Truckload of video cards stolen

boing
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Originally published at: Truckload of video cards stolen | Boing Boing

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The cryptocurrency miner to whom these cards are destined is pictured on the box.

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“Because each Nvidia RTX graphics card has a serial number, EVGA is able to prevent any of the cards from being used. Any stolen Nvidia GPUs from the truck heist will not be registered, offered a warranty, or eligible for an upgrade. Before attempting to register their Nvidia graphics cards, it is recommended that PC gamers check their serial numbers through the EVGA warranty checking page.” -gamerant

Oh yeah, that’s going to stop 'em. Not.

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The cynic in me wants to imagine there never was a truck full of brand new video cards and that EVGA is reporting one as stolen as a way to deflect its inability to produce new cards in large enough numbers.

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Crypto sucks, part 38,285,193…

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No one who gets one of these cards is going to worry about registering for a warranty, because most of them are aware that the cards are ‘hot’. 90% are destined for bitcoin mining rigs, and the other 10% will be sold on ebay and the buyers don’t care, as long as they get a video card that works.

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Got to install drivers sooner or later and would not be hard to build in a security check like Microsoft does.

“Your device, serial number xxxx has been reported as stolen, your card will operate in VGA mode until you contact NVdia and receive a security code to input.”

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The words “truckload of” always compels me to post the Terry Allen classic Truckload of Art

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Because you think these will ever be used as graphics cards? Nah: They’ll be running on a text only linux distro mining for cryptocurrencies.
(Then resold when the VRAM starts to gives out)

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Lots of situations where folks use these cards in air gapped environments. There will always be a way to update them. But why? They work great out of the box for the most part.

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More than a decade ago, I worked at a logistics company that packaged hard drives for a maker that no longer exist: Maxtor. I think I came in Monday, and the place was abuzz. Turns out over the weekend, someone cut the locks on one of the trailer parked in the loading dock and made off with about a pallet worth of hard drives.

But the weirdest stuff stolen a full containerful at a time? Nuts.

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