Calendar App Mines Cryptocurrency

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Cryptocurrency Mining Calendar App? Cool!

A calendar app in the Mac App Store has been mining cryptocurrency in the background. This is in exchange for giving users additional features. An option to opt out mining has been broken.

Apple has not taken the scheduling app Calendar 2 down. This is after Ars Technica has informed the company that Calendar 2 has been mining virtual currency.

Its developer, Qbix, recently added extra code to what was supposed to be a buffed-up version of Apple’s Calendar in MacOS. This extra code was added to mine monero, a digital coin launched in April 2014. This was meant to be a more anonymous version of bitcoin. Transactions were descreet as they cannot be viewed on a public ledger.

That makes Calendar 2 rare in the Mac App Store since there are no other mining apps in the store. Especially apps that give additional value from non-paying users. To enable the mine to run, the user must gain access to more premium features. They have the option of keeping the premium or paying for them through the App Store.

However, the miner had a bug that kept it running even though the user opted to out. It also had a second bug which causes the miner to consume more resources than originally intended. A user commented on Twitter that it ate up 200% of the CPU until he found out it killed it. And that a bug is u expected from the App Store.

Because of its low ratings as the result of the bug, Qbix stated that it was in the middle of publishing a solution to fix the bugs.

Mining programs favor Monero over Ethereum or Bitcoin because it is more CPU friendly hashing algorithm. But Monero has also been an easy target for a spate of malicious mining programs that have emerged in the recent months.

It would not be surprising of Apple pulled out or removed the app. As the company said “ Apps should not rapidly drain battery, generate excessive heat, or put unnecessary strain on device resources”.

Update: As of today, March 13, [8:35] AM ET, Calendar 2 has been pulled out from the Mac App Store. But it was not clear if its developer, Qbix, or Apple, who did it.