Do we have a Boinc virus?

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Message 243125 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 19:48:49 UTC

The bottom line is there's no reason to hide computers. Paranoia only applies to those that think they are giving up their privacy. Nothing listed in one's computers list gives away any info on the user or their system so privacy is a non issue. The majority of the users already choose to show their computers. A small minority choose not to. This is not a witch hunt, just a way to make sure no one is cheating or has had their system compromised. It's the ability to report possible abuses that can be checked out for the integrity of the project. If no one has anything to hide then there shouldn't be any reason not to hide their computers. SETI can set the rules and they can change them and this is one change that would benefit everyone.

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Message 243128 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 19:49:23 UTC - in response to Message 243097.  

this is turning into a witch hunt now

While we're at it let's release all convicted computer hackers from prison because in the beginning they were also the victim of a 'witch hunt'.

Put that in any color you want.


ok here it is in green

is turning into a witch hunt now

Everyone who who has got a high score is now getting branded of as dodgy just because computers are hidden time to get a grip folks


You are inccorrect.


It's his super high RAC that makes him suspect. As I said before MANY times.
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Message 243129 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 19:49:53 UTC - in response to Message 243097.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 19:53:49 UTC

Everyone who who has got a high score is now getting branded of as dodgy just because computers are hidden time to get a grip folks
Nope. We do not want to burn heretics. All we want is more transparency and better possibility of monitoring. We want explanantions. If NEZ comes and tells "I've build a supercomputer", or "I have a huge computer farm and pay monthly $2000 to feed them with el. power, because I love BOINC", or "I am admin at huge organization and installed BOINC on all their machines", or "I developped an ingenious software optimization", or "we are a group of 500 members and work under the same account", I am ready to accept it if there are some facts behind it that confirm his words. Without the comments, and without the possibility to see little bit closer what's going on, we can only speculate. Why do you call it witch hunt?

The rankings list everybody, why would you want to remove people that want to keep their computers hidden. If I chose to hide my computers why should I be removed from the listings?
I do not want to remove anyone. But I do not see any single acceptable reason for keeping the hosts anonymous. I understand though that some people may feel differently - in that case let's give them to possibility to be really anonymous - let's hide them completely - that should satisfy them sufficiently.

Let's ask the other way: Give me a single reason WHY would you want having your hosts hidden if there are no private data in the listing, and when your account is anonymous anyway?



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Message 243139 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 19:55:25 UTC - in response to Message 243129.  


Let's ask the other way: Give me a single reason WHY would you want having your hosts hidden if there are no private data in the listing, and when your account is anonymous anyway?

Simply because I might want to

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Message 243149 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 19:59:59 UTC - in response to Message 243129.  

Let's ask the other way: Give me a single reason WHY would you want having your hosts hidden if there are no private data in the listing, and when your account is anonymous anyway?


One reason: Not everyone knows that some details are hidden and assume that everything they see on THEIR hosts (including IP, hostname, etc) is seen by everybody. Yes, WE all know this is not the case but not everyone takes time to look around and figure out what is going on before checking the "hide hosts" option.

If you want to petition the devs to take the option away, so be it. But it is there now and anyone can choose to use it and doing so should not implicate anything, whether they have a high or low RAC.

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Message 243156 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:02:11 UTC - in response to Message 242298.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 20:03:28 UTC

@ Fred_G: Fred, could you possibly send me the file sched_request.xml from the system32 dir of the infected machine? I am building in some protection into my core client, and need to verify some info in the file.
That file does not come up in his system. It's either been renamed or incorporated with some other file. You may be interested in these post though. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15359524~days=9999~start=100#15407064 This user was able to remove it but was very hard to do.

>Fred


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Message 243157 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:02:23 UTC - in response to Message 243149.  

this seems relevant
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Message 243167 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:07:42 UTC

I don't think showing computers would solve anything because we wouldn't know where those computers were or who they belonged to. This is why Matt would be needed to check to make sure returns for a single account wasn't comming from multiple countries. If the result returns are coming from the same place, company, university, etc then it should all be legit.

Obviously when you have someone report that they have a BOINC process running on their computer they didn't install, the process name is made to look like windows update manager, and the credit is going to an unknown person and company, that tells me it's a hack. This is also confirmed by Matt seeing returns coming in from all over the place.
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Message 243171 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:10:41 UTC - in response to Message 243157.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 20:11:27 UTC

this seems relevant


hahah! Agreed.

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Message 243178 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:16:07 UTC - in response to Message 243139.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 20:49:51 UTC

Let's ask the other way: Give me a single reason WHY would you want having your hosts hidden if there are no private data in the listing, and when your account is anonymous anyway?
Simply because I might want to
Hmm, that's indeed a very good reason. It still does answer the question though: WHY? I also may want a new Mercedes, and nobody gives me one.

One reason: Not everyone knows that some details are hidden and assume that everything they see on THEIR hosts (including IP, hostname, etc) is seen by everybody.
Simple solution - let's write on the page that the data is visible to yourself only and allow their hiding for yourself (or anyone who manages to steal your account access)

this seems relevant
I am sorry to tell it, UBT-AJS, but if there is a witch hunter or a demagogue, it is you. We do not want to burn innocents. We want transparency and explanations. Can you please tell me what exactly is wrong with asking how does NEZ manage to get so high RAC? What part in this question do you exactly consider witch hunting? Do you know the answer? Did we ask to remove his account? Did we ask to ban him from the stats? Did we ask to burn him? We will all applaud him if we find he spends millions of dollars to sponsor BOINC with hardware and electric power to get this RAC, from his own pocket (or from the pocket of his employer), but would you please let us the right to have our doubts? Do we really ask too much?




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Message 243180 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:16:39 UTC

Sheep.
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Message 243206 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 20:49:10 UTC

I have read all the discussion concerning the hiding of one's client computers. I normally keep them hidden from view just because I can. I have opened them up for inspection on occasion but have gone back into hiding because I feel better with them hidden. I can't explain why but I do feel better that they are hidden. It does not mean that I am cheating it only means that I prefere them hidden. Is that so bad??

As for Nez, perhaps he deserves a closer inspection now with all that we have learned in the last week or so. He does have more than 1.5 million classic work units done and they did not take any away from him in the cleanup of the Classic stats. I remember he was checked out by Rom a while back and was found to be legit. I personally don't see a problem with him but of course I can't see everything that Rom and Matt can see from their end. I refuse to condemn him until all the facts are in. Innocent until proven guilty!


Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....
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Message 243216 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 21:03:10 UTC - in response to Message 243206.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 21:06:21 UTC

I have read all the discussion concerning the hiding of one's client computers. I normally keep them hidden from view just because I can. I have opened them up for inspection on occasion but have gone back into hiding because I feel better with them hidden. I can't explain why but I do feel better that they are hidden. It does not mean that I am cheating it only means that I prefere them hidden. Is that so bad??
No, it is not bad, but you agree you do it, because it is available. If it was not available, you'd simply keep it open as everyone else. Or, in case you are really paranoid, you could opt to be completely removed from all listings, teams and stats. I find it fair.

As for Nez, perhaps he deserves a closer inspection now with all that we have learned in the last week or so. He does have more than 1.5 million classic work units done and they did not take any away from him in the cleanup of the Classic stats. I remember he was checked out by Rom a while back and was found to be legit.
If you look few posts below, you can see it is not true. Nez was never checked out as far as we could verify. It was 'teef'. Besides it, all they verified was the number of hosts - they confirmed the number of hosts was high and they did not receive any unusual credits. Fortunately (unlike NEZ), teef posted a lot of details about his farm.

On the other hand - I know that the cleaning up in S@H Classic was not perfect. There are still cheaters who made it through the clean-up. I do not understand how is it possible, but there are people who even admitted personally they were cheating, but are still in the final stats. The clean up certainly considered only some specific pattern and did not uncover all cases. Almost certanly it did not uncover credits gained through hijacking and infecting of computers through Trojans.

I refuse to condemn him until all the facts are in. Innocent until proven guilty!
Although I have my opinion about Carsten Giese, I entirely agree with you in this case. I consider him suspicious but defiitely innocent. It does not mean though I wouldn't love to see his clarification.

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Message 243223 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 21:10:27 UTC

If you look few posts below, you can see it is not true. Nez was never checked out as far as we could verify. It was 'teef'. Besides it, all they verified was the number of hosts - they confirmed the number of hosts was high and they did not receive any unusual credits. Fortunately (unlike NEZ), teef posted a lot of details about his farm.


You are correct. It was Teef that was stuck in my memory as being checked out by Rom. I would guess that the developers are probably going to take a closer look at all the top individuals now with what we have learned in the last 10 day's.


Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....Boinc....
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Message 243243 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 21:26:34 UTC - in response to Message 243216.  

Although I have my opinion about Carsten Giese,


I have my suspicions too...I think he knew all along what was going on...

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Message 243246 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 21:30:10 UTC

I agree 100% with trux. There is no valid reason to hide your hosts other than your choice, because the choice is there.

I don't assume anyone is cheating simply because they hide their hosts. However, I have never understood why it was even needed as an option. I believe that trux has offered a solid proposal to end this debate. If you want to compete in the stats, you should not need to hide your hosts. Why even do something that could possibly look suspicious to others? If you do not wish to show what you are competing with (like showing your cards, I guess), then you should not be exposed in the stats (since that might infringe on your privacy as well).

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Message 243247 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 21:30:32 UTC - in response to Message 243178.  

Let's ask the other way: Give me a single reason WHY would you want having your hosts hidden if there are no private data in the listing, and when your account is anonymous anyway?

Simply because I might want to

Hmm, that's indeed a very good reason. It still does answer the question though: WHY? I also may want a new Mercedes, and nobody gives me one.

Not the same thing at all.
You and I and everybody else has the means to hide our computers, some choose to hide, some choose not to.
I'm sure that if you had the means to buy a new Mercedes and you wanted to buy one, you would.


I am sorry to tell it, UBT-AJS, but if there is a witch hunter or a demagogue, it is you. We do not want to burn innocents.

But you want people to prove their innocence rather than you proving their guilt

We want transparency and explanations. Can you please tell me what exactly is wrong with asking how does NEZ manage to get so high RAC?

theres nothing wrong with that what so ever. there is also nothing wrong with NEZ or anybody else declining to answer such a question.

What part in this question do you exactly consider witch hunting? Do you know the answer?

Did we ask to remove his account?

please point out where i accused you of that

Did we ask to ban him from the stats?

indirectly yes you did, see below

You do not want the information to be public? Sure, you can have your privacy if desired. You have your full right for it. No problem, but disappear from the listings and stats completely! It's as simple as that.



Did we ask to burn him? We will all applaud him if we find he spends millions of dollars to sponsor BOINC with hardware and electric power to get this RAC, from his own pocket (or from the pocket of his employer), but would you please let us the right to have our doubts? Do we really ask too much?

again, please point out where I have suggested infringing your rights, the only thing I have done is comment on your suggestion to infringe other people rights



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Message 243290 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 22:26:26 UTC - in response to Message 243246.  


I don't assume anyone is cheating simply because they hide their hosts. However, I have never understood why it was even needed as an option. I believe that trux has offered a solid proposal to end this debate. If you want to compete in the stats, you should not need to hide your hosts. Why even do something that could possibly look suspicious to others? If you do not wish to show what you are competing with (like showing your cards, I guess), then you should not be exposed in the stats (since that might infringe on your privacy as well).

maybe I've misunderstood something.
I cannot see how showing your hosts will help to prove/disprove suspect activity.
We can't see their ip addresses.
We can't see their hostnames.
As far as I can tell, we can't see anything that would confirm such activity.

All we can do now with hidden hosts and all we could do if hosts are visible would be to report a suspect user for the guys at Berkeley to investigate.

Please tell me what I'm missing.
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Message 243292 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 22:30:03 UTC - in response to Message 243246.  
Last modified: 5 Feb 2006, 22:36:41 UTC

I agree 100% with trux. There is no valid reason to hide your hosts other than your choice, because the choice is there.

Not true.
I can think of one valid reason why someone with a high RAC would have to hide their information.

There are several dozen very small companies around the world, owned by individuals with a small number of employees, that have many thousands of computers setting around running most of the time. These are companies that do software and hardware compatibility testing for the large computer and software development companies. They are usually network connected machines that "test" a large number of different software programs and versions through scripts that down load, run and report back results to their host servers.

Such companies will have many machines, made by different vendors, with each stepping level of processor made, running on boards with the different versions of BIOS, and running different versions of OS's.

The services they provide include testing of new software programs to make sure there are no unexpected conflicts the other common software that is available, or with specific processor stepping levels, or operating systems or vendor system configurations.

They may test new processor stepping levels and new processor designs for chip designers like Intel, AMD, IBM and others, before those companies announce those chips to their customers or the public. And they may test new models of computers for companies.

They may at the same time be testing new unreleased Operating systems for their compatibility on all the different hardware, processors, BIOS, and with all the different applications.

And of course one of the software programs they would be testing a lot during all of this would be programs like BOINC and Setiathome, in combination with the different processors, OS's and applications.

Now I am sure, because of non-disclosure agreements with their customers, that they would not want references showing up in publicly accessible logs of things like AMD 64 8800+ or Intel P-5 5Gh SHT processors or references to Windows 2010 64 or UNIX 2008 or other versions of operating systems that have not been announced or released. Or evan a machine doing a WU every 6 minutes, or a machine returning 8 WU's every 10 minutes.

Some companies like Microsoft and Intel have their own in house test farms (think buildings full) for this type of testing, but they still use these small companies for final testing of new products.

Such companies and their owners would actually have a number of different very valid reasons for hiding their computers.
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Message 243295 - Posted: 5 Feb 2006, 22:32:01 UTC - in response to Message 243290.  

I cannot see how showing your hosts will help to prove/disprove suspect activity.
Please read further below. It was already discussed and examples shown.

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