systematically manipulated by personally targeted propaganda, or that there are ways to opt out of that manipulation. :o/