Russian nuclear scientists arrested for Bitcoin mining plot
Russian security officers have arrested several scientists working at a top-secret Russian nuclear warhead facility for allegedly mining crypto-currencies. The suspects had tried to use one of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers to mine Bitcoins indicated by news sources.
Reported by the BBC News, the press service said: “There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining.”
The supercomputer was not supposed to be connected to the internet to prevent any type of intrusion and once the scientists attempted to do so, the nuclear center security department was alerted. They were handed over to the Federal Security Service (FSB),
Crypto-currencies like Bitcoin do not rely on centralized computer servers. People who provide computer processing power to the crypto-currency system, to enable transactions to take place, can get rewards in Bitcoins. Mining crypto-currencies requires great computational power and huge amounts of energy.
For the Russian government this is a major security breach that could have easily created a hostile takeover by a foreign power if any of the scientist were black mailed. At this point no one knows what exactly will happen but historical hindsight indicates that the scientists are looking at cold days ahead and long jail sentences.
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