I saw the above article on a researcher using government-provided research computers to mine BitCoins for personal benefit. I think there are three other crimes going on here:

1) Why are these computers so under-utilised that the researcher can do this?

2) If they are so under-utilised why aren’t they being used for something more economically valuable than bit-coin mining – for example being sold out on a PAYG basis for other researchers….

3) If they really cannot find anything useful for the computer then why aren’t they using them for bit-coin mining and contributing the profit back into the research labs funds… (after covering the increased electricity costs of the mining operation!).

via BBC News – US national agency computers misused to mine bitcoins.