Originally posted over on /r/piracy (https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/15itrip/1337x_admins_allowing_bg3_torrent_with_bitcoin/)
It looks like a bitcoin miner was included in the installer, and the admins on 1337x may or may not give a shit apparently. Scanned my pc and my wifes and found the same stuff the others mentioned.
According to the other comments, don’t feel the need to uninstall as the miner was installed separate to the game, just give a Malwarebytes scan to get rid of the junk.
It’s even worse apparently. Apparently someone looked at where the coins are going, and the coins are going to the 1337x admins, and the uploader is just getting a cut of those coins. Which explains why the admins are unlikely to really care because they’re profiting off their users.
I have severe trust issues with any kind of pirated software so I basically never download it as a result, and shit like this is why. Even private trackers and “trusted” groups aren’t enough for me to download most software.
Do you have any evidence of that?
can we get some proof? this is really interesting. I’d like to see how they’re tracking stuff
How did they figure that out?
Crytpo isn’t inherently anonymous. you can easily follow coins.
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Obligatory plug for Monero.
…Which is a huge fucking hassle to try and use, IMO.
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What about it was a hassle for you?
First, the fact that I have to download the whole blockchain to use it. I’m not on a super fast connection, so that took like a day. The difficulty and expense of getting Monero was also an issue; I had to buy Bitcoins, then move Bitcoins to an exchange that would let me buy Monero, because the exchange I could buy Bitcoin on didn’t work with Monero (due to the perception that it’s only used for criminal activity). At every step, there’s a transaction fee, and that fee isn’t entirely transparent up front, so it’s harder to estimate what the final price (in fiat currency) will be.
At the tiem I was trying to use it, there weren’t any user-friendly wallets, and I don’t think there was any capability to use it from a mobile phone; that makes it more difficult to use than other crypto.
I’m not sure how well it plays with Tails of Qubes; I never got far enough to give it a shot.
I’m not saying that any of these thigns are bad, but they do make it harder for a typical person to start using, and until more regular people are using privacy-focused crypto and operating systems, they’re always going to have the appearance of being used for crime only.
Ah thanks for explaining! Yeah the inability to purchase it directly on local exchanges is a bummer, although if localmonero vendors are available in your area, you may be able to pay them using your local bank account too.
These days you definitely don’t have to download the entire blockchain to use it; you can just connect to someone else’s node. But if you want to restore an old wallet, you unfortunately do have to run through each blockchain transaction after the wallet was created, to see if any of those transactions belong to you. There’s also a mobile app nowadays called Cake Wallet.
All in all, I agree that it’s not the friendliest crypto to use, unfortunately. Its main selling point is privacy, and criminals are more incentivized than others to protect their privacy, so I’m not sure how it’ll ever shake off that image.
You can follow the wallet address , but unles you know who the address belongs to, you can’t follow it. So we ask again, where the proof that the coins went to site admins?