Japanese court exonerates man for using Coinhive to extract cryptocurrency



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On March 27, a Japanese district court cleared a man of having installed a mining program on users' computers without their consent, according to a report from the Japanese news portal The Mainchi. The report identified the man in question as being a 31-year-old website designer, charged with "Illegal Operating Software", between October and November 2017. This resulted from the use of its website to integrate a cryptocurrency extraction program. from the computer of the visitors.

Coinhive is a mining program based on code designed to be installed on websites. This uses some or all of the computing power, which allows cryptojackers to exploit Monero [XMR]. It is the thirteenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and a centerpiece of privacy protection.

The report stated,

"The Yokohama District Court ruled that it would be" excessive "to punish the 31-year-old website developer […] saying that the program could not be considered a computer virus. "

Toshihiro Homma, president of the Yokohama District Court, said the cryptojacker action could not be characterized as a criminal offense because the incorporation of the program was not "socially unacceptable".

In addition, the prosecutors reportedly "claimed a fine" of $ 900 on the grounds that the cryptojacker would have used the program on the computers of the victims without any authorization. He further stated that visitors were completely unaware that their computers were being used for mining purposes, resulting in higher electricity costs.

This charge was dismissed, however, as the Coinhive program was not used to "damage" users' personal computers or disclose their personal information. The decision acknowledged that the program had an impact on visitors, but called it "minor". In addition, the decision will be reviewed by the Yokohama District Prosecutor's Office.

The designer of the website said:

"Home search and interrogations have been difficult […] My work is related to the Internet and I want to make users aware of this decision. "


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Priya

Priya is a full time member of the AMBCrypto reporting team. She is major in finance and has one year of writing experience. It has not held any value in Bitcoin or other currencies.

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