herp derp gaming

fuckyeahtf2:

Hey guys! I know that it’s pretty early in the morning where some of you are, but we recently have heard about some rather big news for those involved with competitive TF2 or gaming in general. I don’t know how many of you use ESEA’s services, but for those that do, you will want to pay attention.

A member of ESEA by the name of unisolsz recently discovered that the client required to play ESEA was running a bitcoin miner. This discovery was made after players were complaining about virus alerts from the client, as well as extremely high GPU usage and BSODs. 

For those unaware, bitcoiner miners when not properly configured can use 100% of GPU processes and can lead to shorter life for hardware, as well as permanently damage it. 

ESEA admin lpkane admitted that it was an “April Fools joke” that had been mistakingly been left in the client and ran for only 2 days. He also claimed that only 2 bitcoins were mined in total (roughly $280 USD) and would go to the prize pool. 

However, he goes on to admit that these bitcoin miners had been running since April 14th, and instead of running for only 2 days, it had run for two weeks. In those two weeks, a total of 29 bitcoins were mined, or roughly $3,602.21 USD. He now claims that all of the mining code was removed from the client. 

It has been pointed out (comment #54, on page 2) that this is not the first time that lpkane has used the ESEA client to mine bitcoins. 

Regardless of whether you play competitively, this is an important matter that needs to be shared. This bitcoin miner was added to the ESEA client without the users knowing, and proceeded to use their computers (which could have potentially damaged hardware, as well as raise electricity bills) without their consent. 

If you want to follow this more closely, there is currently a Reddit thread on the matter. 

This is an example of the community being taken advantage of through no fault of their own, and unless we make acts like this public knowledge, they will continue to happen. 

- Cadet

Very well put. There are several Reddit topics, though the main one is the r/games one. It’s pretty sad that the community has to go through this, but like Cadet said, we need to keep talking about this, let companies know that this kind of behaviour is not okay.