Norton 360 Antivirus Now Lets You Mine Ethereum Cryptocurrency (bleepingcomputer.com) 66
NortonLifelock has added the ability to mine Ethereum cryptocurrency directly within its Norton 360 antivirus program as a way to "protect" users from malicious mining software. BleepingComputer reports: This new mining feature is called 'Norton Crypto' and will be rolling out tomorrow to Norton 360 users enrolled in Norton's early adopter program. When Norton Crypto is enabled, the software will use the device's graphics card (GPU) to mine for Ethereum, which will then be transferred into a Norton wallet hosted in the cloud. It is not clear if every device running Norton Crypto is mining independently or as part of a pool of users for a greater chance of earning rewards of Ethereum.
As the difficulty of mining Ethereum by yourself is very high, Norton users will likely be pooled together for greater chances of mining a block. If Norton is operating a pool for this new feature, they may take a small fee of all mined Ethereum as is common among pool operators, making this new feature a revenue generator for the company. "As the crypto economy continues to become a more important part of our customers' lives, we want to empower them to mine cryptocurrency with Norton, a brand they trust," said Vincent Pilette, CEO of NortonLifeLock. "Norton Crypto is yet another innovative example of how we are expanding our Cyber Safety platform to protect our customers' ever-evolving digital lives."
As the difficulty of mining Ethereum by yourself is very high, Norton users will likely be pooled together for greater chances of mining a block. If Norton is operating a pool for this new feature, they may take a small fee of all mined Ethereum as is common among pool operators, making this new feature a revenue generator for the company. "As the crypto economy continues to become a more important part of our customers' lives, we want to empower them to mine cryptocurrency with Norton, a brand they trust," said Vincent Pilette, CEO of NortonLifeLock. "Norton Crypto is yet another innovative example of how we are expanding our Cyber Safety platform to protect our customers' ever-evolving digital lives."
Frosty piss (Score:5, Informative)
Another way Norton can slow down your computer!
Re:Frosty piss (Score:5, Funny)
That's how antivirus products protect against crypto miners and other malware, by consuming all available resources leaving nothing available for the malware.
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Okay, fine, it's not a "Ponzi Scheme", because those only involves regular fiat currency (without which all cryptocurrencies are worthless, but I digress..)
So how about we come up with a new name instead: something like "Bit-Con Scheme" - "Bit" as in 'digital', and "Con" as a twist on 'coin' (so "digital coin") but also for the type of scheme it is. And it would apply to all digital currencies (decentralized or not).
Re: Frosty piss (Score:2)
Re: Frosty piss (Score:2)
I've seen companies price things in BTC. Mining rigs are typically sold using BTC because there are sometimes long waits for new hardware and pricing in USD would be too volatile over these long timelines.
LOL @ bitcoin boomer logic (Score:1)
I love that bitcoin boomer logic!
bitcoin boomer: "Bitcoin is the best. All fiat is shit!"
Bystander: "Uh, Ok boomer. So how do I get Bitcoin then?"
bitcoin boomer: "You can mine it with an ASIC, or buy it."
Bystander: "So how do I get an ASIC to do that?"
bitcoin boomer: "You can buy one, they cost several hundred $USD, plus electricity costs to mine the actual Bitcoin".
Bystander: "Ok, so how do I 'buy' Bitcoin instead? How much is it?"
bitcoin boomer: "You can buy it with money (duh!). It's over $38K USD
Re:Frosty piss (Score:4, Informative)
To me, this is a case of Norton diversifying into a software utilities company. Even casual users now know that the first thing you do when buying a new laptop is to remove whatever trial antivirus exists. Which is funny because Norton started as a utilities company and then became an antivirus company.
Re: Frosty piss (Score:1)
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I know it's a bit of a cash grab by Norton, but I'm absolutely certain that there are users who have downloaded malicious software when they tried to grab a mining app. This will help them... but they are still being used as a bit of a front for Norton to do whatever it is they are doing here.
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This will only cost money unless your electricity is free. How stupid can people be?
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Nortons bloatware (Score:3)
not likely (Score:5, Funny)
Re:not likely (Score:4, Informative)
No, no... people don't seem to understand this new product!
The antivirus software takes over the CPU, but they had to find a way to also take over the GPU!
Re:not likely (Score:4, Interesting)
So true.
Back when I used to sell computers, late 90s early 2000s, you couldn't sell a computer without the customer asking if it had Norton (or McAfee) on it. I don't know how the words Norton or McAfee really became synonymous with Antivirus in the same way that for many people when they say "Google Something" literally means to look it up online.
I guess what I mean is, it really wouldn't have mattered how well the software performed. The companies had this weird consumer view in their favour that the fact that the computer was slower was validation that the software was actually doing something, since under normal circumstances you would otherwise have no idea. Interestingly, if the software failed to protect the computer most customers automatically assumed the virus was too new or that they personally did something wrong, such as not have the latest version installed, or that they hadn't dialed into the internet recently enough and updated their virus definitions.
While I haven't run a system with Norton on it for a while, I remember it at least being quite busy and awkward to navigate. They sure give it as big a presence in the desktop as possible, again probably lending itself to a particular mindset. And maybe there is something to that, way back in the day I preferred Netscape to Internet Explorer because Netscape had a beefier UI. It "felt" more solid to my teenage mind.
What I wonder is, what else will Norton manage to justify sticking into their software bundle?
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And maybe there is something to that, way back in the day I preferred Netscape to Internet Explorer because Netscape had a beefier UI. It "felt" more solid to my teenage mind.
This. Right here. I remember jumping back and forth between IE and Netscape based on UI for a bit. You always had to have both browsers installed because not all webpages worked on a single browser.
Just so I'm topic, Fuck Norton.
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> Back when I used to sell computers, late 90s early 2000s, you couldn't sell a computer without the customer asking if it had Norton (or McAfee) on it.
Back then, you still had a ton of casual viruses that could be easily defeated by an antivirus, and you still had Windows versions with absolutely zero useful security. I guess my point is, in 1999, wouldn't YOU want Norton or McAfee on your box? I sure wanted to scan any software I was going to run back in the day.
What BS.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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> Norton has always been bloated,
The original MS-DOS versions [wikipedia.org] weren't bloated. Version 4 had Speed Disk. Version 5 included a licensed 4DOS command.com shell that was rebranded NDOS [wikipedia.org].
I don't know what timeframe Norton Utilities got bloated (maybe when they released the Windows version?) but definitely around 2000 it would slow systems down. Maybe that is when it jumped the shark.
WTF (Score:2)
How is this not the most absurd level of feature creep? The jokes about Norton 360 will just go on and on.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Every day It keeps getting harder to tell real news from TheOnion
Re: WTF (Score:2)
Wait, The Onion is not news?
Re: WTF (Score:5, Informative)
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The thing is, The Onion is like ogres and Photoshop.
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These days, I'm more inclined to believe a story in The Onion before mainstream media.
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Feature creep used to lead to e-mail. Now it leads to mining.
I just don't see it (Score:3)
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Like protecting from shootings and stabbings by being pre-stabbed, and shot.
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"The odds of someone smuggling a bomb aboard an airplane are too high... the odds of two people doing so are much lower. Therefore I have brought my own bomb, and we are that much safer!"
Other posters are right -- the Norton mockery / Onion references all but write themselves.
Just great (Score:3)
First Norton only protects systems 360 days of the year :-) now they want their "customers" to help them make more money?
If Norton is operating a pool for this new feature, they may take a small fee of all mined Ethereum as is common among pool operators, making this new feature a revenue generator for the company.
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It's called 360 because if your system is heading in the wrong direction, it will spend considerable resources turning it 360 degrees to correct that.
I think that you misspelled McAfee (Score:1)
Further raises the antivirus carbon footprint (Score:5, Insightful)
According to WetFinger, 1/3 of the electricity consumed by computers with pay-for antivirus software is for the antivirus to do it's things: slow down the machine to a crawl, and emits messages aimed at justifying the purchase of a renewal or upgrade.
This new feature will dramatically increase that energy share, thus hastening the certain demise of humanity.
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https://xkcd.com/2471/ [xkcd.com]
Though I wouldn't be surprised if that statistic is true. At $WORK someone thought it would be a good idea to install an active virus scanner (I think McAfee) on a Linux server. This AV was running in an actively scanning mode where all files reads/writes were monitored by the AV. A large piece of software that I work on went from about 3 hours for a build/test cycle to over 10 hours. This same software takes close to 24 hours to build/test on Windows. Of course, this slowdown is
WHY is this even allowed. (Score:1)
How does an anti-virus company think THEY have the right to purposely consume CPU/GPU cycles across their entire customer base pissing it away on crypto mining, and then SELL that bullshit money grab idea as something that's necessary or required for product integrity?
We knew their products were crap before, but this is like Milli Vanilli putting out a greatest hits album. They're now bragging on how bad the bloat can get, and pretending the customers won't care which let's be honest; 99% of them won't, w
Norton AV was garbage (Score:1)
Yet another reason... (Score:2)
...to avoid Norton.
Raise your hand if you've mined crypto on your graphics card. I have, and it might be fine while your computer is idle, but you certainly cannot use your computer while the mining is going on. I mean, you can, but your graphics will be slow and glitchy, because GPUs are not set up for smooth task switching like that. Plus, the electricity you burn will be worth more than the ether you mine - you're competing with mining farms that have cheap or free power.
And, finally, back to TFS: ho
Ah Norton (Score:3)
The antivirus that used so much cpu it flagged its own processes as suspicious.
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Bad guy vs good guy (Score:2)
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Lifelock... Really? (Score:3)
Norton was crap before Life Lock purchased the company.
That being said- what do you expect from a company that does it's advertising on AM talk radio? That's not exactly a place where IT intellect is strong. My God... they accept Kim Komando as some kind of technical expert. Talk hosts are endorsing tech products (ha!).
Barracuda also advertises on media with low information listeners. Why? Because those users don't know you could build a server/appliance yourself which fills the role.
Context is everything....
of course (Score:2)
Norton will take some percentage cut, probably 10%, for their "service".
In a way, Norton has BECOME the crypto pirate.
It's a floor wax! (Score:2)
It's a dessert topping!
Norton Is Finally Useful? (Score:2)
Big changes for Norton? It actually does something useful?
This has to be fake news.
Hmm... (Score:2)
Grandma on a bottom of the barrel discount computer that the bestbuy sales person told her was more than enough to browse the internet with may very well cost more in electricity run the miner than it will ever generate in return, especially if she lives somewhere when the power is expensive.
I am assuming this entire ordeal is just setting the stage for Norton to release a
Wrong crypto (Score:2)
Why the hell did they pick a power-hungry, proof-of-work crypto instead of a proof-of-stake one?
Spend $100 to make $90 (Score:1)
Why would anynone use that Norton crap? (Score:2)
Why would anyone use Norton instead of using something that doesn't suck?
Or does Norton still get in the door by paying OEMs big bucks to bundle crappy "trial" versions with new PCs to dupe clueless idiots into thinking the only way to keep their computer safe is to give Norton a big chunk of money every year (it doesn't help that uninstalling Norton cleanly so you can install another better anti-virus is so hard for non-experts to do)