• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Counter-Strike league ESEA installs Bitcoin mining software without users' consent.

A

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1dglil/popular_competitive_gaming_league_esea_admins/

ESEA Member unisolsz discovered that the client required to play on ESEA was running a bitcoin miner. After players were complaining about virus alerts being set off from the client and unusually high GPU usage and BSOD errors.

The thread he made regarding this can be found here

ESEA admin, lpkane admits that it was an "April Fools joke" that was mistakenly left in the client that ran for only 2 days. He claims only 2 bitcoins were mined in total (Roughly around $280 USD) and that it would go towards a prize pool. Source

He later corrects that it was running for 2+ weeks and actually raised 29~ bitcoins (around $3,602.21 USD) and to apologize awarded all current ESEA premium members a free month of service and that all the money raised will go into the prize pool. He also claims that all bitcoin mining code was removed from the client. Source #2

Bitcoin miners use up 100% of GPU processes and lead to a lowered hardware lifespan, and can actually damage it permanently.
Click to expand...
 
What a hilarious April Fool. It's so funny I peed a little.

Ugh.

You know what would've been a good April Fool? If they said the client had a bitcoin miner in it on April 1st, but it actually didn't, because April Fool's, yo.

Fucking scum.
 
To those that don't know about bitcoin mining.
The mining program uses your graphics card to solve calculations which when solved unlocks a bitcoin (virtual money). The more graphics cards you have working towards solving these calculations the faster you unlock bitcoins.

As i understand it, maybe someone will correct me.
 
Why is there always some kind of pathetic mismanagement surrounding the competitive CS scene? Angel Munoz, the sale of CPL, this, it goes on and on. CS at one point was turning into a sizable spectator esport but there is always some stupid bullshit surrounding it.
 
Who would put malware in something as an April fools joke. Yeah right, so bs.

Like stealing stuff from Target then finally getting caught and screaming innocence cause LOL joke.
 
why would anyone want to be associated with this league after that? Charges should be pressed against that bozo.
 
That's one way to do it.

(Some people made many millions mining Bitcoin when it first came out. It is a hacking trick having do with manipulating the price of Bitcoin when it is released into circulation by slowing down their servers with an overwhelming amount of traffic. These days they don't release as much Bitcoin into circulation, and it is much harder to mine because so many people are doing it. Yes it also does require access to lots of computing power.)
 
Metalmurphy said:
Where do these mining softwares mine bit coins from?
Click to expand...

They compute new solutions to an algorithm. There are a finite number of solutions, thus a finite number of bitcoins. As more solutions are computed, the processing requirements keeps increasing requiring super computers and distributed computing to hope to mine more.
 
The thing that really pisses me off about this is lpkane acting like a douche about the entire thing. Telling users their melted gpu's are going towards a good cause..what a tool.
 
spootime said:
The thing that really pisses me off about this is lpkane acting like a douche about the entire thing. Telling users their melted gpu's are going towards a good cause..what a tool.
Click to expand...

This isn't going to melt any GPUs, that's a bunch of crap. It might make your power bill higher though.
 
kodt said:
This isn't going to melt any GPUs, that's a bunch of crap. It might make your power bill higher though.
Click to expand...

Running your GPU at max for hours / days couldnt damage it? I genuinely don't know if people are making stuff up or are being truthful.
 
spootime said:
The thing that really pisses me off about this is lpkane acting like a douche about the entire thing. Telling users their melted gpu's are going towards a good cause..what a tool.
Click to expand...

Yep, kane/jaguar/bravo_two need to be fire. They were all acting like douches in the part 2 thread.
 
Makes me think... What if Crysis 1 ran so slow because it was a secretly a BitCoin miner?
And not just poor, yet understandable, "optimization"
 
I would not be surprised to see an end to the ESEA. The organization has been compromised in the worst way, not by an outside influence but by one of the people trusted to maintain and promote it.
 
twofold said:
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/196533/

Cadred is reporting that people are lawyering up. It'll be interesting to see how far this will go.
Click to expand...

Does ESEA have not have a "no class action lawsuits" stipulation in their licensing agreement? I know Sony and Microsoft do so I thought this became the norm. I imagine they wouldn't be able to do anything if that was the case.

But yeah, this is fucking gross. The way that the guy in charge tries to shrug it off like no big deal is the worst part of it.
 
BiggNife said:
Does ESEA have not have a "no class action lawsuits" stipulation in their licensing agreement? I know Sony and Microsoft do so I thought this became the norm. I imagine they wouldn't be able to do anything if that was the case.

But yeah, this is fucking gross. The way that the guy in charge tries to shrug it off like no big deal is the worst part of it.
Click to expand...

Is that even legally enforceable?
 
En Ex said:
I hope something good comes out of this (for those affected by it).

What's sad is there are a few ESEA players who really don't care about this sort of thing happening to them, no matter how malicious it is.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mine helping them bitcoin......but the way they went about it is the worst possible way imaginable.

Must be optional, opt-in, and clear accounting of proceeds going towards ESEA tournaments and stuff must be made public.
 
kodt said:
They compute new solutions to an algorithm. There are a finite number of solutions, thus a finite number of bitcoins. As more solutions are computed, the processing requirements keeps increasing requiring super computers and distributed computing to hope to mine more.
Click to expand...

PS4 launch title: bitcoinmining@home
 
How is anyone shocked? Torbull is a greedy piece of shit that does anything for money. And to think people still pay him $8/month to get baited by some virgin tracking his FPR every round. CS is dead.
 
"Happy April Fool's day! You guys were mining bitcoins without knowing! That's funny because reasons!"
 
ESEA Co-Founder Craig "Torbull" Levine has admitted to being "ashamed" of the whole incident involving mining Bitcoins.

"The first I learned about any of this was last night (on any scale)," he wrote. "I had no idea any of this was going on.

"Needless to say I am completely embarrassed, disgusted, and ashamed.

"For the past ten years, I've tried to do nothing more than to act honestly and be an upstanding leader in the gaming community and with some bad decisions by some trusted people it has been thrown out the window.

"I'm wrapping my mind around this whole thing and we'll release a formal response, but for the time being just know that this wasn't some ESEA / company wide scam.

"I'm committed to doing whatever possible to rebuild the trust we lost through this whole fiasco.

"It's a failure on my part to have the proper oversight to have prevented this from happening and it will be addressed.

"My primary concern at this point is community trust and how that was destroyed. We need to understand the situation, take the appropriate action with those responsible for it, ensure we have things in place to prevent this from happening, and address anyone who incurred physical damages.

"How we rebuild the trust of the community in the immediate aftermath and long term future is going to be a different discussion that we need to have as I walk through this all."
Click to expand...
 
Mileena said:
How is anyone shocked? Torbull is a greedy piece of shit that does anything for money. And to think people still pay him $8/month to get baited by some virgin tracking his FPR every round. CS is dead.
Click to expand...

I think you mean lpkane. He's always been kind of a cunt toward anyone who voices an opinion on the forums. Torbull, on the other hand, has been part of the CS scene for over a decade and has always been professional in his writings and presence. That, and he apparently was unaware this was going on.
http://www.hltv.org/news/10630-torbull-ashamed-of-bitcoin-affair

Here's the official statement by ESEA:
http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=12692
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The History of Counter-Strike M4 is Surprisingly Interesting
Analysis Trailer 
1
221
kpopSuperstar replied
Counter Strike Tournament Player Slaps Opponent On-Stage After Match, Gets 10 Year Ban
31
496
Puscifer replied
Counter-Strike 2 makes it's biggest change in years. Ammo in mag drops on reload
2
60
950
Lucie Goosey replied
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive now has its own Steam page and can be downloaded for free
Deals Platform 
10
491
Arsic replied
All-women Counter-Strike 2 pro league ESL Impact will halt operations at the end up its upcoming finals
News  2
50
793
BigDeadFreak replied
Top Bottom