Starbucks 'Free' Wi-Fi mines Bitcoin while connected

A Starbucks has been caught mining Bitcoin through their free Wi-Fi access.

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A man named Noah Dinkin has taken to Twitter after coming across a piece of code installed on his laptop once connected to the Buenos Aires Starbucks. Dinkin tweeted Starbucks but before doing that noticed that there is a 10 second delay before your laptop is connected, this window of time would be the installation and starting process of mining.

Starbucks 'Free' Wi-Fi mines Bitcoin while connected | TweakTown.com

In Dinkins tweet he addressed that this kind of free Wi-Fi service is a "little off-brand" and also that the store in Buenos Aires was not the only store doing this and in-fact that there was three separate stores which Dinkins went to that all did the same thing.

This may seem suspicious but Starbucks claims that this is not their fault and blame should be turned to their internet providing companies, this is what they told Motherboard "Last week, we were alerted to the issue and we reached out to our internet service provider - the wi-fi is not run by Starbucks, it's not something we own or control,"

Starbucks ended up responding to Dinkins tweet saying that they have taken "swift action" into resolving the problem with their ISP and that customers will be able to join the free Wi-Fi network safely.

NEWS SOURCE:nypost.com

Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms. Instead of typical FPS, Jak holds a very special spot in his heart for RTS games.

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