Looking to capitalize on the surge of Bitcoin’s popularity, some mischievous pranksters from 4chan’s random image board are trying to convince Mac users to trash their computers.
The hoax claims that Apple has included Bitcoin mining software on all Macs since 2009, but you just need to enter a simple terminal command to unlock it. Of course, there is no secret Bitcoin mining app hidden in OS X, so what does the terminal command sudo rm -rf/* in the picture actually do? Oh, it just basically reformats your hard drive.
Convincing Mac users that a secret mine of wealth is secretly locked away in their computers sounds like a hard sell, but The Daily Dot reports that at least two people have already fallen for the prank.
This isn’t even the first bricking prank 4chan’s random image board has pulled off this month. Over the weekend some Xbox One owners were duped into believing a special code would unlock backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360, but it really just bricked their new machines.
Of course if you really do want to turn your Mac into an expensive Bitcoin mining rig, there are some apps for that.
Source: The Daily Dot