Friday, February 9, 2018

Russian Nuclear Weapons Engineers Arrested Trying To Mine Cryptocurrencies On Their Supercomputer

A worker checks the fans on miners at the cryptocurrency farming operation © Christinne Muschi

RT: Engineers of ‘max security’ nuke center busted trying to mine cryptocurrency on supercomputer

A powerful supercomputer located at a Russian nuclear research facility in Sarov was reportedly targeted by a pair of engineers who wanted to use it to mine cryptocurrencies.

“There has been an attempt of unsanctioned use of workplace computing capacities for personal gain, including for so-called mining,” the press service of the Sarov nuclear weapons facility told Interfax on Friday. The statement said the employees involved have been arrested and are facing criminal charges.

The remarks, which didn’t provide further details about the case, came in response to reports on social media on Thursday saying the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had busted two nuclear engineers. The men had apparently attempted to set up an internet connection on the top secret supercomputer in Sarov to use it for mining cryptocurrencies.

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WNU Editor: I can hear their defense right now .... "the computer was just sitting there doing nothing".

More News On Russian Nuclear Weapons Engineers Arrested Trying To Mine Cryptocurrencies On Their Supercomputer

Russian nuclear scientists arrested for 'Bitcoin mining plot' -- BBC
Russian nuclear weapons engineers caught ­­­­minting blockchange with supercomputer -- Ars Technica
Russian nuclear scientists busted for plot to acquire Bitcoins, reports say -- FOX News
Russia Arrests Nuclear Scientists Who Used a Supercomputer to Mine Bitcoin -- Fortune

3 comments:

Unknown said...

They did not do anything that politicians do not do.

Anonymous said...

You have been unusually quiet Aizino. First the comments coming from you have been making sense, now very quiet. Guess your bored with it....? All the while Jay feels free to babble about how crap he thinks the u.s military is

Unknown said...

I do feel some sympathy with the engineers. The fish rots from the head. They do see what their superiors do.

Politicians use their insider connections to enrich themselves. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the body shamer (her grandson; on the house floor no less) uses her position to get access to IPOs by companies having business before the U.S. government.

I will wager that the Russian politicians are no different, no stretch at all there.

Still while immediately not holding up any government research, the engineers did harm the Russian government and people. Everything has some cycles before it has to be replaced. So they are wearing out the computer, a very expensive one, sooner. That is the crime and it is subsumed or covered by the rubberband law of 'misuse of government property'. A lot of this sort of crime goes on the varying degrees if a person would want to be absolutely pure about it.

I have a neighbor, the thief (my words)/mamma's boy (his words), who was lent a small tractor by his father-in-law, to do landscape grading. While the park district tractor was not missing for any job, hours were put on the engine necessitating maintenance and thus expense earlier if such an organization goes in for scheduled preventive maintenance.

The life of the tractor (super computer) was reduced. This is codified in tax law. We have depreciation schedules. The supercomputer was depreciated.