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  Geebo 10:19 am on December 8, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bitcoin ( 32 ), craigslist ( 129 ), cryptocurrency   

  Is crytptocurrency the future of classifieds? 

  

  Cryptocurrency Bitcoin has been in the news a lot lately. Mostly because since the beginning 2017 it has increased in value from $1,000 to a record high of $17,000 with many people and experts saying that a crash is inevitable. Either way, cryptocurrencies seem like there here to stay. While they haven’t been universally adopted yet as an online payment method one classifieds site has made it easier for their users to accept cryptocurrency.

  Craigslist recently, and quietly, added an option to their ads where sellers can say they’re ok with being paid in cryptocurrency. While many see this as an advance in technology, it can also be seen as yet one more avenue into fraud. Bitcoin exchanges and wallets are susceptible to hacking and there have been several stories in the news where millions of dollars in Bitcoin have been stolen. If these hackers use stolen Bitcoins through craigslist that can almost be seen as a form of money laundering.

  That’s not even taking into account that Bitcoin seems to go against one of craigslist’s core values. Craigslist tries to tout itself as being socially responsible yet the mining of Bitcoins uses so much power that the energy needed to generate one Bitcoin could power nine US homes for a day.

  While it seems craigslist has been bitten by the Bitcoin bug, stick with cash and also use a classifieds site that isn’t filled with a plethora of fraudulent ads.

   

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  Geebo 9:06 am on September 26, 2017 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: cryptocurrency, security ( 46 )   

  Websites may be using your computer to mine for cryptocurrency 

  

  Advertising and the internet have a contentious relationship to say the least. While advertising is where the majority of content creators make their money, there are many drawbacks to taking in advertiser money. Many advertising programs, like Google’s Adsense, seem to have arbitrary policies that see some creators penalized while others do not for providing similar content. Not to mention that one only need to look at YouTube’s recent adverting restrictions that users have referred to the as the ‘Adpocalypse’ to see advertisement money can disappear at a moment’s notice. With those dollars disappearing, a number of content creators have turned to cryptocurrency mining.

  It was discovered recently that a number of websites owned by television network CBS, had code injected into their websites that ‘borrowed’ processing power from viewers’ computers in order to help mine concurrency for someone. In this instance, it was reported to be the cryptocurrency Moreno. It’s viewed as a more private alternative to the more popular Bitcoin. While the injection of code into CBS’ websites may have been perpetrated by a bad actor, that hasn’t stopped some websites from using such code on unsuspecting users. Mining cryptocurrencies requires massive amounts of computing power, so it should come as no surprise that some less than legitimate websites have begun using this tactic.

  Not all hope is lost though. There are ways to protect your computer from having its computing power leeched for the benefit of someone else. Many of the popular browsers have extensions that will block mining code. A number of the most used ad blockers already block the coin code and a search for coin blocker should turn up a few more.