The Pirate Bay Resumes Running In-Browser Javascript Cryptocurrency Miners

The major torrenting website, The Pirate Bay, is reported to again be using cryptocurrency mining scripts on its website. Last month, it was discovered that The Pirate Bay had embedded multiple Monero miners on its website, which the company claimed was being trialed as an alternative revenue model to hosting ads.

Also Read: Pirate Bay Founder’s ‘Njalla’ Offers Anonymous Domain Registration for Bitcoin

The Pirate Bay Are Continuing to Host Ads Despite the Miner

It has been revealed that The Pirate Bay has again employed a javascript cryptocurrency miner, Coinhive, on its website. The script hijacks computing power from the website’s visitors and diverts such to mining Monero – which is then sent to a wallet owned by The Pirate Bay.

Last month, the discovery of cryptocurrency mining scripts on The Pirate Bay’s website generated an uproar from many of their users. The company hastily abandoned the scripts, claiming that such comprised a short experiment with an alternative revenue model that would allow the website to abandon advertising as its primary source of income. The company stated “as you may have noticed we are testing a Monero javascript miner. This is only a test. We really want to get rid of all the ads. But we also need enough money to keep the site running… Let us know what you think in the comments. Do you want ads or do you want to give away a few of your CPU cycles every time you visit the site? Of course the mining can be blocked by a normal ad-blocker.”

Javascript Cryptocurrency Miners Are Gaining Popularity

Torrentfreak has reported that the Monero “miner is not directly embedded in the site’s core code but runs through an ad script.” As such, the website has conceded that it is possible that an advertiser could be responsible for the miner, however, The Pirate Bay’s recent actions suggest that the miner has likely been placed on the website intentionally. The Pirate Bay is yet to issue a statement addressing the newly discovered miner.

Several torrenting websites have also experimented with cryptocurrency mining scripts as a source of revenue, including Proxybunker. In the case of Proxybunker, the move prompted content delivery provider, Cloudflare, to suspend the website’s account after flagging the miner as malware. Cloudflare chose to enforce the suspension even after Proxybunker allows visitors the option of disabling the script. As such, speculation has arisen that The Pirate Bay may also risk losing Cloudflare’s services – which protects the website against DDoS attacks, among other security concerns.

Last month, a hacker embedded cryptocurrency miners on two websites in CBS’s Showtime network. Showtime.com, and Showtimeanytime.com, were discovered to be hosting javascript Monero miners that were consuming as much as 60 percent of the CPU capacity of visitors’ computers. The mining scripts were removed from Showtime’s websites by the end of the weekend on which they were discovered.

Do you think that website’s running cryptocurrency mining scripts will become commonplace in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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