Computing resources in the Harvard research network specifically those on the Odyssey cluster were misused by a member of the Harvard community to mine Dogecoins sometime last week, it has been revealed.
According to an internal mail sent by Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Computing officials, a certain individual used his access to high-powered Harvard network and set up a Dogecoin mining operation in a bid to “participate in a mining contest.” These mining operations consumed significant resources of the Odyssey cluster revealed the email.
In an email sent to the FAS Research Computing Users Group last Friday, Assistant Dean for Research Computing James A. Cuff wrote “Any participation in “Klondike” style digital mining operations or contests for profit requiring Harvard-owned assets to examine digital currency key strength and length are strictly prohibited for fairly obvious reasons,” noted The Harvard Crimson.
The mining operations may have been set up at a time just before half of Dogecoins would have been mined as it was anticipated at the time that after ‘halving’ the prices of Dogecoin would double as the reward for mining would go down.
It is believed that if the Odyssey cluster was used for long enough, the user could have mined enough Dogecoins to garner profits in thousands of dollars.
However, the prices didn’t go up as much as anticipated.
