uuhhhh this is one of those onion things right........

no this is one of those shut up and leave it alone things ;)

cakes... everybody likes cake...

cupcakes!

mmmmmmmmmm

---

Well, as has been pointed out, the main goal of the current production projects is to give the general public a means to give scientists a hand in some of their gnarlier computational problems on a voluntary, donation basis. A 'Stone has no intrinsic value, other than what the participant(s) place on it.

On the other hand, since credit is granted as a carrot to encourage participation, every reasonable effort should be taken to ensure the book keeping is as fair and accurate as possible. This current issue has demonstrated the SAH team intends to enforce the rules and policies they have established for the project whenever violations are brought to light and can be *proven*.

This means whether or not the number or performance of a participants equipment seems "fishy" or not to some other group of participants is irrelevant to the standard SAH *must* apply when they investigate or even choose to investigate.

Likewise, the BOINC team decided it was desirable to be able to allow participants to hide all data about their participation if they so choose, and rightfully so. I could go along with a rule change that in order for your account to be published and ranked in the publicly available individual, host, and team stats you must allow viewing of the equipment online.

On the other hand, you have this current situation where Mr. Geise has been thoroughly dissed here in a public forum, based on circumstantial evidence regardless of how "apparent" it may appear, in spite of the fact Matt has stepped in a couple of times to attempt to tone down the rhetoric.

Until one starts getting royalty checks from Berkeley, do you think it is wise to be starting the "SETI Inquisition" over something as stupid as Cobblestones?

Alinator

I think you a forgeting the fact that a crime was committed. Geise may not have committed the crime directly but I do think that he was aware. A crime was committed none the less and it should be determined who put the software on these computers without the owners permission. And the authorities should be notified of the crime or we become duplicitous in allowing this to spred to more computers.

Would you turn your back and walk away if your neighbors house was being robbed, I think not. Because you want the person caught so they can't do it to your house next.

---

98SE XP2500+ @ 2.1 GHz Boinc v5.8.8

And God said"Let there be light."But then the program crashed because he was trying to access the 'light' property of a NULL universe pointer.

If it were simply a discussion of the ethics that would be fine.

But this thread has moved on to the forensics of identifying non-ethical crunchers, demands that privacy and anonymity (such as they are) go to 'identify the criminals' then on to the punishments.

As volunteers, this just isn't in out remit.

Frankly if we feel strongly enough that BOINC leads to unethical behavior then the appropriate action is to leave BOINC.

The very idea of volunteers trawling through other volunteers machine lists and RACs looking for people to report is akin to the worst of Stalinism (there, I didn'r need to invoke the Nazis).

Most countries have adequate laws that prohibit the use of computer resources without permission. But that is an issue between the owner of those resources and the unauthorised user, not BOINC project management and volunteers.

Of course, if any individual wishes to waste their lives tracking down compromised machines, identifying the owners and letting them know their systems are compromised, then that is an individual right. Good luck, but as they say - Get a Life.

I have spent a few long sleepless nights just "trawling through other volunteers machine lists and RACs". Maybe you should pull your head out of the sand and do a little trawling for yourself. If you do, you might start to feel as I now feel. A bit sick of some of the BOINC volunteers.

I notice in your machine lists that you use crunch3r's excellent build of the setiathome applications for faster WU processing times, just as I do. A great aid to the science of Setiathome. And I notice that you seem to accept the 8 to 10 Credits that your systems claim, just as I did for awhile. You have made no attempt to improve on your claimed credit score by using crunch3r's recompiled BOINC manager as I and many others have. This brings your claimed credits up to around 16 to 17. Not the 32 considered fair and normal for a completed WU, but closer. Nor have you started using Trux's new modified BOINC Manager code that actually goes in and modifies your returned cpu_time and Mfpops values so that your "claimed credit" converges toward 32 Credits, just as I have recently done.

Maybe you consider that type of modification unethical, at least for yourself.

If you look at the returned WU information about the WU on the server, in the "stderr out" section, you will find the information that Trux's code modified these values, and that this information is a part of the official record for that WU result. Nothing is hidden, its there for everyone to see. It is an ethical and open attempt to claim fair credit for work done.

But how do you feel about people who try to stack the deck in their favor when playing cards with them? Or batters who use lead weights in their bats? Or athletes who take steroids to "improve" their performance to be the big winner who gets the big contracts? Or stock brokers who "pump and dump" stocks to make a quick profit off of you? Or the man who expects a fake inflated lunch bill to pad his expense account with? Your ethics seem to be saying just accept it and don't complain. That players should not report finding lead weights or drug packets. That they should not be reported. That it is some "officials job" to discover it and do something.

Then I have some news for you. The BONIC officials have been sleeping at their post on guard duty.

How else do you explain users who's "stderr out" shows them using crunch3r's application and the standard BOINC software, yet their claimed credits for a machine consistently claims over 200 Credits? How do you explain high RAC user after high RAC machine that consistently claim 48 or 50 or 60 credits for almost every WU? Not just one or two machines, like the two old slow machines that I have that claim 35 or 45, but high end P4, Xeon and Athlon 64 systems like you have. How do you explain that when you find one machine making high claims, usually all of that users machines are making about the same exact high claim, regardless of processor type and speed. How do explain when you find such users with all their machines making a high claim (stacking the deck), that many of the systems in the same team also by chance make the same high claims. Or at least the ones you can access, as many of the higher RAC's participants have their systems hidden.

Or do you justify BOINC versions like <core_client_version>5.2.7 ThierryH 1.2.1</core_client_version> that stack the credits in favor of that user and team by giving them higher credit claims. I have not seen the "Berkeley officials" rejecting any such claims either, so they must not care. You seem to be saying that if you don't like that type of hidden cheating and just happen to discovery it, that you should keep quite about it and just go along with it, or ignore it and leave. I think that is what some of the governments you mention expected of their "good" citizens when it came to them finding out what their officials were really doing, and that they expected those same "good" citizens to report anyone who was not playing along with the party line.

Now I know a lot about computers and computer security and have a few friends that know a lot more. They took one look at BOINC, how it works, and its security claims and did as you suggest. When Seti@home ended, so did their participation of their business computers and their customers computers. Just on security reasons alone. The ethical issues of a wide open system for cheating was just a minor reason for not being a part of it.

Maybe the new Enhanced application will stop the cheating, and sweep it under the rug, if it includes the "claimed credits" as part of the returned information that is validated. If claimed credits are not part of the validation to detect attempts at continued cheating, then we know Berkeley is not concerned about cheating and security, and anyone with any ethical concerns or concerns about their computer's security should do as you suggest. And I would be expecting you to be leading the charge out the door and leaving BOINC behind. Or at least do what a few of us are trying to do and point out the problems. But that takes access to all that hidden information and a lot of trawling.

I am here because of my interest in the Seti project, and to stay means I have to try to help clean up the BOINC mess where I can, not give up and sneak quietly away. This thread got started not because some BOINC user or the Berkeley staff found a problem and raised the issue. It got started because someone found something not right with their computer and started a thread on a security help web site. And that thread attracted a lot of attention, as to why someone would even bother to create such a hack into a system, without which nothing would have been done.

@Jack Gulley
I am also one of those that uses Crunch3r's optimised app and standard BOINC Client. One because I crunch for more than one project, and two, the theoretical 32 credits is for the reference unit. If you process the reference unit you will probably find it takes about 25% longer than an average unit, it did on my system. So aiming for 32 credits, is cheating in my book, the aim point if adjustments are to be made is 24 credits or there abouts.

Also several systems will claim high credits, the celeron 1100 in my account when used by its previous owner, it ran win98 and was set to pause when the owner was using it. Also as it was poorly maintained so it regularly took 20 hours to complete a unit and claim over 100 credits, absolutely nothing wrong with that its a win9x clock problem.

And while there are users who claim high there are others who claim less than 3, even 0. So don't make assumtions because a person claims high or low they are over or under claiming.

Even if they do its not going to affect things to much because of the credit granting system. And also in your trawling did you notice how many host are/are not using optimised apps. There is probably only a few thousand people who vist any message board so unless they are told by friends the majority don't even know about optimisation so overall credits aren't going to change much any way, except your own.

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The very idea of volunteers trawling through other volunteers machine lists and RACs looking for people to report is akin to the worst of Stalinism (there, I didn'r need to invoke the Nazis).

Sorry, but this comparison does not match our current demands. Maybe it is just because you do not know enough about about totaliaran regimes (I did experience one, and my parents two of them). However, in totaliarian regimes it is definitely not like you claim (and like we indeed ask) - that the public is well informed about everyone (including those at the top). It is quite the contrary - in totaliarian regimes, the few at the top have access to the data of anyone they desire (without their consent), but the masses are kept in complete darkness. You may better understand it if you compare it to the current situation in the USA - the government and the agencies can spy on anyone they want, without any court order, but in the same time they are more and more secretive about their own actions. That's exactly how it worked during the Communism or Nazi era, though it was even more extreme (Please note that I do not intend to compare USA to those regimes, fortunately there are still differences. Besides it I do not believe other goverments are much better).

What we ask here, is that we all play with open cards. We do not aks that some elite has access to private data of others. We do not ask the access to any private data at all. We only want to see data related to the calculation and so that everyone can see them, and that everyone shows them. Additionally, we offer the option of complete privacy - no data will be public at all (including total credit, total RAC, and ranking) - that should satisfy even the most parandoid users, or users who have legitim concerns about publishing the data.

Is the proposed way really so unfair that you are so agressively against it? What exactly is wrong with it? You have the chance to hide your data completely, so why screaming that we are intruding into your privacy. Why screaming that we are witch-hunters?

---

trux
BOINC software
Freediving Team
Czech Republic

What we ask here, is that we all play with open cards. We do not aks that some elite has access to private data of others. We do not ask the access to any private data at all. We only want to see data related to the calculation and so that everyone can see them, and that everyone shows them. Additionally, we offer the option of complete privacy - no data will be public at all (including total credit, total RAC, and ranking) - that should satisfy even the most parandoid users, or users who have legitim concerns about publishing the data.

Is the proposed way really so unfair that you are so agressively against it? What exactly is wrong with it? You have the chance to hide your data completely, so why screaming that we are intruding into your privacy. Why screaming that we are witch-hunters?

No Credit/RACs shown most probably means no inclusion in the XML files either. No listing in a team you're on. No listing in the stats anywhere.

Now where is the fun in that, only because you want to see what people are crunching with, how many of them and how quickly they return tasks?

All the "we" in the above statement, who are they besides you, Trux?
It sounds the same as the people on the Help Desk who demand that Seti turn back time or dump BOINC completely and continue with Classic, as they and "several thousands to millions of other people" don't like the new way, or cannot get it to work. "They" never speak for themselves alone. "They" always have a minimum of "thousands" of others who feel the same way.

So I ask you: Who is "We"? You're definitely not speaking for me.

Let me take that one bit of your reply to me and give it back:

Please do not start another flamewar because of absolutely uninportant and irrelevant issues. This thread is already long enough, so please try resisting your temptation to start arguing because of any ridiculous detail.

What you are asking for is a ridiculous detail.

---

No Credit/RACs shown most probably means no inclusion in the XML files either. No listing in a team you're on. No listing in the stats anywhere.

I see you did not follow the discussion before. Yes, this is exactly the purpose: what we proposed was: either you play with open cards, or you hide all your data, including the ranking and public stats. You cannot complain that you cannot contribute to the science without violating your privacy, but it the same time the main motivation of the cheating (credits and ranking) will be eliminated. Quite simple. Your choice.

All the "we" in the above statement, who are they besides you, Trux?...

Why all this agressivity? Am I really having so nasty wishes? Just read below, and you'll se that it was not me who came with the proposal. So I am definitely not alone. I just supported it and came with some additional suggestions (including those for including changes int the software). And if you read carefully I do not blackmail anyone to do it. We just politely propesed it as a good solution, and one of several possibilities how to limit cheating and abusers in sake of beter future for BOINC. Feel free to disagree, feel free not to support the demand, but please try doing it without offending. I do not think any of us (including you) deserves it.

---

trux
BOINC software
Freediving Team
Czech Republic

Please let us fullfill Godwin's law, stop the lame comparisons and end the thread here.

I see no chance to managed to convince each other.

CU HiNuN

I think you a forgeting the fact that a crime was committed.

Ok, i'll bite.
What law has been broken?

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Grant
Darwin NT

I think you a forgeting the fact that a crime was committed.

Ok, i'll bite.
What law has been broken?

As you live in a penal colony where there is no respect for law by the masses, I will forgive your ignorance. ;) The alleged perpetrator of the offence lives in Germany where EU and German law applies. Unauthorised access and the running of unauthorised software on computers belonging to a third party is most certainly a crime in Germany and the EU.

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Be lucky

Neil

I see you did not follow the discussion before. Yes, this is exactly the purpose: what we proposed was: either you play with open cards, or you hide all your data, including the ranking and public stats. You cannot complain that you cannot contribute to the science without violating your privacy, but it the same time the main motivation of the cheating (credits and ranking) will be eliminated. Quite simple. Your choice.

Actually, I have been following this thread quite closely, yet I don't feel the need to post every 3 other posts (or 3 posts in a row) and sable everyone down with my opinion on how things should change to benefit me or my self-inflicted way of moderating these forums.

All the choices you are now proposing are:
Either show everything and be open about it, plus post on the forums if "we" accuse you of something...
Or show nothing and you can go ahead at what you are (were) doing before, including cheat the system.

Do know that changes to the BOINC server software will eventually propagate to the other projects out there. So do you only want this kind of "hiding" on Seti, or all over the place? What good does it do to BOINC overall?

And if you read carefully I do not blackmail anyone to do it. We just politely propesed it as a good solution, and one of several possibilities how to limit cheating and abusers in sake of beter future for BOINC.

The thing that worries me most, maybe, is that you are releasing an optimised BOINC client. How can I be sure you didn't add code that now checks up on where I install it? Be it my own PCs or elsewhere?

I suggested already a number of improvements, not only in this thread, implemented many new features and proposals of others (including one of you or your colleagues), in my customized clients, and I will certainly try to suggest more.

(source). It only needs one rumour.

I sure do understand that BOINC is Open Source and that what you're doing is for the good of the community. But you can also halt yourself at one point and wonder if what you are doing or asking is going a bit too far.

In my opinion you are on the treshold.

Feel free to disagree, feel free not to support the demand, but please try doing it without offending. I do not think any of us (including you) deserves it.

Who am I offending then? You post post after post saying that people need to do it this way or the other way, but you aren't asking if anyone feels offended by it. Well, here's news: I am.

You have taken the idea and are advocating it as if there's nothing else. You aren't asking for anyone else to take a different approach. For if they do, it's back to the same old same old of "farfetched". Remember your muffled away reply to Jack?

Can you name me the reason why you do not want your hosts listed? (without IP's and without host names of course). What exactly are you afraid of? And please do not come out with the reply we already saw, that you are testing a huge farm with Pentium 8 on Windows 2010 under Non-Disclosure Agreement. If you do, opt for the anonymous account.

You're not even asking for another way, you're just telling people to do so.

It's about the same as demanding from the phone company that they print all the telephone numbers in their books and online sites, even the unlisted ones. And if you want a really undisclosed phone number? Well, take a disposable mobile and only release your number to those you trust with it. Have you seen this being done?

May I remind you of this simple bit in the Rules and Policies?
"If you participate in SETI@home, information about your computer (such as its processor type, amount of memory, etc.) will be recorded by SETI@home and used to decide what type of work to assign to your computer. This information will also be shown on SETI@home's web site. Nothing that reveals your computer's location (e.g. its domain name or network address) will be shown."

All you can ask for, in my opinion, is an addition that says something like "If you don't want anything showing, we give you the possibility to hide all from the public. Credit/RAC statistics will be shown, though."

Or ask of Seti to stop giving credits. Then you solve the whole question in one bit. I wouldn't mind if this project was for science only, nothing given back. But I feel I will be only one of 100 who feels this way. Do you, Trux?

---

I see from your posts that you feel personal enmity against me and against my posts, so I try to keep it short and ignore those personal insults and reply just the relevant (emphasis added by myself):

May I remind you of this simple bit in the Rules and Policies?
"If you participate in SETI@home, information about your computer (such as its processor type, amount of memory, etc.) will be recorded by SETI@home and used to decide what type of work to assign to your computer. This information will also be shown on SETI@home's web site. Nothing that reveals your computer's location (e.g. its domain name or network address) will be shown."

Very nice that you posted it! Thanks. In fact what was proposed in this thread was just the demand to adhere to the Rules and Policies, nothing more. As you quoted, the policies tell that the information posted on the website "may contain information about your computer (such as its processor type, amount of memory, etc.)" and "Nothing that reveals your computer's location". It is what was asked for. It would be indeed nice if the number of hosts and their RAC, and couple of other technical data were always visible, without the possibility of hiding. Nobody ever asked that the system reveals host names, IP addresses or whatever else private data. I am afraid that you misunderstood the demand.

---

trux
BOINC software
Freediving Team
Czech Republic

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?

One reason, armchair quarterbacks.

My computers are hidden because in a thread a long time ago, someone looked at my computers and launched into a long discussion about how I needed to check memory and get better cooling and a whole bunch of other stuff about how my machines were faulty because there were a bunch of results that errored-out.

Now, I know why they errored out (and it was operator-error, not hardware), but given that it is sometimes human nature to jump to all kinds of conclusions based on little evidence, it is simply easier to keep them hidden.

---

I see from your posts that you feel personal enmity against me and against my posts, so I try to keep it short and ignore those personal insults

Excuse me? Any insult you felt by reading my post above are solely in your mind. I posted a generally good reply, one that not only I may be wondering about, but others as well.

If you felt attacked in any way, sorry. It was not my intention.
I simply asked you some questions. I may say that they were asked in the same way you asked Halifax-Lad your questions about what to trust.

May I remind you of this simple bit in the Rules and Policies?
"If you participate in SETI@home, information about your computer (such as its processor type, amount of memory, etc.) will be recorded by SETI@home and used to decide what type of work to assign to your computer. This information will also be shown on SETI@home's web site. Nothing that reveals your computer's location (e.g. its domain name or network address) will be shown."

Very nice that you posted it! Thanks.

You took that part of my post and pulled it out of proportion. Just to benefit what you want to read and answer to. I cannot ask any other questions as you feel they are personal attacks, so you resort to answering what you feel is necessary to answer to only, but two can play that game:

In fact what was proposed in this thread was just the demand to adhere to the Rules and Policies, nothing more. As you quoted, the policies tell that the information posted on the website "may contain information about your computer (such as its processor type, amount of memory, etc.)" and "Nothing that reveals your computer's location". It is what was asked for. It would be indeed nice if the number of hosts and their RAC, and couple of other technical data were always visible, without the possibility of hiding. Nobody ever asked that the system reveals host names, IP addresses or whatever else private data. I am afraid that you misunderstood the demand.

WEB SITE.

Not Forums.
Not Statistics.

Web site. This information will also be shown on SETI@home's web site.

Yet you are given an option to hide it. Is that against the Rules&Policies? No, as it doesn't specifically say that this information will ALWAYS be shown.

(Please remember that the forums are only an additional package to the BOINC server software. Projects don't need to use it, look at Simap, CPDN and WCG. Projects don't need to listen to their participants, look at Predictor, FaH and SZTAKI. Projects don't need to release XML files (plenty of (pre)Alpha projects out there who won't do it yet.)

So, to cut everything short: please Seti@Home, kill the forums, kill the credits. Put up mailing lists only for requests of help, for all to participate in. :)

---

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?

One reason, armchair quarterbacks.

My computers are hidden because in a thread a long time ago, someone looked at my computers and launched into a long discussion about how I needed to check memory and get better cooling and a whole bunch of other stuff about how my machines were faulty because there were a bunch of results that errored-out.

Now, I know why they errored out (and it was operator-error, not hardware), but given that it is sometimes human nature to jump to all kinds of conclusions based on little evidence, it is simply easier to keep them hidden.

Why would an open discussion compel one to hide systems? There is nothing forcing anyone to read, or respond to a discussion thread and open discussion MIGHT even resolve problems.

---

SETI.USA - Uniting the United States stats!

If I had many computers on my account, I would also hide my computer information. Not because I don't want anyone to see them, I could care less. I would not want to see them all load when I look at my stats on my teams website. A prime example of this http://www.boincsynergy.com/stats/boinc-stats.php?id=21&project=rah with over 13K computer.

I think it is time for this thread to die, I can not believe I just spent the last 2 hours reading.

Unauthorised access and the running of unauthorised software on computers belonging to a third party is most certainly a crime in Germany and the EU.

Will be interesting to see if it's ever enforced.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

I think you a forgetting the fact that a crime was committed.

OK, I'll bite.
What law has been broken?

Most countries have laws regarding this under Computer Tampering or Computer Trespass.

Unauthorized installation of a software package. Modification of computer system settings to the benefit of different party.

Trespass to chattels is being used to chase spammers and Spy-ware operators.

---

Theres a Fine Line between Hobby and Mental Illness.

[slight edit]A prime example of this is this user with over 13K computer.

Blimey, 13587 hosts and a RAC of only 14126, very dissapointing.
I was hoping he was going to break a million RAC.

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[slight edit]A prime example of this is this user with over 13K computer.

Blimey, 13587 hosts and a RAC of only 14126, very dissapointing.
I was hoping he was going to break a million RAC.

Good god how does a guy get 13,587 computers? That's one hell of a company.

!!!

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