Hidden mining
Hidden mining refers to the use of someone else’s computing power to generate cryptocurrencies, primarily bitcoin. This can be, for example, the launch of the corresponding services by an employee on a company-owned computer, or the use of special programs, embedded as viruses on third-party computers.
Recently, there have been frequent reports that some popular websites have also been found to contain elements of software that allow for mining by using the resources of visitors’ computers. Obviously, such activities can hardly be called legal. Nevertheless, given the complexity of the issue, it is far from easy to fight such manifestations.
What is a mining farm?
A mining farm is a number of computers or servers combined into one system. In this case, at different times and for different cryptocurrencies different equipment is used. For example, for bitcoin “mining” some years ago there were mainly video cards used, then they were replaced by specially developed processors (ASIC). However, some cryptocurrencies, such as the second most popular Ethereum, are still the most effective when using high performance graphics cards.
Mining equipment
Simple mining schemes, which were effective a few years ago, included the following equipment: 2-3 video cards, a motherboard, a processor, RAM and permanent memory, and a power supply. Naturally, in order to connect to the system it was required to install the appropriate software, which is freely available. An important resource, which is consumed in the process of mining in large quantities, is electricity.
Programs for mining
Nowadays, many different programs have been developed that can be used for mining cryptocurrencies. The choice of a particular product is determined primarily by the capabilities of the user’s computer. Obviously, for different configurations and computing power, the efficiency of different programs will not be the same.
The easiest way to mine is to use a cloud pool. In this case, you rent or buy the power of a specialized company along with the software installed on it. However, in most cases, the cost of renting or purchasing resources is quite high.