I'd argue mining malware is a net benefit to society. I'd much rather have my vulnerable server exploited by mining malware than left alone. If it gets exploited by mining malware, it gives me an extra chance to catch it before something actually bad happens, at almost zero cost to myself and a small reward for the person who found the vuln.

Criminals and the porn industry are almost invariably early adopters of new technologies. For better or worse their use-cases are proof-of-concepts that get expanded and built on, if successful, by more legitimate industries.

Re: the Internet.

Re: Peer-to-peer.

Re: Video streaming.

Re: AI.

Sure does seem like the primary outcome of email being released onto the world has been criminals making money.

And fast malware detection.

Well, because crypto has been a crime for it's entire lifetime. Any of my friends who got funding to work on crypto got debanked, fined, jail time etc. Throughout the entire Obama-Biden era. Only under the latest Trump admin are there new VC funding and things like ETF's, stablecoin settlements, and crossborder regulation being "Accepted" even though we have no legal framework.

So... Crypto is illegal so anyone using is defacto a criminal by definition.

Also, for this particular instance this is the best bug bounty program i've ever seen. Running a monero node that hits your daily budget cap is not that bad... It could be way worse like steal you DB creditials and sell it to the highest party... So, crypto actually made this better.

Is that really a surprise though?