MANILA, Philippines – Popular torrent site Pirate Bay may be taxing users in ways they didn't know.
Torrent news website Torrent Freak reported that the website is currently testing a cryptocurrency miner on its website. The miner runs automatically for visitors of the site, using up users' CPU power in order to mine for a type of cryptocurrency called Monero. It is a way for the site to make money off the traffic it generates, acquiring Monero coins by sucking up users' CPU power without consent.
The miner was noticed by Pirate Bay users who saw the noticeable spike in CPU usage while on the site – some of whom eventually discovered the Javascript running the virtual mining operation. The Javascript is provided by third-party cryptocurrency site Coinhive. Torrent Freak explained that Coinhive "offers site owners the option to convert the CPU power of users into Monero coins."
Pirate Bay told Torrent Freak that not all pages on the site are activated as the monetization option is currently in testing. The mining is currently active on the search results page and the category listings but not on the homepage or individual torrent pages. Eventually, the sneaky miner may replace ads on the website.
The code can be blocked by several ways such as disabling Javascript on browsers or by using script blocker add-ons or ad-blockers. – Rappler.com