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Question

Blocking Bitcoin Mining Apps

  • January 8, 2014
  • 11 replies
  • 35 views
damienbarrett
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It's come to my attention that some of my...ahem...industrious...ahem...students have been installing Bitcoin-mining software on their MacBook Airs. Never mind that it would take *ages* for a mining app to actually generate a single bitcoin, this is clearly in violation of our AUP, which states that our 1:1 laptops not be used for any commercial purpose or gain.

So I've been researching which Bitcoin mining apps exist for OS X and have been adding them to our restricted process list.

  • Asteroid.app
  • Bitcoin-Qt.app
  • cgminer for Mac OS X.app
  • Electrum.app
  • guiminer.app
  • Hive.app
  • MacMiner.app
  • Qt Bitcoin Trader.app

Note that this will not block a Java-based bitcoin-mining app like DiabloMiner or BitMinter, but it's a start.

Like P2P filesharing apps, these mining and wallet apps are prolific and ever-changing. There may even be one or two I'm unaware of, but I consider this a good start. Please contribute or comment to this thread if you know of any others.

Sidenote: adding these apps now puts my Restricted Process list at over 50 apps. Whee!

    11 replies

    tcam
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    • tcam
    • Contributor
    • January 8, 2014

    Thank you for passing on this info!

    BTW do you use google docs? I started putting a list together for apps to block by category. seems like a group of mac admins can put a list together faster then one.

    L
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    • lisacherie
    • Valued Contributor
    • January 9, 2014

    Thank you for sharing!
    I think a lot of us are blocking similar apps.. Please vote this up if you agree.
    https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=21

    T
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    • tkimpton
    • Honored Contributor
    • January 9, 2014

    Please use the </> to insert a URL. Can be quite difficult on an ios device trying to copy the link. Thanks

    B
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    • bajones
    • Contributor
    • January 9, 2014

    @damienbarrett The app bundles you've listed are mostly just different GUI front-ends for the same background "miner" processes. The two most common ones would be "cgminer" and "bfgminer". I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I see most frequently. If you block these two, it should render any new mining GUI applications unusable.

    C
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    • ClassicII
    • Valued Contributor
    • January 9, 2014

    thanks for posting

    Not to mention that the machine can be destroyed with the amount processing it puts on the air's GPU.

    ImAMacGuy
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    • ImAMacGuy
    • Esteemed Contributor
    • January 21, 2014

    hmm.. just as a heads up, don't restrict "Hive" as the process name, apparently it interferes with Archive Utility.app :)

    oops.

    I
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    • IGHOR
    • New Contributor
    • January 22, 2014

    Qt Bitcoin Trader is open source app and it does not mine https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcointrader/ https://github.com/JulyIGHOR/QtBitcoinTrader
    You downloaded fake application. So please remove Qt Bitcoin Trader.app from your list and use official applications only.

    B
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    • bajones
    • Contributor
    • January 22, 2014

    Trading currencies on an institutionally owned device still violates a majority of AUPs. Most places frown on using their equipment for a personal profit.

    tcam
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    • tcam
    • Contributor
    • January 22, 2014

    I've been thinking about putting together a google doc for this kind of thing. would any one be interested in contributing to such a google doc if there was one?

    damienbarrett
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    • damienbarrett
    • Author
    • Honored Contributor
    • January 23, 2014

    @IGHOR, I'm also blocking bitcoint wallet programs, for precisely the reason that @bajones][/url references. We can't have our students using their school-issued laptops to trade in questionable currencies.

    Yes, @tcam][/url, I would definitely contribute to a Google Doc. I'm discovering new apps all the time.

    I'd love to see a pre-defined list included in Casper as a good starting place for admins. I know there's a feature request already in place.

    T
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    • Ted
    • New Contributor
    • January 23, 2014

    Here is the list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnYSbslSOGbidDBoeHV6SVgtTnFjTXRHbkpqTHFVN0E&usp=sharing

    To be get editing access to the document:
    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LToukBv_vZs2Fmq8_5suG61QyRjHxn5vUMld09_VCgI/viewform

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