Apple bans iPhone mining, but more devices are turning into mining machines

Planning｜Julian

Author: Byzantine Patriarch

Mining originally refers to the technology and science of extracting mineral resources from the earth's crust and surface, such as coal and oil mining.

Today, mining has a new meaning: the process by which miners obtain cryptocurrency rewards by providing specific computing power to the blockchain network.

With the soaring prices of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, any mining obstacles are not worth mentioning in front of geeks. Computers, mobile phones, game boxes, routers, smart watches; software, games, scripts, browsers, virus programs; charging piles, bicycles, cars, and even condoms... As long as miners have coins in their hearts, everything can be mined.

On the other hand, the requirements for computing power and energy consumption in mining are also gradually increasing. Some forms of cryptocurrency mining have also evolved from the initial CPU mining to GPU mining, then to customized ASIC chip mining, and then to the era of mining farms and mining pools with multiple mining machines. The corresponding energy consumption is also quite astonishing.

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Recently, technology giant Apple updated its developer guidelines to explicitly prohibit "mining" cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

The new rules will restrict apps that use up a lot of power, cause phones to overheat, or put unnecessary stress on devices — all of which could be used to mine bitcoin.

This means that iPhones will be banned from running apps for cryptocurrency mining in the future. But on the other hand, more and more devices and tools in our lives are being used for mining. What will be the next one used for mining?

The end of mobile mining?

Apple stated on its website: "Apps, including any third-party ads displayed within them, will not be allowed to run unrelated background processes, such as cryptocurrency mining."

Apple's move could preemptively ban future use of its devices for mining, reduce the energy-intensive digital currency being mined on them, or stop using multiple devices to achieve this goal.

Apple's official website states: Plan to use apps efficiently. Apps should not drain the battery quickly, generate excessive heat, or put unnecessary pressure on the device. Apps, including any third-party ads displayed in them, will not run irrelevant background processes, such as cryptocurrency mining.

In other words, apps cannot turn iPhones or Apple computers into mining machines because mining consumes more electricity and computing power. However, if mining is not performed locally but in the cloud, it is allowed.

In fact, it is not uncommon to see apps claiming to use idle computing power on mobile phones for mining in the App Store. In March this year, the Mac version of the calendar software Calendar 2 publicly admitted that it had a mining plug-in and was successfully listed on the App Store.

Calendar 2 informed users of this in the upgrade instructions. In contrast, many more applications and websites secretly or by hackers implant malicious codes without the user's knowledge, turning the user's device into a mining machine.

In addition, there are also some mining programs that do not rely on consuming electricity and specific computing power, such as the recently popular blockchain mobile phone software mining, which have not been affected. This includes Gongxinbao and NetEase Planet launched by NetEase, as well as various other mining currency (or points, bricks, tokens) applications.

Malicious mining by hackers is rampant

A quick search online for incidents of hackers implanting code to mine cryptocurrencies shows that these occur in large numbers every day around the world.

Recently, an official Russian website was attacked by hackers for malicious mining, which lasted for ten days. The website of the Khabarovsk Regional Government of Russia was infected with a malicious cryptocurrency miner virus. The government was only discovered after receiving user complaints about the slow and abnormal operation of the government website.

This is neither the first nor the last incident involving cryptocurrency mining scripts, and any well-known website can be a target for cybercriminals.

Last December, China's well-known media Southern Weekend announced that a malicious mining script had been implanted in the OpenX advertising business module of its website. When users visited the page, the computer CPU usage would increase abnormally, and analysis of the website code found that it had added a mining script.

This situation is not uncommon. Various pages and applications with large traffic, such as YouTube, Kuaikan Comics, and China Telecom Tianyi Client, have also been implanted with mining codes.

Among them, Monero is the most popular among hackers. A recent investigation by the Palo Alto Networks security team found that 5% of Monero was mined through malicious programs, and the output of malicious mining through infected devices accounted for 2% of the entire computing power of the Monero network.

The report released this time shows that 84% of the 629,126 malicious programs detected were targeted at Monero cryptocurrency. This sample detection and analysis only detected desktop and server devices infected since June last year, and did not involve browser miners. The fact that most of the malicious programs detected this time were targeted at Monero cryptocurrency shows that Monero is still very popular among hackers.

During this investigation, the investigation team also evaluated the profits of the hacker team in the past year. After querying 9 mining pools, it is estimated that the hacker team has obtained Monero coins worth more than 100 million US dollars.

Everything can be mined?

Due to the huge energy consumption and the limited computing power of the device, it is unlikely that anyone can successfully "mine" Bitcoin on an iPhone or iPad. However, those cryptocurrencies that consume less power and do not require much computing power can still be mined using mobile phones and computers.

This has also given rise to some mining products that are specifically designed for mining with low power consumption and low computing power requirements. For example, Xunlei's Wanke Cloud, Cheetah's Xiaobao speakers, Lenovo's Nuggets and blockchain phones, and Jilu's routers have all sold well.

Last year, Xunlei launched the Wanke Cloud device, encouraging users to share idle broadband and storage space at home. This opened up another mining model. Blockchain has set its sights on the consumer market, and "idle" hardware and smart devices that control traffic entry have become new bargaining chips.

From blockchain routers and online game accelerators to air purifiers, speakers, watches, and toothbrushes, most stories can be condensed into one "dream": everything can be mined.

It’s just that on the issue of “coins”, everyone tacitly plays a trick. Some manufacturers are selling hardware equipment under the guise of blockchain. After all, at this stage, not everything has the value and scenario of being put on the blockchain, and there is no corresponding mature technology.

But theoretically speaking, if the surplus computing power of hundreds of millions of Apple phones is used, it is entirely possible to form a "pooled mining" situation. After all, the power of distribution is amazing. Furthermore, it is not unrealistic to extend this computing power support to most software and hardware with idle resources.

So in an era where routers, game boxes, mobile phones, and computers can all become mining machines, we won’t be surprised to see some of the most common things in life become mining machines in the future, right?