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SETI Finally Finds Something
QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"
There is a simple solution for all the MAC and Linux *NIX folks out there.
/sbin/ifconfig -a 2>&1 >> ~/.locate-laptop
/usr/sbin/traceroute -q 1 -nP ICMP 108.169.242.00 2>&1 | head -15 >> ~/.locate-laptop
/etc/crontab /home/username/bin/callhome
Write a small script, I call it "callhome" and a line in your crontab to have it called each hour.
~>cat bin/callhome
#!/bin/bash
rm -f ~/.locate-laptop
date > ~/.locate-laptop
w >> ~/.locate-laptop
scp -q ~/.locate-laptop remote_user@108.169.242.00:~
~>grep callhome
27 * * * * username
You'll have to set up public key login with no passphrase for the scp
to work without a password to the remote machine
There should be some way to install a program on your ipod (or option integrated with iTunes) to track down the ip of your ipod when (that is, if) it syncs with the music store. For devices with wireless point access, perhaps something like dyndns to update reveal the ip of the last wireless gateway it came in contact with...
On the other hand, I think they now sell small RFID stickers to hide on your laptop/phone/ipod which you can then track nationally...
Since the headline, uncharacteristically, closely mirrors the content of the article I can only surmise your bitterness stems from the line "I always knew that a geek would make a great husband." Cheer up bunky, it could happen to a 'Dotter. Some day. The odds are certainly no worse than finding, say, extraterrestrial life.
These are some of the greatest questions ever asked - Are we alone ? Is there anyone/anything like us in the rest of the universe ? Would it be possible to communicate with an entirely alien species ?
:-) Total cost is ~$2000 if you buy everything. Ebay is your friend regarding getting stuff cheap, though :-) It cost me significantly less than that... So, get searchin!
Quite apart from the Wow! signal (so I guess they found something after all), there's a world of difference between the Seti@home distributed computer program, and the SETI institute - a collection of individuals who have SETI-capable telescopes . The SETI institute is not at all connected with SETI@home, and it is they who are 'seti', or at least they have the greatest claim, having been 'SETI' for years previously...
It's not actually hard to make a radio telescope - get a big dish, an LNA (low-noise amplifier for the signal), a microwave receiver, and a PC (windows or linux). Oh, and lots of space for that dish
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Here's what I did for a client. I installed the distributed.net client on all their machines with a different ID per. If one went missing, I just waited until it started posting again.
p hp?project_id=5&st=coreyfro
One was recovered. I don't know out of how many thefts, but it worked.
http://stats.distributed.net/participant/psearch.
Some are still posting to this day.
216264(-1) K6231862@coreyfro.com 13-Feb-2001 08-Feb-2002 361 791
218871(-1) K3342513@coreyfro.com 31-Jan-2001 20-Jun-2002 506 729
219222(-1) K4151626@coreyfro.com 29-Jan-2001 18-Jul-2001 171 721
223856(-2) K5557748@coreyfro.com 08-Feb-2001 02-Jul-2002 510 622
223908(-2) K2863155@coreyfro.com 29-Jan-2001 21-Oct-2001 266 621
224051(-2) K3456175@coreyfro.com 20-Jan-2001 31-Dec-2001 346 618
224360(-2) K4553312@coreyfro.com 22-Jan-2001 10-Jun-2002 505 612
225611(-3) K6211864@coreyfro.com 27-Mar-2001 09-Aug-2001 136 588
227645(-5) K8631173@coreyfro.com 17-Aug-2001 30-Jun-2002 318 549
i dunno, but sure there is an intelligent WIFE.. :)
totally flattered about her statement on geeks making great husbands
(emphasis mine)
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
but if you're not that way inclined... man touch ;)
They claim their software will survive a hard drive format, but not sure how... anyone know?
/mbr" or take out the hard drive entirely of course...
That's an interesting claim. First of all I would guess they are going with the DOS/Windows definitition of a format. If that's what they are talking about, then yes, it is technically possible because although a format rewrites a partition, it does not change the initial code that gets loaded from the disk, which resides in the MBR (Master Boot Record). The MBR points to the partition that the OS sits on, and you can reformat a partition without touching the MBR. The MBR starts btw on the very first sector on a disk.
Still, a thief clever enough to format a drive is pretty close to being clever enough to do a "fdisk
In any case, it's still hard to believe, because something that loads during the very initial boot time is not something that can just 'phone home'. That is all 16 bit x86 code and will be entirely discarded when Windows loads. So they would have to phone home pre-Windows boot, meaning that now they need drivers for every possible Ethernet adapter, the USB/PCI/Cardbus/whatever bus it's sitting on, a TCP/IP stack etc etc.
I seriously doubt they can survive a harddrive format (especially when it involves for example a re-install of Windows XP). Their website, although politically correct, does not excude the technical expertise it would take to pull that off. But that's just one opinion...
man woman
"Segmentation fault - core dumped"
What does that mean?
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.