Can I build an iPhone app that generates cryptocurrency income without the user&#39;s consent or knowledge? I had an idea of an iPhone app but I'm not sure if the methods are entirely legal. For that reason I thought I would come here to ask. Where I live, in Canada, it can get pretty cold. Hence, I had the idea of making the iPhone heat up slightly (to a safe level) so the user could heat up their hands and to prevent the phone from shutting down to the cold temperatures (a common problem in the winter). To do this I had the idea of running a cryptocurrency miner on the device. For those who don't know, cryptocurrency mining can be a CPU-intensive process and can cause it to heat up, but the process can also generate cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for other currencies (CAD, USD). Would it be illegal to use this method to heat up the phone if the user is not told how the phone is heated up as it generates an income that they would not receive?
The most important thing to realize is that such an App will probably never be accepted into the Apple App and/or iTunes store if you submit it without the mining disclosure in the end user's TOS. Apple reserves the right to accept or decline any App in the App store; they will evaluate your App after you submit it, and when they find the crypto mining aspects and see that they are not clearly stipulated in the user's TOS, they will probably not accept your App. Apple will find that you attempted to conceal an App "feature" that involves user security, i.e. the mining software will communicate in secret from the iPhone to a mining hub or account under your control without the user's knowledge. Even if your App did make it into the store, chances are good someone will see their iPhone connect with the mining software and investigate. Even if you do disclose the miner in the TOS, Apple can decide to remove your App from the store. Read the current news for other iPhone Apps that attempted to mine crypto with or without the user's consent.
Is that extortion? false advertising? or in any way illegal? Not at all. The owner of the site is simply exercising his right as outlined in the terms and conditions from when the user signed up. And giving users an option for continued use of the site (that is, for him not to exercise a right of which they were always aware) does not constitute extortion.
There are a few ways that this could be illegal, but barring those, there is nothing per se illegal in doing what you describe. It could be a TOS/contact/licence violation to sniff the traffic: Use third-party software that intercepts, collects, reads, or "mines" information generated or stored by the Battle.net Client or the Game(s) The protocol could be protected by patent. (U.S. Patent 5,883,893) The use of the reverse engineered protocol could be illegal (fraudulently connecting to a company's server while posing as an authorized client).
Using it without permission is copyright infringement and illegal. Legally, you can try offering money to the company for the copyright or for a suitable license. For example offer them $1000 for a copy of the code licensed under the GPL license. If they accept, you are fine.
Is it legal? Yes. You can make just about any payment arrangements you like. You wouldn't be able to verify compliance, though, without some connection to the student's employer. The IRS won't tell you how much money a third party earned, or how much tax they paid, in a given year. Pretty sure they can't provide that info, which is why companies wanting to verify your income ask for copies of your tax returns rather than permission to get those returns.
Unless the game is out of copyright, e.g. chess, snakes and ladders, Go, or checkers, your software would probably be considered a derivative work of the copyrighted game and an actionable infringement. The fact that you do not monetize it is not a defense. You would need written permission in the form of a license agreement from the copyright owner to do this legally. The penalties for violating copyright laws in this way could be punishingly serious.
There is no simple answer. Whether stolen bitcoin can be recovered with a court order will depend on the facts, the jurisdiction, and the legal basis for the claim. There is a significant difference between tracing by a civil litigant, and asset forfeiture to the state. I’ll talk about tracing, because it’s based on common law principles that apply in many countries, rather than statutes which are unique to each jurisdiction. The first hurdle in establishing a civil claim against the recipient of stolen bitcoin is the need to show that cryptocurrency is property. It has been suggested that cryptocurrencies might not be property because they are merely information, or because they are not classifiable either as things in possession or things in action. However, the LawTech Delivery Panel published a legal statement on cryptoassets and smart contracts (November 2019) which analysed these arguments and concluded that “cryptoassets are to be treated in principle as property.” This analysis was adopted by the High Court of Justice in England for the purpose of making disclosure and freezing orders against Bitfinex in respect of an account holding ransomware proceeds: AA v Persons Unknown [2019] EWHC 3556 (Comm). The next issue is the application of the nemo dat rule, which is the subject of your previous question. According to this honours thesis published by the University of Otago, until the courts recognise cryptocurrency as “money,” the nemo dat rule will have the effect that “the legal title to stolen cryptocurrency will likely always rest with the original owner” and “an innocent third party having received stolen cryptocurrency will always be liable to a claim from the original owner.” However, the LawTech Delivery Panel legal statement analysed the problem differently and concluded that an on-chain cryptocurrency transaction creates a new asset rather than transferring an existing asset: Although one can describe and conceptualise the process as a transfer … it is not really analogous to the delivery of a tangible object or the assignment of a legal right, where the same thing passes, unchanged, from one person to another. Instead, the transferor typically brings into existence a new cryptoasset, with a new pair of data parameters: a new or modified public parameter and a new private key. According to this analysis, the recovery of stolen bitcoin would involve applying the equitable principles used to trace assets wrongfully transferred into a mixed fund. Such a claim cannot be made against a bona fide purchaser for value without notice. On the other hand, stolen assets can be traced into the hands of a third party who knowingly receives them. Thus, whether the receiver of stolen bitcoin is liable to return them to the original owner is likely to turn more on the receiver’s state of mind than the percentage of stolen bitcoin received.
Note that what is being bought or sold here is actually information about the exploit. Attempting to criminally penalize the transmission of information in the US often runs into First Amendment issues. If a person has good reason to know that information is going to be used to commit a crime, or is likely to be so used, and there is no plausible legitimate use for the information, that person might be charged with complicity or conspiracy for distributing the information. But where there are legitimate uses, that is much less likely. Here the information could be used to defend against the exploit, or to identify and remove software subject to the exploit, or for research into such exploits generally. There may be other legit uses as well. Some years ago the Federal government attempted to prosecute a person for exporting a book describing how to create an encryption program. The courts eventually ruled that this was protected speech. I suspect a similar ruling would be made in the sort of case described in the question, but the details would matter.