RE: Steem supply is mining using your browser
What you said in this post is not true. There is a very clear privacy warning, here's how it looks:
I wrote a few times on Steemit about JSEcoin, fully disclosing that I'm experimenting with it. JSEcoin is not on any exchange, it's not trading, I'm not making money off of innocent people. It's just an experiment. I'm not mining using well known phishing scripts and all is transparent.
I honestly think you jumped a bit too fast on this one.
I am open to any discussion you want to have about this topic, about steem.supply or about mining in browser.
Edit: your mention on coinhive, which is a well known Monero miner written in JS (and frequently packed with malware), doesn't help your point. I'm NOT mining Monero, nor other currency trading on an exchange.
[self upvoted to bump it up]
Saying I straight out lied in the premise of your comment is a bit arrogant.
The popup never showed for me, maybe because I went to your website before you put it and the cookie was badly set? Or just a badly place html element.
I didn't "jump" on this, I just posted something to raise an ethical question. I didn't post BS just for the sake of it.
Even though the coin is not tradeable, in the foreseeable future, it will be so it doesn't matter. An ICO is already planned.
Actually the point of my article was the lack of transparency. (Because of the popup I never had like I said previously. Also the fact people are reacting means they probably never saw it too!)
Something is either true or not. When I believe it's not true, I just state it. I don't see any arrogance here. I didn't say you lied, you may have been mislead or didn't see all the facts and that may have lead to claims that aren't true. Again, I didn't say you lied, I said what you stated is not true and I gave you all the details to support my position.
Claiming I put the warning on after you posted this is ridiculous. I invite you to try the code on any site and see if you can deactivate that warning.
There are about 10-15 comments from people who are upset about this. On average, steem.supply gets between 300 and 450 unique users per day. I don't know how many of them overlap with the 377 who saw this post, according to the post stats, but I think the ratio falls around the normal number of people who either don't see all the warnings, or don't know what is going on but feel like having an opinion on everything. This doesn't mean in any way that I don't respect them, but way too many times some people are jumping too fast to conclusions without hearing all the facts, it's just human nature, I guess.
What makes me really sad is that this post has been used by a witness that I respect, @ausbitbank as a platform to promote his own similar service, by accepting and supporting your claims without verifying them, or without hearing my position about it. I respect his hard work and I've been knowing him on the platform for quite some time. I'm really looking forward to hear his opinion on this, after he reads my answer. It will be such a pity if he doesn't say anything.
Again and again: there is a privacy note, and I'm not stealing anything nor doing anything that is unethical.
I appreciate your approach, by asking if this is ethical or not. And I gave you all the answers. Hope this clears things out.
I DID verify the claims myself before I resteemed this post. Anyone can with 2 minutes and firefox/chrome dev tools.
Promoting my old tool was an afterthought, its was just a simple clean alternative with no banner ads or hidden miners on it so I have no real incentive to promote it. Like I said before I completely stopped updating the tool and have been actively pushing people towards steem.supply for months now (which is why I'm extra dissapointed to discover a miner) .
As I said to you on steemit.chat , no popup like you pictured ever appeared for me in debian firefox - and after re-checking your site I see a small footer that hides itself after a while.
The only jsecoin mention I can find from you was 2 months ago, and it isn't mentioned in your steem.supply update posts at all.
I also spotted another similar posts, and you hadn't responded there either.
Regardless of how well you announced your intention to hijack your users processor time for your own profit - I don't want to see this sort of crap installed on tools that a heap of steemians use daily.
The argument that its not traded on an exchange, therefore its not money really doesn't work for me.
so it is unethical or not? A simple "yes" or " no" will suffice.
in order to obtain why?
I hijack my users processors for my own profit? Do we really have a discussion about that? What is the difference between "hijacking users processors" for testing a decentralized cryptocurrency with a great potential, and "hijacking users processors" with poorly coded sites or, even worse, with Google Analytics, Facebook Stats or Twitter SDKs, that are silently profiling users habits into data that is then sold to advertisers for billions?
Who is the bad guy here?
In the Steemit chat you also said to me that if you could un-steem your post you would do it, I assume you wrote that after you wrote this comment.
It's sad to see this divisive approach and accusations without proof, in an emerging ecosystem like Steemit.
It's very easy to destroy the reputation of a person with a few unfounded but plausible accusations.
Never said that BTW.
I just don't see your warning and never saw it. I'm at work right now with 3 colleagues that don't see it either.
Inspect and verify please. It could even be the publisher's fault (maybe an update in their javascript code stopped showing the warning??)
@dragosroua posted here two months ago stating he was using a browser miner on steem.supply to mine JSEcoin.
https://steemit.com/news/@dragosroua/jsecoin-mining-crypto-currencies-in-or-with-your-browser
Thank you!
Here's their answer. If you want to contribute to the discussion, feel free to post on their forums:
)
Ok, I will contact them, they're quite responsive. Will also publish a post about this tomorrow (it's evening here now).
I don't see the popup either, but I've got a blocker running by default, so would only see it if I bother to go look at what my blocker has blocked (which I tend not to do with no reason). Having a manual link to the disclosure notice may be a possibly solution so that the information is easily accessible to anyone, even if they're running a blocker, so they can't just say 'but it didn't show for me'.
I was pondering that too and I may add it.
This is old, but just thought I would say that the dude/dudette has every right to defend themselves after someone does inaccurate reporting and doesn't do their homework. You clearly didn't bother to learn about JSECoin before writing at all. Its a very respectable project for anyone that just bothers to glance at their site.
Second, while it is true that browser mining should ideally be consented to before happening, website owners often find getting over the hump of the newness of this concept is difficult and prefer subtle ways of pointing it out. People are naturally easy to scare away and its hard to get good traffic.
Lastly, browser mining has gotten an unfair reputation as cryptojacking. Sure, wifi hacking methods or other forms of hacking is uncool, but browser mining in itself is a perfectly fine way to monetize the internet. Steem should be doing this! I want steem browser mining to be embedded in my sites, but Monero ain't bad, a lot more money in it at the moment.
I think you should make a full post expanding your reply here in as much detail as possible. Otherwise all there is is a chain of speculation. My 2 cents.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll do it in the next few days.
Agree with this suggestion - i am not a tech geek at all but I always trusted you to the fullest @dragosroua - as you are a good boy. Sure a dedicated post will help to wipe out speculations.
Here's my response: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dragosroua/a-few-clarifications-about-steem-supply-browser-mining
Updated my post (edit 2)
Thank you for clarifying this. The reason you're not seeing it again is that it shows every hour, not on any page load. There is also a 10 seconds delay in order not to impact page load speed, which can lead to SEO penalties. IMHO, this is pretty well thought. For more details, please have a look at my comment with JSEcoin response to my complaint about the notification not showing (or showing in an improper way).
Peace!
Still, the placement is bad and the 2 seconds delay for display is tricky. That banner is not enough imho
I never saw that popup either.
Just to say, I didn't have the popup neither. And you know, the warning you show here is not clear : it says your website is making money with crypto mining. It doesn't make it clear that you are mining crypto with the cpu of people who browse your website.
If you are not aware of this type of mining, you just don't understand that your browser is mining for someone else.
It can be misleading imo.