Quite frankly I can't understand why people hide their computers (just look at mine and you'll see that no sensitive info is given out), but are you sure that you're not getting Multibeam work confused with Astropulse work?

Cheers.

Frankly, I don't understand why people seem to want me to un-hide my machines (it has happened before). Didn't seti@home give users the option to hide their machines? Why would they do that if not for user's security concerns? Anyway, I've been around long enough to know what I am now, and what I have been crunching; further, my post was not a criticism of the program, merely curiosity whether anyone else has experienced what I have and if anyone has an explanation for it. Since this recently started happening on all of my machines that are processing the same type of data, my machines don't appear to be a factor.

Frankly, I don't understand why people seem to want me to un-hide my machines (it has happened before).

So they can help you.

Didn't seti@home give users the option to hide their machines? Why would they do that if not for user's security concerns?

It's nothing to do with security (as you can tell by looking at the systems that aren't hidden), just people's idiosyncrasies.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Didn't seti@home give users the option to hide their machines? Why would they do that if not for user's security concerns?

Most likely because some people wanted to hide the fact that they were using unauthorized computers (work) for their own gain.

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Well I certainly havn't been experiencing what you claim to be suffering and without seeing your task results how can we help you?

Cheers.

Frankly, I don't understand why people seem to want me to un-hide my machines (it has happened before). Didn't seti@home give users the option to hide their machines? Why would they do that if not for user's security concerns? Anyway, I've been around long enough to know what I am now, and what I have been crunching; further, my post was not a criticism of the program, merely curiosity whether anyone else has experienced what I have and if anyone has an explanation for it. Since this recently started happening on all of my machines that are processing the same type of data, my machines don't appear to be a factor.

There is no security concern by not having your computers hidden. What you are being told is that if you want help, they need to see your task list and with your computers hidden they cannot see the list and help you. There is no security concern. If you are that concerned about your computer security, staying off the Internet is the absolute protection or not running them at all. ;)

Have a great day! :)

Siran

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Some people might feel that is too much personal information to let the WHOLE WORLD see, even those who don't even crunch for seti@Home.

In which case, where the old computers do not have any tasks, the "Delete computer" defeats that idea. :-)

Frankly, I don't understand why people seem to want me to un-hide my machines (it has happened before).

IMHO the question is exactly the inverse: Why you need to hide your hosts?
You could see almost all heavy Seti (or Boinc) users keep them un-hiden for a good reason...

It's a common mistake of those who imagine if you un-hide your hosts has anything to do with security and make it "more vulnerable".
That is wrong and comes from the wrong idea of if you un-hide you host you open a door to the rest of the world in them.
That could be true with other type of software not Boinc.

When you un-hide your host you only allow the others besides know how many hosts you have, how they are configure and how they actually crunch the WU. With this info is possible to diagnostic how the host is running and suggest changes to optimize the host resources. When you un-hide the host you only allow other to see what your host already send to the server, mainly the WU crunching log file. You not give any access to your host, just the data stored on the servers side.

Keep the hosts hidden or not is a personal choice of course, but if you wish to ask for any help, it's almost impossible to anyone give a correct answer about your question without knowing what is on the other side. This is why each time anyone ask for help the first answer you hear is: if you have your hosts hidden we can't rely help you.

There are so many hosts/WU combinations who reacts different to each situation to be sure what is the right answer.

My 2 cents

<edit>
+ 1 to the Brent post:

Most likely because some people wanted to hide the fact that they were using unauthorized computers (work) for their own gain.

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Ah but by having them hidden, one can post anything they like with what they "say" they are running & no one can check. :-)
Un-hiding will show what gpu/cpu running.

The other thing that sometimes worries people is 'how much information is revealed?'

The logged-in owner of the computer can see details like name and IP address which should certainly be kept private and could be a security risk if revealed.

But those details are only visible to the owner: fear of disclosure of those should not be a deciding factor in choosing whether to hide or display your machines.

Re post 1981474 -That is assuming that some people are lying, which is not a very nice accusation.
But of course if you choose to publicly ask for help on the boards, then you have to meet your helpers 1/2 way.

Agreed. Should also note what they actually post. Certainly saves future embarrassment. :-)

-[ snip ]-

I like to keep a list of my past kit to remember the old days of running Win 98 and Pentium 4's etc. I can't imagine that would be anyone else's business except mine.

-[ snip ]-

For someone with their computers hidden and making such a statement as highlighted above, why look at mine then? You mentioned that my list goes back to '05. It should list computers from '04 since I started using BOINC back then, before the close of Classic. Why they are not is beyond me. I don't know why they don't show. Anyway, what business is it of yours to see my whole list vs. just what is current? It's not.

I don't hide mine because in the event that I need help, I don't want to have to un-hide them and then re-hide them once the issue is resolved. I really don't care if other users see my list, I'm just wondering why you singled me out in your previous post. That's all.

Qui-Gon is not the first person I have seen here asking for help and refusing to un-hide their computers so that people can actually help them with their issue(s).

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

-[ snip ]-
I like to keep a list of my past kit to remember the old days of running Win 98 and Pentium 4's etc. I can't imagine that would be anyone else's business except mine.
-[ snip ]-

For someone with their computers hidden and making such a statement as highlighted above, why look at mine then? You mentioned that my list goes back to '05. It should list computers from '04 since I started using BOINC back then, before the close of Classic. Why they are not is beyond me.

Well by posting that it would be interesting list from Chris.

Maybe he can take a snapshot & show us those "armful of 750ti's" he had running while he was working. :-)

Sorry if this has already been asked, but it seems my average time to crunch a given unit has doubled (or more). I still get some short units, but where my fastest machine was doing most units in 1 to 1.5 hours, most units now take 3+ hours. My older machines are taking proportionately longer as well. Have I missed some announced change?

The short answer is "probably." Task runs times vary significantly depending on the data, the format of the data, what site the data is from ((or is that re-redundant), the site and format are the same?) and if your laptops/desktop are running too hot.

Because details count, we can't give a much better answer than that without being able to see your tasks as well as your setup.

Your OS makes a difference. The type of gpus you are crunching on make a difference (are you using the intel internal gpu?). The video drivers installed make a difference. The specific tasks your systems are crunching makes a difference.

So like we said, "Probably."

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Finally an answer. Thank you Tom. To my original question about whether I missed some announced change that would affect my processing times, you said probably.

As to your explanation regarding my hidden machines: I run only the latest version of SAH; my laptops are both on chill pads and my desktop tower is well ventilated and kept clean; all three machines are running Windows 10, kept up to date; I don't use GPU's at all ( don't like the the way they seem to affect other computing); my video cards are OEM and the drivers are up to date.

I've been around computers since the late 1960's and I got my first home computer (rather late) in 1982. I try to keep up with technology and have a good working understanding of computers and distributed computing, specifically seti@home. Nothing about my computer hardware or software has changed for years, except that I got a new laptop last December, but the longer crunch times seem to have happened only a few weeks ago. My original question was not about my system(s) changing but whether SAH had changed something.

Those folks here who chided me for having my computers hidden, saying there was no security risk, might not have heard about the hacking of Facebook (personal info) or Equifax (financial info). What could a hacker do with some random person's machine information? I don't want to be the random person who finds out, especially when I am convinced the information does not need to be shared in this case.

On an unrelated note: hiya Siran. Hope you and yours are doing well--message me if you'd like.

I note your conviction, but you could well be wrong.
Let me explain:
There have been a number of changes that have taken place over recent years that could well result in your particular hardware suffering degraded performance, and since we didn't know you are only using your CPUs the request to unhide was made (all too often the response give to "what hardware and operating system?" are inaccurate and incomplet -as yours are.
While it less likely that you are running a "wrong but compatible" CPU applicaiton than if you were using the GPUs it is not impossible.
That said, some of the default applications sent out today are not best suited to all CPUs, thus, knowing which CPU you have, and which operating system you have can save a lot of time.

About three years ago there was one very significant change, for "v7" MultiBeam to "v8" MultiBeam tasks and applications, this resulted in an increase in runtime of between 10 and 80% - depending on the hardware in use. Since you gave no indication of the timescale of the increase in runtime took place every body was groping around trying to work out what you were asking.
In addition to the change in version there has been the arrival of data from the Green Bank Telescope, the processing of this affects different processors differently, all that can be said it is "different to the times for Arecibo data" - some systems it is faster, and others it is much slower with AMD FX processors generally "loosing" while Intel Core ix processors "gaining" - again the timescale for this introduction is about three years.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

the information that would be seen about your system by unhiding them, is only hardware specs and task run details, and only affects what is viewable to the public. there is no personally identifiable info available if you unhide them.

you are no more or less at risk from "hackers" if you hide or unhide your systems. hackers do not need to "hack" publicly available information. and having your systems hidden does not prevent the more important details you mean to protect from still being logged by the seti@home systems.

if hackers wanted to attack the seti databases, having your systems hidden will not protect you. they will still get all the personal system info and metadata because seti has that anyway.

no one really cares if you want to hide your systems. we are just telling you that 1) it doesnt protect you, and 2) it makes diagnosing any potential problem harder because we cant see the information about the WUs being processed, which includes the kind of WU and how long it took, what application was being used to process it, and so on. we can use that data to better help determine if your slowdown was caused by a new kind of WU, or if it was caused by a problem with your hardware.

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Seti@Home classic workunits: 29,492 CPU time: 134,419 hours

Got more money than sense? Want a monster cruncher?
Two systems in one box, an 18 core/ 36 thread Intel Core i9-7980XE processor overclocked to a minimum of 4.6GHz with 3 * Titan RTXs and a i7-9700K overclocked to 5.0GHz plus another Titan RTX . Apparently all you need is US$43,000. I'm thinking that would buy quite a few i7 8700 or Ryzen 7 systems with RTX 2080Tis in them.
The most ridiculous system ever?

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Grant
Darwin NT

If you've got systems with a USB 3.1 port that aren't on the same network, this looks like a very useful device.
USBC-NVME USB 3.1 Gen 2 NVMe SSD Enclosure

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Grant
Darwin NT

Finally an answer. Thank you Tom. To my original question about whether I missed some announced change that would affect my processing times, you said probably.

As to your explanation regarding my hidden machines: I run only the latest version of SAH; my laptops are both on chill pads and my desktop tower is well ventilated and kept clean; all three machines are running Windows 10, kept up to date; I don't use GPU's at all ( don't like the the way they seem to affect other computing); my video cards are OEM and the drivers are up to date.

Some months ago I was getting cpu tasks on my Intel e5-2690v2 box running in about 1 hour 15 minutes. Now the "average estimated time to process" has ballooned up to nearly 2 hours.

The announced changes include processing some data that is from 2006. There are other specific kinds of data that run slower (excluding AP tasks/data which always run slower).

If you run the internal gpus of older Intel chips it slows the entire processing down. I have had good luck with any discrete gpu (laptop or desktop) that is fairly late model. I recommend things like a used gtx 750Ti or higher for crunching.

There are Windows utilities that work with Boinc Manager to limit the temperature that a system runs at so it can't fry your laptops/desktop.

I used chill pads back when I was running Netbooks to crunch data (the GPU times were impressively slow, so were the CPU times :)

I wish you well. Every active Seti user counts!!!

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).