[NEWS] Steam Game, Abstractism, found to be both a Cryptominer and TF2 Item Scam

[SuperMalleo64]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClkx9UzsmE

this shows how much stuff Steam is these days
also... hesitating to post this

[Ad Bot]

[Master Matthew²]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

[Shift Kitty]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

Well, maybe you should start playing it then? You can just leave the game running and get drops. After all, you've got nothing to lose from it right?

I bought the game, set it up on a virtual machine, and let it run for around twenty minutes. Here are some objective findings, along with my own two cents (TLDR: yes, it's a crypto miner):
- the game resource consumption is significant and inconsistent with its graphical quality or complexity;
- the proportion of CPU/GPU/RAM/IO usage is consistent with what you would expect from a crypto miner;
- this resource usage is unrelated to graphical rendering, as it persists even when the game is not being rendered or is being rendered by a separate GPU (this contradicts the developer's answer that the resource usage is related to high graphical settings);
- the resources used are not only graphical in nature, but include a sizeable amount of disk space which again is not expected from a game of this complexity; but is expected of a crypto miner;
- the game causes a huge amount of network activity, which again is not consistent with the game; but expected of a crypto miner (during the initial miner setup, the blockchain has to be downloaded);
- the game's network system port usage is as expected of a Monero miner.

I could let the game run for a few days and gather more information, but there's no doubt in my mind that this game runs a Monero mining node. Just your (pretty good) description of the facts should be enough for this conclusion, really; I bought and ran the game mostly out of a sense of stunned disbelief.

This is terrifying; and the kicker here is that this is just one of the many ways that this game is making money for its developers, as you pointed out. I for one do not welcome our new highly optimized, multi-venue money-making overlords.

Thanks again for another solid piece of journalism, Sid!

[Planr]

lol google chrome won't let me visit the game developer's website because its malicious

[Trogtor]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

nobody uses steam as a platform to play cryptominers. this is not alright

[HULKHOGANWWFWORLDCHAMPION]

nobody gets on steam to play cryptominers. this is not alright

what? I go on steam SPECIFICALLY to cryptomine, hell whenever my 15 mining programs aren't raping my internet I talk to my cryptomining buddies about how great cryptomining is!

[Shift Kitty]

lol google chrome won't let me visit the game developer's website because its malicious

That's not a malicious warning. It's just an expired security certificate.

I doubt they would plan on doing malicious stuff as soon as the certificate expired, but  that's not to say their site is safe anyway, certificate or not.

[Mr Queeba]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

what is wrong with you

[thegoodperry]

What's wrong with this lol. It's not like it's breaching any security? The item scam part is bad but idk why people are so concerned about cryptomining

[Conan]

What's wrong with this lol. It's not like it's breaching any security? The item scam part is bad but idk why people are so concerned about cryptomining

idk would you like your gpu/disk being constantly under use cause literally every site and program you have is running a cryptominer? yeah that's a slippery slope/black-white fallacy, but more and more programs and games have started sneaking this stuff in to make $$ off of unsuspecting users, and if left unchecked developers might take it to assume that its ok to hog all your computers resources if their game is open.

think how annoying windows update/security is super loving annoying when it takes all your disk time doing some sort of behind-the-scenes stuff and you can't do anything to stop it. this is the same. wouldn't it be less annoying if windows actually told you what its doing and/or let you disable it?

there's also the point of hardware degredation but ive heard both sides, saying it has a significant/insignificant impact, so i'd do my own research on that if i were you. its a possible secondary point.

[hootaloo]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

this is why people think you are a handicap and deserve forum idiot status

[datiel12]

I think this is 100% alright, and the user is in the wrong.

soo, you like the fact that this dude is mining some sort of crypto currency on your disk at all times? Its fine to have them use all of my system memory in the background to make some bitcoin (or whatever) which'll slow my system down and maybe even fry the hard drive but u kno its all a-okay

[thegoodperry]

idk would you like your gpu/disk being constantly under use cause literally every site and program you have is running a cryptominer? yeah that's a slippery slope/black-white fallacy, but more and more programs and games have started sneaking this stuff in to make $$ off of unsuspecting users, and if left unchecked developers might take it to assume that its ok to hog all your computers resources if their game is open.

think how annoying windows update/security is super loving annoying when it takes all your disk time doing some sort of behind-the-scenes stuff and you can't do anything to stop it. this is the same. wouldn't it be less annoying if windows actually told you what its doing and/or let you disable it?

there's also the point of hardware degredation but ive heard both sides, saying it has a significant/insignificant impact, so i'd do my own research on that if i were you. its a possible secondary point.

I mean I've played poorly optimized games before that hog my CPU and I've only ever been slightly annoyed. Sure the mining backdoor is intentional but there are devs out there who intentionally leave their game unoptimized and it has the same effect. If anything I'm more tolerant to a backdoor miner because at least the dev is making an extra buck. I'm just sacrificing a little bit of cpu in exchange. I can see why some people wouldn't like that unconsenting mechanism but for me I wouldn't care

[Verification]

I mean I've played poorly optimized games before that hog my CPU and I've only ever been slightly annoyed. Sure the mining backdoor is intentional but there are devs out there who intentionally leave their game unoptimized and it has the same effect. If anything I'm more tolerant to a backdoor miner because at least the dev is making an extra buck. I'm just sacrificing a little bit of cpu in exchange. I can see why some people wouldn't like that unconsenting mechanism but for me I wouldn't care

the downside is that this dude is probably looking at your research through that backdoor

[Planr]

the game's been removed from steam lol