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Is It Possible That The Official Second Life Viewer And/Or Third Party Viewers Use Users Personal Computers to Mine Cryptocurrency?

Paulsian

By Paulsian,
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Rat Luv

Rat Luv

Posted
Posted

 Yes...when you create a SL account, the TOS says you give permission for people to access your PC to mine crypto :/ 

But sometimes the viewers glitch and you accidentally get sent 100 Bitcoin instead of 100 $Ls, so it's all good 😎🤑

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Mollymews

Mollymews

Posted
Posted

not the official second life viewer. Nor do the recognised mainstream TPVs

some rando viewer modded by some rando person and posted to some rando website then could. But more likely such a rando mod would shove some zero level exploit bot onto your computer. On the basis of why limit the exploit just to crypto mining

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Sid Nagy

Sid Nagy

Posted
Posted (edited)

The best way to be on the safe side, is to unplug your computer from the Internet and keep it that way for the next two decades.
To be completely safe bring your computer gear to the nearest recycling point.

 

What?
Silly questions require stupid answers.

Edited by Sid Nagy
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QwiQ

QwiQ

Posted
Posted

Hi Paulsian,

I've no idea why you get such a rough ride on these forums when asking pretty legitimate questions about online safety concerns.

You do seem incredibly risk averse however, so let's chat through a few things.

On your question, Is it "possible" that a trojanized version of the LL or TPV viewer might deliver malware to your infrastructure? The answer is of course a resounding yes.

Anyone who laughs in your face on this question really doesn't know what they're talking about.

Even when specifically talking about the "possibility" of crypto mining malware being delivered, the answer again is of course yes it's "possible". "Cryptojacking" malware is actually a very legitimate "possible" risk.

So this all sounds a bit scary, but thankfully there is a very clear distinction between what's "possible" and what's "probable".

Your job as a responsible and risk averse online traveller is to reduce the "probability of the possible" to as close to zero as you can.

There are lots of things you can do, and my advice (and I get the irony 🙂) is not to get any advice from anyone on this forum.

Instead head to resources like https://staysafeonline.org/ and https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/ and have a mooch around.

Good Luck!

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Chaser Zaks

Chaser Zaks

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yes and no, must mostly no.

There isn't a way to make a script to mine crypto on a viewer, but it is technically possible to mine crypto in a web browser context, but it is horribly inefficient and not worth the time.

However it is possible to package a crypto miner with a TPV, but I guarantee you LL would slap them so hard they wouldn't know what hit em.

Tl;Dr: no, you need to stop worrying so much, it isn't good for your health.

Edited by Chaser Zaks
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Syo Emerald

Syo Emerald

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, QwiQ said:

I've no idea why you get such a rough ride on these forums when asking pretty legitimate questions about online safety concerns.

You do seem incredibly risk averse however, so let's chat through a few things.

He is getting that, because this is the... what? Third or fourth (?) thread about some bizarre worry. What you consider incredibly risk aware, others consider paranoid... or trolling.

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Innula Zenovka

Innula Zenovka

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I think the question isn't so much "is it possible?"  (yes, in the same way it's possible I'll be run over by a car while crossing the road, or come back home to find I've been burgled, but I don't spend much time worrying about it) as "is it likely and how would you know?"

So I asked Google how to tell if my PC is being used to mine cryptocurrency, and the first hit was this informative thread in Quora.

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-know-if-my-computer-is-used-to-mine-cryptocurrency#:~:text=The easiest way to check,performance decrease from general usage.

Hope this helps.

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QwiQ

QwiQ

Posted
Posted
Just now, Theresa Tennyson said:

The question was whether the viewer could mine crypto. You said that a "trojanized" viewer could, which means that the trojan would be doing it and not the viewer. By looking at the viewer source code someone knowledgeable about coding could see if the viewer could do what was asked.

Absolute tosh...on so many levels.

Anyway, I've tried to help the OP a wee bit, so I'll bow out of this now.

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Syo Emerald

Syo Emerald

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42 minutes ago, QwiQ said:

Maybe just don't read the things then?

Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so prolific a thread starter if he actually received some informed, generous, empathetic advice.....oh wait, I forgot where I was 🙂

"Don't read it"? I could say the same thing: Just don't read the replies you don't like (or don't be and/or don't return (on an alt) to a forum you consider to be so bad).

Why would getting "informed, generous, empathic advice" discourage someone from opening threads? Would be a first in history for that to happen. People usually just stop giving someone the benefit of a doubt after a series of weird questions and I think thats fair, because they either feel played, taken advantage of or start to feel like they are feeding into someones personal issues.

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Silent Mistwalker

Silent Mistwalker

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, QwiQ said:

Maybe just don't read the things then?

Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so prolific a thread starter if he actually received some informed, generous, empathetic advice.....oh wait, I forgot where I was 🙂

He's been given the answers he has asked for, but he doesn't like the answers he gets so he posts yet another thread in much the same vein. Not only is that trolling, it's also flooding.

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Drake1 Nightfire

Drake1 Nightfire

Posted
Posted

If people didnt reply to these type posts with what absolute FUD that they were, new users would read them and freak out that LL is doing nefarious things behind their backs. Telling it like it is is the only way to get the point across sometimes. 

15 hours ago, Paulsian said:

Just wondering.

Is it possible that the official viewer is doing this? NO!

Is it possible that an approved TPV is doing this? NO!

Is it possible that some shady viewer might be able to get past your own PC's security and do this? Maybe?

Is it something to really worry about? Resounding NO.

 

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Arielle Popstar

Arielle Popstar

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

You're more likely to have your computer used as a crypto miner using a Bittorrent program than a legit SL viewer.

Glares at uTorrent.

Let's not even talk about web browser plugins.

Glares at various ad blocker plugins.

Don't forget Norton Anti-virus:

https://www.wired.com/story/norton-antivirus-cryptominer-nft-thefts-security-roundup/

Norton, what are you doing! Several months ago the antivirus giant snuck a cryptominer into its consumer software, as noted by author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow earlier this week. The pitch is that you can opt in to letting Norton mine cryptocurrency on your computer while you're not using it; the software will even set up a secure wallet for you, all for a mere 15 percent cut of the proceeds.

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LittleMe Jewell

LittleMe Jewell

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

We’ll just redirect some of those GPU resources to crypto-mining, I’m sure no one will notice.

Especially in something like SL where many machines are already struggling with performance.

Edited by LittleMe Jewell
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Paul Hexem

Paul Hexem

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Quartz Mole said:

Friendly reminder that if people aren't interested in particular threads, there's no obligation to read and comment on them.

My brain reads that as "post all the nonsense I want this weekend, Quartz said it was okay".

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