Dutch turbine engineer tried to turn wind into crypto

"A Dutch wind farm operator learned the hard way that its turbines weren't just spinning to generate electricity - they were also powering someone else's crypto wallet. A court in Assen has sentenced an unnamed man - born in 1979, and working at the time as a technical manager for Nordex's wind turbine parks - to 120 hours of community service for siphoning electricity and breaking into systems across two sites. The judgment, delivered on November 13, found that he connected three cryptomining rigs and two Helium nodes to Nordex's internal network between August 16 and November 22, 2022."

"According to the ruling, the defendant set up the cryptominers at the Gieterveen wind farm, plugging them directly into a Nordex router at a substation. He then installed the Helium hotspots inside turbines at the Waardpolder wind farm, again hooking them into Nordex's network. The court said the setup amounted to theft of electricity and what Dutch law terms as "computer breach," noting that he had abused his insider access. "He has seriously damaged his employer's trust by abusing his position as technical manager," the court said."

"Prosecutors charged him with three offenses, including an allegation that the mining rigs had "added data" to Nordex's automated systems. But the court threw out that count, delivering an unusually detailed explanation of why cryptocurrency and Helium traffic doesn't legally qualify as adding data. For an "addition" charge to stick, judges said the data has to be identifiable and concrete - malware being the classic example. By contrast, blockchain verification traffic and Helium network packets are "indivisible data traffic," even if they're running across someone else's network. As a result, he was acquitted of this count."

A Nordex technical manager connected three cryptomining rigs and two Helium nodes to the company’s internal networks across two wind farms between August and November 2022. He plugged miners into a substation router at Gieterveen and installed Helium hotspots inside turbines at Waardpolder. The court found the actions amounted to theft of electricity and unlawful access, stressing abuse of insider access and damage to employer trust, and sentenced him to 120 hours of community service. A separate charge alleging the rigs had "added data" was dismissed because blockchain and Helium traffic were judged "indivisible data traffic," not identifiable added data.

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