Category Archives: Salon

Tuesday was an interesting day in the history of cybersecurity and media technology. In an effort to make money in the face of ad blockers, progressive news outlet Salon.com began to use opt-in cryptocurrency miners on readers’ computers. Using Coinhive, a piece of software that’s been described as the most prevalent malware currently online commonly used in attacks known as cryptojacking, the media group is now mining Monero. But Salon’s approach is clearly different. A big informational pop up window at Salon.com tells the user what’s going on and gives the their options: Turn on ads, pay a subscription or mine cryptocurrency for the website. It’s a fascinating move from multiple perspectives. For media and its dwindling ad dollars, it’s a potential revenue stream. For security, it’s a novel tactic when ad blockers are recommended by cybersecurity experts as a defense against the persistent threat of malvertising. For cryptocurrency, it’s a […]

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Searching for new revenue in the cash-strapped and ad-blocked world of media, the blog Salon.com is turning to the new hotness: Cryptocurrency mining. Hotness is very literal in this case, by the way, because any time you visit Salon from now on, your CPU will be used to mine cryptocurrency on their behalf. Your processor will heat up as more than half of your CPU power is dedicated to the task while the computer’s fans fire up to keep the temperature under control. It’s not clear what the limit on Salon’s CPU usage is and Salon did not respond to questions. “Recently, with the increasing popularity of ad-blocking technology, there is even more of a disintegration of this already-tenuous relationship; like most media sites, ad-blockers cut deeply into our revenue and create a more one-sided relationship between reader and publisher,” Salon’s website explained. Salon says about 25 percent of its audience […]

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