UFC Fight Pass (a paid service) is using your PC to mine cryptocurrency
np.reddit.com
np.reddit.com
My question is, would I simply be sued by the client, or do the Feds get involved with some kind of “hacking”/“unauthorized use” charge? If not the latter, how egregious does it need to be before da FBI comes a’knockin’?
Point is, if I put unauthorized code on a machine I don’t own, I go to jail.
CFAA would definitely classify this as unauthorized access or exceeding the access to which you were authorized and for personal gain. The client would try to sue you for theft and breach of contract, but they would be in line behind the government for what remains of your personal savings and retirement money.
As long as browsers had a way to distinguish crypto-mining usage from regular site functionality and is able to throttle it separately when the site opt-into the appropriate APIs, and in other cases detect suspicious levels of sustained CPU activity, perform site-specific throttling and warn users about it.
I'd much rather support content creation on the web using processing power than with my privacy and limited attention span.