New CryptoCurrency Javascript framework used for scam

poly2k (26) in scam • 7 years ago

Little introduction

CryptoCurrencies are virtual currencies. A lot of these currencies need work to be done to safe transactions to the database, this is called mining.
As a miner you use a lot of CPU or GPU power and in return you gain a bit of money.
Some week(s) ago, the CryptoCurrency "Monero" released a browser-based JavaScript framework for mining the Monero currency.
So instead of configuring command line tools and download a blockchain (which can get huge) you just open your browser and there you go.

This framework is also meant to replace ad's, promising a less intrusive and more useful meaning.

Now where's the scam?

I just found a website about a fan movie project in the StarTrek universe. A website which you would not relate to mining cryptocurrencies and this website has a lot of blog posts and news which can use hours of your time to read. It also uses this mining framework and scales it up to 11. It does take 100% CPU power and makes the browser more or less unusable, as well as every other app you are running.

The framework allows you to throttle the CPU usage, you can easly set it to only use 10% or 20% and if they would have done that, probably no one would find out so easly.

This website is called axanarproductions.com . You can visit it and open your Task Manager to see your performance and be blown away how bad they integrated their greedy money machine.

My opinion

In my humble opinion, this is very grey-ish and should be debated. Sure, Ad's are often dangerous and can infest your computer with malware, just by showing you an ad.

The monero mining framework is safe, in this manner. But, it uses your CPU power and your electricity to gather money *for someone else*. You pay, they gain. Does not sound very fair.

Ad's on the other side, even if they can be harmful, usually don't cost you money.

Conclusion

This should not happen. Usually, you setup such cost intensive tools (regarding electricity and "wear and tear") yourselve and you gain a little bit of money for it, or opt-in completly freely and share your power for free (See BOINC / SETI@Home).

But again, with this mining framework you pay and someone else makes money with it.

What do you think about this ?

scam cryptocurrency monero mining axanarproductions

7 years ago by poly2k (26)

$0.04

7 votes

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hiiru (38) · 7 years ago

Good article pointing out the hidden risk of js-based mining scripts.
I agree with you that using your users CPU power for your gain is bad (unless it's clearly stated with opt-in/out, which is NOT done in this example).

However one minor part of the aricle I completly disagree: "Ad's on the other side, even if they can be harmful, usually don't cost you money."
Ads do also cost you/users in multiple ways:

your personal data and behaviours (often shared without opt-in, in some cases even private stuff like bitcoin wallet id's together with name and shopping cart content is shared without anonymization)
traffic!!! sometimes its 10x or more of the size of the content, which is extremly bad on mobile (unless you have unlimited data, but still then it drains your battery) -> e.g. 651kb vs 14.4MB (or 42.3MB after idling) https://twitter.com/marasawr/status/877195379770568704
huge malvertisment risk which currently also often end up in mining on your HW, but persisistent. or worse...
also I'm sure soon-ish someone will use ads to deliver a mining script to a much larger audience and profit from it.

at least using a decent adblocker will prevent this, but not yet mining (but I'm sure it will be expanded to those as well in the future).

anyway, thanks for sharing :)