[South Korean Public Institution Employee Fired for Unauthorized Mining, Court Dismisses Wrongful Termination Lawsuit] Deep Tide TechFlow reports that on August 11, according to Yonhap News Agency, a former department head of the Korea Food Research Institute, identified as A, was dismissed for unauthorized cryptocurrency mining in the institute's warehouse. A subsequently filed an administrative lawsuit but lost the case in the Seoul Administrative Court on July 3. Investigations revealed that between February and September 2023, A had installed two GPU servers in an unused 홍보馆 (promotion hall) warehouse at the institute without authorization. Using the institution's budget, A carried out modifications to the air conditioning, network, and electrical systems, illegally mining approximately 71 million altcoins in total. After the incident came to light, A also forged approval documents in an attempt to retrieve the GPU servers and destroy evidence. Additionally, between August 2023 and May 2024, A used an unauthorized VPN 117 times to clock in, violating regulations and indirectly causing the illegal leakage of critical research data from the institute. In 2024, the National Research Council of Science and Technology conducted a special audit on A, subsequently reporting the case to the police and recommending the institute proceed with dismissal. After A's internal appeals and relief applications to the local and central labor committees were all rejected, A filed a lawsuit with the administrative court, which also ruled against A. The court determined that the dismissal did "not constitute a clear violation of social norms or an abuse of discretionary power." On the criminal side, A was prosecuted on charges of theft, violation of the Information and Communications Network Act, and forgery of private documents. In the first trial, A was sentenced to one year in prison. In April of this year, the second trial upheld the original verdict, and the sentence was finalized.