Once upon a time we all bought IBM 8088 computers. To that we all added the yellow box better known as Norton antivirus. Over time we moved away from
[See the full post at: Norton 360 adds crypto mining]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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Norton 360 adds crypto mining
- This topic has 64 replies, 33 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 8 months ago.
AuthorViewing 39 reply threadsAuthor-
Susan: I am not a fan of cryptomining: it uses huge amounts of electricity, the generation of which, mostly in China, where most cryptocurrency is mined, is made using steam turbines with the water heated by burning coal. It is destabilizing of the World Economy, bad for trade, good for tax evasion, and the reason for the existence of cryptomining botnets, where the infected computers get greatly slowed down by the parasitic computational burden they are made to take on. The Chinese government recently banned cryptomining and cryptocurrencies for these reasons and some major corporations, including Tesla, the luxury electric cars maker, stopped accepting Bitcoin in payment for their products:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952
“Bitcoin consumes more electricity than Argentina“:
Fun facts: according to the University of Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the energy used these days in mining Bitcoin in one year could heat all the water for tea in Europe for 3.8 years and in the UK for 25:
https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons
And also:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/why-elon-musk-is-worried-about-bitcoin-environmental-impact.html
- Elon Musk said Tesla has halted purchases of vehicles with bitcoin due to concerns over the “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for bitcoin mining.”
- The cryptocurrency uses more energy than entire countries such as Sweden and Malaysia, according to researchers.
- [US] Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also warned about bitcoin’s environmental impact, saying it uses a “staggering” amount of power.“
For an application software meant to protect its users’ computers and data and keep them safe of being used by black hats for their own profit, that Norton is going to make the users of its software into cryptominers, if they accept to use it in this way?, it is not just a bad idea, but can be best described using not really the kind of language acceptable in polite society, in my opinion.
I left Norton AV for other antimalware applications years ago, chased away by the bloating of its software and by its various incompatibilities with other software I needed to use.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV -
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“It uses huge amounts of electricity, the generation of which, mostly in China, where most cryptocurrency is mined, is made using steam turbines with the water heated by burning coal. “
So? So does the entire current world banking system. All those banks with servers, data centers, backups, employee’s PCs,the employees themselves, the offices need to house those employees, etc. etc. Bet it adds up to a lot more. Also certain cryptos (such as Ethereum, which is what Norton is currently adding) are moving away from the “Proof of Work” (electricity) method, to “Proof of Stake”, which won’t require nearly as much electricity.“It is destabilizing of the World Economy”
So? Not all disruptors are bad things. If the world economy is so fragile, maybe it’s time for a change..You also can’t just “print” more crypto (of certain types) at will, as we’re encountering with hyper inflation.
“bad for trade“
????
Crypto transactions can be made worldwide, anywhere at any time, and usually faster than banks will process international payments, with a LOT less red tape involved (next to none). The point is the network is trustless, and verified by consensus. If someone sends you a crypto transaction, you KNOW they actually have the money, as the network verifies it. They also can’t just rescind it. Crypto is immensely secure in this way, which was one of the main points of it.It also can’t be “controlled” like banks and so on can. Annoy a dodgy government? Prepare to have all your assets frozen and be made unable to trade anything.. Good luck stopping that with crypto.
“good for tax evasion“
Sounds like you’ve been reading too many mainstream news articles. Only certain cryptos are fully anonymous. The point of the likes of Bitcoin is that it is FULLY traceable, if anything it’s EASIER to tax as it is a PUBLIC LEDGER! You know what’s good for tax evation? Cash. Those dollars in your pocket you use every day. Trillions go “missing” quite regularly, don’t they.You can see EXACTLY where money is on the crypto network, and get the full end-end trail with a simple query. This was one of the other main points of the system.
“The reason for the existence of cryptomining botnets, where the infected computers get greatly slowed down by the parasitic computational burden they are made to take on.”
Botnets have existed LONG before Crypto, and will exist for a long time afterwards, too. This is not a crypto unique problem.Realise that the BBC and the likes just want to write articles for clicks, and half the time don’t know what they’re on about themselves. They wrote similar stuff about the early days of the internet, how it was “bad”, “would never take on”, “would never surpass the typewriter” (lol), etc. etc. We’re still in early days yet.
Some valid criticisms would be that as crypto is still in its early days, it is extremely user unfriendly, there’s little global understanding (then again, how much do you truly understand how your banking systems work?) and that to acquire some often relies on dealing with dodgy exchanges. These are all issues that are being worked on over time.
The main problem I can see with a company like Norton adding it, is that it will open a complex subject to a user base that doesn’t know what they’re doing. I can see Norton opening themselves to a deluge of user support issues where some derp has sent it to the wrong address, the value has fluctuated more than they expect, or they’ve gone and worn out their computer components, as they didn’t realise they were having their personal PC act as a server. They’re going to have to be VERY clear in their T&Cs. As I said, early days.
Another thing is that it’s just a plain weird thing to add to an antivirus / security app. Why not just make a separate application for it? Having that on EVERYONE’S systems who has Norton 360 is opening their computers to exploitation by activating the mining capabilities if that security is bypassed. Should be a choice whether you have that sort of thing on your machine or not. Sounds like a quick cash-in on the current hype to me, which will inevitably be removed later.
2 users thanked author for this post.
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It looks like the main pro-mining argument is that, since bad things have been happening all along, having more of the same is no big deal.
Conclusion: I takes all sorts to make a world
Although I would hope for a world that is better, not worse in the way it is bad already. Innovative bad things are no better, necessarily, than same old, same old bad things. Take murder: it has been around for quite a while. I would go as far as to say that having more murders, using a novel technique, is not an improvement, or something that can be dismissed by arguing that killing people is not a new thing.
But have it your way.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV -
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No progress is being made, though. While the blockchain and such may add value as new tech, the mining itself doesn’t add anything. It’s just a way to create artificial scarcity in order to jack up prices. It doesn’t produce anything that makes people’s lives better. It’s not innovation. It’s like speculating on a company that then never actually produces anything.
It’s extremely volatile, so it can’t replace any existing currencies. That would be the one value it could have, but no country is going to want to tie their economic output to something so volatile. Stability is what is valued. Plus it scales poorly: the more it is used, the more computation/time it takes per interaction. That’s the same problem using the gold standard had.
Sure, I wouldn’t mind getting in on it anyways, despite the above, just trying to ride the bubble with money I could stand to lose, and hoping to get out before it bursts. But the fact that it adds more to the environmental problems when we’re currently trying to reduce those to make it another 100 years, and it seems profoundly unethical. It’s morally wrong to benefit oneself at the cost of others.
Not to mention it is used so often to promote crime. And I don’t mean just the stuff I consider harmless.
And that’s without considering that this is designed to help Norton make more money without actually improving their product.
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Back to business basics, Norton, It is time to ask yourselves some questions: “What is our business? Are we in the business of mining crypto or are we in the business of malware detection?”
Sadly, they are not the only business that makes the mistake of thinking adding more improves the product.
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I guess they’re embracing what they do best: ruining your computer. I haven’t met a computer yet with Norton that didn’t have crippling issues that magically disappeared as soon as Norton was uninstalled. They may have been good in the early 90s with their Norton Utilities suite, but certainly not since.
4 users thanked author for this post.
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How pathetic .. crypto-mining as part of 360! Then again, who needs 360? What they should do is to concentrate on protecting us from “bad” guys using our computers to crypto-mine. I agree with Oscar’s comments above. No need to repeat.
I’m a Norton fan going back to my IBM 50Z days (Commander, AntiVirus, Systemworks). Nowadays I use Norton AntiVirus .. plain and simple. Works great (backed up by MBAE and on demand scanner like RogueKiller, HitmanPro, etc.)!
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Susan,
Just one question, what would be the advantage TO ME to have crypto-mining ??I see no reason, financially, to occupy the extra CPU time and electricity to do this. I DON’T need to have my computer slowing down without HUGE monitary return. NO THANKS ! ! ! I’ll just stick with my Vipre Internes Security.
Dave
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Peter Norton would be spinning in his grave…
BATcher
Plethora means a lot to me.2 users thanked author for this post.
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Looks to me like a marketing-driven gimmick intended to reel in new customers by splashing the C-word all over the package.
Adds no value to the product for me. I’d like them to spend their dev money on security features instead.
Not to forget: just because a software maker includes a “new feature,” doesn’t mean that it works as promised or expected.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I dumped Norton/Symantec when they insisted on taking over a significant portion of system resources for their activities. Apparently they felt that they weren’t using enough CPU already.
At first, I read this story and parsed it as thinking they would be adding additional protection against cryptominers being installed on your machine. Then I read the actual article and saw that no, they’re actually installing cryptomining as a feature. This seems like a rather odd choice. If I want to engage in this activity, I’d add separate software that just does this.
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When a software product moves to the state that you need a dual 18-wheel truck to go to the grocery store to buy milk, I make every effort to dump it. Norton went a LONG time ago.
I hate business that try to be everything to everyone all the time, let alone something that is completely stupid at it’s core. Crypto/Bit is just another made up financial fantasy giving greedy people another way to gamble.
3 users thanked author for this post.
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Almost as good as “Block Internet” tray option… I have a “control panel/network connection” desktop shortcut… right click & choose ‘open network connection”… right click the active internet connection & choose ‘disable’. done… when ready to reconnect, choose ‘enable’. done… SOMETIMES enable/disable option appears with just a double-click of the desktop icon! However, that is annoyingly and puzzlingly inconsistent. Usually I just click ‘network connection’ option and disable & enable from there. Also have “control panel” in my pop-up start menu. Too confusing and too much work trying to find it using “Settings”/”Network and Internet”. Been using this method since December 2009 when I got Win7. Still using that machine daily, but also have Win10 for products & product features that aren’t supported in Win7.
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Peter Norton
Not dead yet.
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BATcher wrote:
Peter Norton would be spinning in his grave…> Not dead yet.
And a real good thing too…
if LifeLock thought Peter Norton was spinning in his grave they’d try to monetize it, probably dig the poor bloke up with a plan to sell tickets.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I just downloaded the 137MB product ‘update’ for 360 and have been scouting around the GUI’s nooks and crannies and the only thing I see is they’ve made the ‘Dark Web Monitoring’ feature a little more visible. But if they’ve added this cryptomining stuff, they sure haven’t tooted their horn about it. You’d think that there would be a popup of some kind that informed the subscriber of a new ‘feature’ they just downloaded. As usual, I have to find out these things from askwoody. Otherwise, I’d have never known.
But after reading the doom and gloom posts above, I haven’t noticed any extraneous or excessive CPU usage (unless you consider 1% every few minutes as excessive) from the Norton module, so maybe that’s an isolated issue. I don’t do crypto myself, so it’s a feature I’ll never use. But I still, every month, complain that I have been waiting a year for Norton to put a ‘block internet’ option in the system tray menu. So when I leave the machine unattended for long periods, I guess I’ll just still have to keep unplugging the Ethernet cable. (sigh)
As it says in the article, it’s being made available only to a select number of users in the test group, as of right now.
Also something like that is hardly going to be turned on by default, is it.
Still a daft thing to add to an anti-malware app though. Shameless cash-in / marketing bumf.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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On the topic Internet Security Providers at https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/internet-security-providers/ it was established that, of the 21 voices contributing to the thread, ESET Internet Security received the most positive response followed by Bitdefender Internet Security, Norton 360 Deluxe, and then Windows Defender.
Avast Premium Security and AVG Internet Security were nonstarters.
I suggest that if you have questions related to a replacement for Norton you look at the thread’s postings.
4 users thanked author for this post.
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The only good norton I know is a UK built motorbike
Have come across Norton/symantec many years ago with home clients groaning about how slow their PC was with Win98/ME/2000 and XP. Remove and replace worked wonders for them, enough said..Windows - commercial by definition and now function...1 user thanked author for this post.
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I’m with you, I’ll take a pass on this one.
First, I don’t want <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>anything </span>to do with cryptocurrencies. I’m more than happy with “dead presidents” and don’t need anything else.
Second, I don’t need anything impacting the performance of my system or my network. My system isn’t a barn-burner to begin with, and I’ve maxed out the installed memory as far as it will go. (I didn’t know until after I got my newest system that it only had space for one memory module, and that can only be up to 16Gb, so that’s what I have. All the other Dell laptops I’ve ever had allowed two, so silly me for assuming that this one was the same! Lesson learned, next time I’ll ask!) Anyway, it’s sufficient for what I need to do, but I don’t want to put any more of a load on the system than is necessary. And crypto-mining is most assuredly not “necessary.”
Third, I already have a more-than-sufficient security program (IObit Malware Fighter) combined with the Windows Defender program. Between the two of them, plus the firewall I have in place at home, I believe I’m well protected. (Now that I’ve said that, I’m daring Mister Murphy to smite me….)
// Steve //
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Kaspersky was programmed by a russian, but has no ties to Russia. They moved out of that country. They are my number one pick. I’ve deployed it to over 1000 computers and have never had a virus problem with it. Other products like Symantec, Trend Micro, Comodo, and McAfee were all disappointments. For the customers that can’t use Kaspersky due to government restriction I started using Panda. Watchguard owns them now, and so far it’s working great. Very easy to deploy and manage.
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I use Defender with occasional manual MalwareBytes scans.
cheers, Paul
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LOL…. I must be the only one in the whole forum who hasn’t had any issues with Norton.
Yet.
We’ll see if that changes when this new ‘feature’ rolls out.
"War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. And I say let us give them all they want" ----- William T. Sherman
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Our go to place when looking for product reviews is the nonprofit Consumer Reports because they do standardize bench testing of the products they evaluate.
The following is Consumer Reports’ rankings of its top 10 paid antivirus suites for Windows:
I lost faith in Consumer Reports more that a decade ago. A good place to start for cars MAYBE, but they seem to have their own biases and IMHO do not represent real life uses. And no I am not gonna even try to defend tha statement. It is Only MHO. Anything computer\tech related I would ignore them entirely. Again IMHO
Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.
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We find Consumer Reports to be a good starting point when trying to understand our buying options.
Once we have defined our options, we go onto other sites, including AskWoody, to narrow down our search.
Thus, the reason we started the thread On the topic Internet Security Providers at https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/internet-security-providers/ .
It is interesting that of the 21 voices contributing to the thread, ESET Internet Security received the most positive responses thus confirming Consumer Reports’ top rating of the ESET virus software.
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From Lawrence Abrams’ 02-Jun-2021 BleepingComputer article Norton 360 Antivirus Now Lets You Mine Ethereum Cryptocurrency:
“As the difficulty of mining Ethereum by yourself is very high, Norton users will likely be pooled together for greater chances of mining a block. If Norton is operating a pool for this new feature, they may take a small fee of all mined Ethereum as is common among pool operators, making this new feature a revenue generator for the company.”
I used Norton for over a decade but removed it from both my machines a few years ago when NortonLifeLock began forcing customers who purchase their Norton yellow box from an authorized retailer like BestBuy or Staples (paid in cash or by debit card) to provide NortonLifeLock with their credit card number and automatically enroll in auto-renewal before they can activate the product key they’ve already paid for. NortonLifeLock justifies this policy by telling users that they can log into their Norton Account, disable auto-renewal, and then remove their credit card number from their billing information once their product key is activated.
I’ve been watching the decline of NortonLifeLock since Symantec sold their enterprise division to Broadcom in November 2019 and the NortonLifeLock home consumer division became a separate company. I consider Norton Crypto just one more nail in the coffin.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v20H2 build 19042.985 * Firefox v89.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2105.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.0.117-1.0.13181 user thanked author for this post.
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Makes no difference what build you have, hackers are always targeting you. That’s why we have firewalls and AV.
cheers, Paul
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When Norton announced they would stop supporting Vista systems earlier this year, I searched for an alternative AV solution that would still work on that OS. Eventually I settled on a relatively little-known product named eScan. I chose it over the other leading candidate, Panda, because eScan includes a junk-mail scanner and in general appears to be more business-oriented. It has an old-fashioned, XP-era interface, but that’s not a handicap in my book.
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Norton seems to make a mess of third party software installs, seems to spend too much os time causing slowdowns due to excessive cpu usage or underlying bloat….I would just can Norton. It is bad enough we have to run something for protection. MS defender ( or what ever flavor they like at M$) seems good enough….quit supporting garbage! move on….and quit visiting those …ummmm “nasty sites”.
I dumped Norton years ago
pay attention folks!
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If a program sought to take on EVERY task – to literally become the Jack of All Trades – would it be good at anything?
AV companies know exactly what they are doing as mrPlankton keeps them in business, year in, year out, without thought or insight on the NPI.
snark/ Supplimentary bloat, ‘New Features’ is modern and the most secure to use on your system keeping up with technology..quick, get it! before you are the victim!! /snark
Distinguishing ‘needs from wants’ during installation setup and configuration is where homeusers trip up. IOW always choose custom installation and take your time reading and ticking/unticking boxes/radio buttons where applicable.
Seen sssso many default installations where the client does not even know what they have installed, what it does or what it can do which just occupies storage real estate, ignored and sometimes not updated, creating a new vector for miscreants..Windows - commercial by definition and now function...2 users thanked author for this post.
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Norton 360 adding cryptomining seems like police departments adding money laundering to their official duties.
We are SysAdmins.
We walk in the wiring closets no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no malware may pass.
We engage in support, we do not retreat.
We live for the LAN.
We die for the LAN.1 user thanked author for this post.
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Just an FYI that NortonLifeLock recently announced that Norton Crypto will be disabled on 14-Sep-2022. See employee Gayathri_R’s 08-Sep-2022 FAQ at Attention :: An Important Norton Crypto Announcement for further details.
I don’t know what possessed NortonLifeLock to add a cryptominer to their antivirus in the first place, other than corporate greed. NortonLifeLock was charging a 15% mining fee and the test results in The Verge’s 07-Jan-2022 article Here’s the Truth About the Crypto Miner That Comes With Norton Antivirus showed that “In real numbers, a night of mining on an RTX 3060 Ti netted $0.66 cents worth of Ethereum and cost $0.66 in off-peak electricity. Norton took all the profit“) so I’m personally happy to see Norton Crypto come to an end.
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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1889 * Firefox v104.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2207.7-1.1.19600.3 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.5.14.210-1.0.1751 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.69792 users thanked author for this post.
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