<p>This would be illegal if you didn't inform the user. Things like this also already exist, e.g. <a href="https://forum.unity.com/threads/uminer-ethereum-cryptocurrency-miner-inside-unity.499917/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://forum.unity.com/threads/uminer-ethereum-cryptocurrency-miner-inside-unity.499917/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-28T20:01:40.553Z
2018-03-28T20:01:40.553Z
meshcollider
<p>Following the press last months, you could read articles about cryptomining via javascript. Basically, you open a web page, and a villiant person/company/organisation put some code in website which uses your computers or mobile phone cpu to mine various crypto currency. At the first look, this doesn't look very effective, but the one using this approach is</p>

<ul>
<li>distributing the (possible small) processor load over many clients, and</li>
<li>does not need to pay the energy needed for mining</li>
</ul>

<p>The problem with this approach is, that the user could detect this cpu-hijacking pretty easily, either by a high cpu load or a rapidly fast decreasing battery. Plus, many users tend to use an adblocker or similar things to avoid this.</p>

<p>Thinking the whole thing one step furter: How to keep people from recognizing this? Assume you play the newest 3D shooter, you expect your cpu to be at high load. So what would prevent a software studio from putting some mining algorithm into the game's source code? No one would ever notice.</p>

<p>So the question is: Is there a theoretical or even pratical way to prevent this? Are there any games which are known doing this?</p>

<mining-software>
Cryptomining in Games
d10e
# Cryptomining in Games

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-03-28)

Following the press last months, you could read articles about cryptomining via javascript. Basically, you open a web page, and a villiant person/company/organisation put some code in website which uses your computers or mobile phone cpu to mine various crypto currency. At the first look, this doesn't look very effective, but the one using this approach is

* distributing the (possible small) processor load over many clients, and
* does not need to pay the energy needed for mining

The problem with this approach is, that the user could detect this cpu-hijacking pretty easily, either by a high cpu load or a rapidly fast decreasing battery. Plus, many users tend to use an adblocker or similar things to avoid this.

Thinking the whole thing one step furter: How to keep people from recognizing this? Assume you play the newest 3D shooter, you expect your cpu to be at high load. So what would prevent a software studio from putting some mining algorithm into the game's source code? No one would ever notice.

So the question is: Is there a theoretical or even pratical way to prevent this? Are there any games which are known doing this?

**Tags:** mining-software


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-03-28. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

This would be illegal if you didn't inform the user. Things like this also already exist, e.g. <https://forum.unity.com/threads/uminer-ethereum-cryptocurrency-miner-inside-unity.499917/>


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