Computers used to mine cryptocurrencies stolen from data centers in Iceland
cbsnews.com
cbsnews.com
It would depend how much noise is in the graph, and how much energy 600 computers use relative to the total energy usage of various parts of the grid. If they went to a major city, probably not. But perhaps the usage in a smaller town would show up as a spike.
I'm really curious whether this would work. Kind of a creepy thought. Hard to escape the eyes of modern technology.
On the other hand, they thought about every aspect of this heist, so maybe they're going to power the computers with gasoline generators. It's hard to know what to be paranoid about when thinking deviously.
But, interestingly, Iceland also has a lot of artificially lit/heated greenhouses that can be seen from very far away. Those probably take a lot of power as well.
Electricity is insanely cheap there because of geothermal generation. Private generation is a thing there as well, IIRC.
Is this a new type of crime?
This also brings an interesting thought - will it be harder to track down those running a hydroponic lab in the future, with many houses using huge amounts of electricity on mining?