Mining is an integral part of cryptocurrency, yet the least understood by many. But this hasn’t stopped many from carrying out mining, sometimes in a controversial fashion. There are three ways to obtain crypto. The first is to buy them, second is to gain them by trading, in exchange for services and goods, and finally, crypto can be mined. Compared to other means, mining can be said to be a means to achieve free crypto, that is when you use free electricity and computing resources of others. This is exactly what some college students have started doing recently.
Second highest mining traffic
Most colleges provide free electricity to college students inside the dorm. This is one of the many perks students receive nowadays along with free internet and other goodies. These are done in order to enhance the overall experience of the student and to make sure that they can make the fullest use of their time at college to excel at academics. Recently, students have found out a way in order to cash in on the free electricity and other resources provided to them – crypto mining. In a recent report published on PCmag by Cisco, the second highest mining traffic originates at college campuses at 22 percent of the total, after energy and utility companies which stood at 32 percent.
Free electricity and computing power
Electricity and hardware are the two things necessary for mining, and the majority of the cost involved in the mining process goes into paying for electricity. So if one can get free electricity, the cost goes down significantly. This is exactly what college students are doing, running mining rigs in the dorm room using the free electricity provided to them. Run this for four years and they can make a significant amount of cash by the end of the course. Also, hackers have found ways to install malicious scripts in order to run mining operation in college systems. Running mining operations on a college system means that one doesn’t have to pay for both electricity and hardware. Colleges are expected to crack down on such activities mainly because these resources are provided for academic excellence, not for personal financial gains.
The traffic was recorded in the networks which are under Cisco’s Umbrella. Cisco Umbrella is a security product which monitors clients network traffic for malicious activities. And it is to be clearly understood that college campuses don’t make 22 percentage of the global hashrate or even within the US. It is a quick and easy buck for the students but it is going to add up in the total cost of running an institution which will be passed down to the students itself, so is mining on free college electricity going to bring any profit for the student? Yes, as long only a few of them do it. The mining traffic to campuses can be shut down with the same product, Umbrella, which was used to monitor the mining traffic.
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