I just found out about Shoft. This is the online demo for a product that they are selling to clients as their own. There is no mention of BOINC or anything like it.

How is BOINC licensed? If it's under one of the "free" licenses, I think they are allowed to sell services based off of it, but I think they still have to give credit and post any changes (of which I see neither).

Any comments?

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7,049 S@H Classic Credits

There is no mention of BOINC or anything like it.

Sure there is! Just as soon as you begin to download either the Linux or Windows client... they didn't even bother to rename the client. :-)

Sounds like they should rename to Shaft@Home.

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Rob_G

looks like they are selling your free contribution for their profit, to assist other business with access to "grid computing" (our computers). There is NO mention of Boinc anywhere I could find.

I'll not be joining this one.

tony

They mention BOINC.dk well inside a lot of the links... but it seems obvious that they are passing things off as their own.

And I don't think they actually use your PC cycles to do client work... From what I read they want to install BOINC on private networks to spread computing load for major tasks (financial applications). This online version is a demo that they can use to develop their applications.

So they are getting free development from us (well, not me) and selling Berkeley's app as their own.

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7,049 S@H Classic Credits

Looks very fishy, the english in the pdf they offer is very poorly revised. Their offerings are for almost everything you can make money with. At least they claim to be capable of supplying customers with solutions for these fields - can they?

In the french forum people are advised to abstain from that project as it is dubious and pursues commercial aims:

http://forum.boincfrance.org/detail.php?forumid=64&id=1032&page=1

I think the people at Berkeley should have a closer look. It would also be interesting to see if the client really is the same as the one distributed by Berkeley. After all it might be a project where they do collect user addresses and data and the client might turn out to be a fraud machinery for phishing, scamming, spamming, collecting privacy data (PINs, TANs, passwords, credit cards numbers...) and whatever you like. If it ran some application though people might not even notice as they generously grant it network access and allow it to send data to the internet.

Of course I may be doing them wrong, but at least there are no credits to Berkeley and BOINC and they give it out as their own design, which is really gross. The links to Boinc.dk - do the danish BOINCers know about them, I mean, their bandwidth being stolen for download by an alleged company with a "de facto standard" software? Fishy, fishy, smelly...

Regards,

Christoph

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"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." R.M. Nixon

I fully agree that SHOFT smells bad. I am staying far away from it.

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BOINC WIKI

Thanks for the tip. Looking into it..

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

It looks to me to be similar to Lattice, with the difference being they are charging for it. Lattice has several vastly different projects going on under the same project heading. SHOFT looks to be wanting to do the same thing, but on a commercial level. It looks like they develop a 'science app' based on the project their client wishes to accomplish. Then using BOINC, they get a bunch of free computing time and get to charge their clients for the service. Client gives them money, we give them the resources. What a deal huh?

But yes, it does run under the standard BOINC.

It was discussed some in the Boinc Synergy forums at:

http://www.boincsynergy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2907&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

(hope the link works)

In the thread, someone wrote to the people and received a response and posted it. Regardless, I'd stay away from it and am glad to hear Matt is looking into it.

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To truly explore, one must keep an open mind...

It looks like they develop a 'science app' based on the project their client wishes to accomplish. Then using BOINC, they get a bunch of free computing time and get to charge their clients for the service. Client gives them money, we give them the resources. What a deal huh?

To be honest, they promise to pay back for participating, then it's not so unfair as you described. But it's unclear in what form it will be and how much.

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Kitty@SETI team (Russia). Our cats also want to know if there is ETI out there

Zombies@home ?

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Account frozen...

When they first came out they called it BOINC (which they are using). They even said that they would pay crunchers when they sold some use of the time or something to that effect. Had to really search there web site to find that.

BOINC is supposed to be free to all Universities and Non Profit research Org's, not for profif places like that from what I read. Looks like Matt is on this one now and a good one to keep away from.

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Pizza@Home Rays Place Rays place Forums

I just looked a the page real quick and a question came up : has anyone tried to attach to one of their projects through the standanrd BOINC client ?

Is that what you meant Heffed ?

But yes, it does run under the standard BOINC.

I'm not going to try it but someone might :P

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mambo

You have to use v4.45 or lower in order to connect. the New v5.1.1 & v5.1.3 will give you a Message about not being a BOINC Project or something like that ...

I just looked a the page real quick and a question came up : has anyone tried to attach to one of their projects through the standanrd BOINC client ?

Is that what you meant Heffed ?

But yes, it does run under the standard BOINC.

I'm not going to try it but someone might :P

The standard BOINC program is what they use. If you go to there download page and look at the download link it is the same BOINC 4.45 that is in use here. They never changed the name of the program file.

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Pizza@Home Rays Place Rays place Forums

Right-O

Nice detective work, a tip'o the hat to ampoliros for taking notice.

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mambo

You have to use v4.45 or lower in order to connect. the New v5.1.1 & v5.1.3 will give you a Message about not being a BOINC Project or something like that ...

It actually works fine with the v5.x clients, I found that out when I upgraded to 5.1.3. The previous 5.x version had the non-functioning "no new work" which is what I had SHOFT set to until I found out more about what their goals were, and when upgrading, SHOFT downloaded some WUs.

The 5.x clients do have some problems attaching to projects though.

You have to use v4.45 or lower in order to connect. the New v5.1.1 & v5.1.3 will give you a Message about not being a BOINC Project or something like that ...

It actually works fine with the v5.x clients, I found that out when I upgraded to 5.1.3. The previous 5.x version had the non-functioning "no new work" which is what I had SHOFT set to until I found out more about what their goals were, and when upgrading, SHOFT downloaded some WUs.

The 5.x clients do have some problems attaching to projects though.

Heff, I just tried Attaching a Computer to the SHOFT Project with v5.1.1 installed and the installer just gave me the Message (The URL you supplied is not that of a BOINC-based project. Please check the URL and try again) ... Now if I just take the SHOFT Account xml from another Computer and put it in the Directory with v5.1.1 installed then it will Attach and download WU's ...

To be honest, they promise to pay back for participating, then it's not so unfair as you described. But it's unclear in what form it will be and how much.

[silly]
Potential SHOFT paybacks:

• SHOFT credits redeemable for SHOFT-logo baseball caps, winter jackets and cufflinks.
  
• Mysterious "1099" US tax forms that appear in users' mail.
  
• Each 100 credits earns one (non-cumulative) coupon worth $0.75 off the purchase of any Boeing 7E7 aircraft.
  
• SHOFT will hack your SHOFT credits into SETI@home credits for undeserved bragging rights.
  
• Each 50 credits earns one free music download from the illicit peer-to-peer network of your choice.
  
• Dehydrated water.
  

[/silly]

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

[silly]
Potential SHOFT paybacks:

• Dehydrated water.
  

[/silly]

oh! Oh! I gotta get me some dehydrated water! Dry and crisp but refreshing!

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