Message boards :
Number crunching :
Cheating by selecting workunits to crunch?
Message board moderation
Author | Message |
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michael37 Send message Joined: 23 Jul 99 Posts: 311 Credit: 6,955,447 RAC: 0 |
About a year or so ago, someone (Alex Kan? Alex, if it wasn't your, apologies, my memory is often faulty) hypothesized that some optimized clients will be better for some workunits and worse for some other workunits. That means that credit/hour will be good only for narrow range of workunits. Then, one can hypothetically write a modification to boinc software that will parse a workunit quickly and discard (abort) unwanted units. Obviously, such code would be immoral if not outright cheating. Is that what happens to this host? I see many workunits aborted for no apparent good reason. |
Brian Silvers Send message Joined: 11 Jun 99 Posts: 1681 Credit: 492,052 RAC: 0 |
About a year or so ago, someone (Alex Kan? Alex, if it wasn't your, apologies, my memory is often faulty) hypothesized that some optimized clients will be better for some workunits and worse for some other workunits. That means that credit/hour will be good only for narrow range of workunits. Then, one can hypothetically write a modification to boinc software that will parse a workunit quickly and discard (abort) unwanted units. Obviously, such code would be immoral if not outright cheating. Version 5.8.17 and higher support project-side aborts. This person is using 5.10.7. Please read the Aborted by Project sticky... |
Adrian Taylor Send message Joined: 22 Apr 01 Posts: 95 Credit: 10,933,449 RAC: 0 |
About a year or so ago, someone (Alex Kan? Alex, if it wasn't your, apologies, my memory is often faulty) hypothesized that some optimized clients will be better for some workunits and worse for some other workunits. That means that credit/hour will be good only for narrow range of workunits. Then, one can hypothetically write a modification to boinc software that will parse a workunit quickly and discard (abort) unwanted units. Obviously, such code would be immoral if not outright cheating. I dont think its very productive to use the words immoral and cheating, without even bothering to find out what the issue is. perhaps you should stop going through other peoples stats looking for wrong-uns, and instead read the message boards over the last few weeks, in which case you may have noticed theres new features in the new boinc app my machines are open to your scrutiny too, if you'd like to go and check my worthiness to participate in this project :-) regards adream 63. (1) (b) "music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
About a year or so ago, someone (Alex Kan? Alex, if it wasn't your, apologies, my memory is often faulty) hypothesized that some optimized clients will be better for some workunits and worse for some other workunits. That means that credit/hour will be good only for narrow range of workunits. Then, one can hypothetically write a modification to boinc software that will parse a workunit quickly and discard (abort) unwanted units. Obviously, such code would be immoral if not outright cheating. These may indeed by server induced aborts. But this issue does underline the request for Seti to differentiate between aborts by the project server (no longer needed or such) and manual aborts by the user on the client side. Being an 8 core Xeon based rig, I don't think the RAC is out of line. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
Spectrum Send message Joined: 14 Jun 99 Posts: 468 Credit: 53,129,336 RAC: 0 |
Sterling_Aug User profile image Created 22 Jun 2007 21:57:57 UTC Total Credit 340,575.59 Recent average credit 5,589.42 CPU type GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5355 @ 2.66GHz [EM64T Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 7] Number of CPUs 8 Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition , Service Pack 2, (05.02.3790.00) Memory 4093.36 MB Cache 122.07 KB Measured floating point speed 2533.26 million ops/sec Measured integer speed 7862.92 million ops/sec Average upload rate 4.13 KB/sec Average download rate Unknown Average turnaround time 3.29 days Maximum daily WU quota per CPU 100/day Results 1858 Read your post and checked out the comp in question,,, u don't need to cheat with one of these,, Wish I could afford one! |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 |
It does, auto-aborts are 221's, manual aborts are 197's. Alinator |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
Well, I think that clears up any question about this computer. I checked a few of the aborts, and they are indeed 221 exit codes. What I think most users are looking for is that the 'results for computer' page display something other than the usual 'client error' and 'aborted' when there is no client error but rather a cancellation by the project server. Something like 'server cancelled' and 'unneeded' would be more accurate and readily apparent to users who do not know to dig further for the exit codes and what they mean. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 |
Well, I think that clears up any question about this computer. I checked a few of the aborts, and they are indeed 221 exit codes. LOL... Yeah, I hear ya! ;-) Ever notice how as the versions increase BOINC swings back and forth between CC message tab logging which is either vebose to the point of being mind numblingly useless, to so succinct it's almost bafflingly useless? Right now, IMO the default is pretty thin, but look out if you enable the detail flags! :-) Alinator |
Brian Silvers Send message Joined: 11 Jun 99 Posts: 1681 Credit: 492,052 RAC: 0 |
You're preaching to the choir... ;-) It's all wonderful that there is a different code, but codes are meaningless without their definition. Lots of people won't go hunting for the definition and just assume stuff... |
Philadelphia Send message Joined: 12 Feb 07 Posts: 1590 Credit: 399,688 RAC: 0 |
Maybe it would be helpful if there was a sticky of the exit codes. |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 |
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Brian Silvers Send message Joined: 11 Jun 99 Posts: 1681 Credit: 492,052 RAC: 0 |
The answer to this vexing question was already covered in the sticky that I mentioned, yet the OP apparently never read it... A semi-humorous example of sticky failure on another project, LHC, has this from the project administrator about the question of when the project will have work:
A stickied post in the forum, currently the second from the top, is titled: Please note: this project rarely has work |
Philadelphia Send message Joined: 12 Feb 07 Posts: 1590 Credit: 399,688 RAC: 0 |
Thanks. Actually what I was referring to was a sticky on the "Number crunching" page. I think there are ~5 stickies now. My thought, maybe not a good one, lol, was that it was visible to everyone who looks at the page. No biggie though. |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 |
LOL... Well, we can't take all the sport out of BOINC'ing! :-) Alinator |
Clyde C. Phillips, III Send message Joined: 2 Aug 00 Posts: 1851 Credit: 5,955,047 RAC: 0 |
It looked like he aborted 30s and 60s in favor of doing 30s. If his machine bears any resemblance to mine and to many others, he's cutting his own throat by aborting. In my and many other cases 60s do better than 30s. The really funny thing is that he's aborting both 30s and 60s. I don't know why. |
Philadelphia Send message Joined: 12 Feb 07 Posts: 1590 Credit: 399,688 RAC: 0 |
LOL... I didn't even know the FAQ section was there, lol. |
LTDInvestments Send message Joined: 2 Aug 99 Posts: 14 Credit: 4,592,515 RAC: 42 |
It looked like he aborted 30s and 60s in favor of doing 30s. If his machine bears any resemblance to mine and to many others, he's cutting his own throat by aborting. In my and many other cases 60s do better than 30s. The really funny thing is that he's aborting both 30s and 60s. I don't know why. I looked at about a dozen of them and all the aborts come after qourum is meet. |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 |
Agreed, all the ones I looked at were 221 auto-aborts. No CWCP'ing here that I could see. Also, The main reason you see a lot 60 something credit results draw the 221 is if you have your cache set to a large value, when you draw a bunch 'shorties' the scheduler puts the long running ones on the backburner in order to clear the earlier deadline ones. In a lot of case this gives your wingmen a much better chance of beating your host back to forum the quorum and make your result a candidate for a 221. Alinator |
Brian Silvers Send message Joined: 11 Jun 99 Posts: 1681 Credit: 492,052 RAC: 0 |
@Philadelphia - Yeah, I know what you thought, and it's not a bad thought, it's just that if the result pages (both views) had better explanations, it would go a lot further towards both explaining it to the curious and for quelling the "fears" of those wanting to "protect" their stat standings... IMO, YMMV, etc, etc, etc... |
Philadelphia Send message Joined: 12 Feb 07 Posts: 1590 Credit: 399,688 RAC: 0 |
Agreed, they are short and cripted. |
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