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SETI@home Science :
Survey or phishing?
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Author | Message |
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Jörg Send message Joined: 10 Dec 02 Posts: 51 Credit: 1,547,286 RAC: 0 |
Good evening, I got an invitation to participate in a survey regarding BOINC. I could not find a message in this forum about it and I was surprised to find a request to edit my account details before participating in the survey. Is this an official survey or is someone trying to get my account details? <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Dear SETI@home participant: We're conducting a survey of SETI@home users to better understand why people participate in volunteer computing and contribute computer resources. We'd be extremely grateful if you could help us by filling out a questionnaire. If you're not interested, ignore this email. The survey is at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/survey/ It should take no more than 10-15 minutes. Your responses will be used for research purposes and to improve BOINC. We'll be happy to share our findings with you, and they'll be made available once we complete the data collection and analysis. With many thanks - Dr. David P. Anderson Director, SETI@home and BOINC University of California, Berkeley email: davea at ssl.berkeley.edu Prof. Oded Nov Polytechnic Institute of New York University email: onov at poly.edu ---------------------------- To opt out of emails from SETI@home, visit: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Am Ende ist nur Verwirrung |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
The survey site is located right off the Berkeley.edu domain, and is in fact a real survey. The username and password are required to ensure the person taking the survey is in fact an actual BOINC user. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/survey |
Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0 |
I did not complete the survey because the questions were multiple choice which did not include my answer. For example "which is your main project ?" - I could not give my answer which is that I run 3 projects and give the same time to each. I also got a bit fed up with being badgered to give tax-deductible donations to SET@Home. As I live in the UK, only donations to charities registered in the UK attract tax relief. |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20140 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
The survey site is located right off the Berkeley.edu domain, and is in fact a real survey. The username and password are required to ensure the person taking the survey is in fact an actual BOINC user. That still very suspiciously looks like "phishing". It also lowers people's guard to expect to give away their user name and password to a 3rd party site. Note: "boinc.berkeley.edu/survey" is NOT the home site for the account details being asked for! Is that not called "phishing"? Regardless, that is very bad practice, and sets a very bad example. Also, those login details are not encrypted. There is no https connection. If the goal is to verify that the person filling in the survey is the boinc participant, then do that by sending a verify email to their email address and OK the results if they reply from that. Regards, Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
The survey site is located right off the Berkeley.edu domain, and is in fact a real survey. The username and password are required to ensure the person taking the survey is in fact an actual BOINC user. I never answered whether it looks like phishing or not, I only said that this particular URL was not a phishing site. I made no comments whether the site practiced good form. |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20140 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
I never answered whether it looks like phishing or not, I only said that this particular URL was not a phishing site. I made no comments whether the site practiced good form. Has this been raised with the Boinc devs? I strongly feel that the Boinc devs should be setting and showing a good example. Hosting a page that looks like phishing and that is in effect phishing is very sloppy. There are better ways. Regards, Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
David Anderson Send message Joined: 13 Feb 99 Posts: 173 Credit: 502,653 RAC: 0 |
I agree that asking for the password is not optimal. However, it's needed for getting certain info that is not public (such as # of hosts) and that we need to complement the survey. -- David |
kinhull Send message Joined: 3 Oct 03 Posts: 1029 Credit: 636,475 RAC: 0 |
.... we need to complement the survey. I don't understand what this means? Join TeamACC Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. |
OzzFan Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28 |
.... we need to complement the survey. I'm guessing they want to group the responses by how serious the cruncher is. E.g. someone with more computers will be more "serious" than someone with just one machine crunching. |
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