Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the vounteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Those of you that are visiting Slashdot for the first time and didn't know that, you might want to stick around (and scroll down) because we're going to explain what a Beowulf Cluster is next.
phone home.
that there is intelligent life on Earth?
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices cheered and were suddenly silenced.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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
why doesn't someone do a 'phone home' laptop insurance program that provides tracking information just like this? (privacy issues aside (until the first reply to this comment; see below)).
It could be nicely open sourced, and run via a p2p network to distribute the load for the tracking servers. Obviously a lot of details would have to be worked out to avoid abuse, but it could be as simple as sending an "I'm here" message encrypted with a dedicated private key to the p2p network. The person who wants to track their stolen goods just pops the public key (stored on a CD/usb stick/online, generated on install) into the network and it comes back with the last known location. No?
Sensationalism strikes back ... and it hurts.
Anyway, it proves that at least one geek in the entire world (universe ?) had sex that night.
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!
"Kimberly's writings were safe, and the thieves didn't appear to have broken into her e-mail or other personal folders."
How, exactly, do you break into a personal folder? Is double-clicking it called "breaking" in these days? I thought the conventional term was "opening"...
Stop writing misleading headlines like these just to grap page-views ...
Ah, I believe you mispelled grep.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Maaan! I was reading through that whole summary, excitedly awaiting my chance to welcome our new overlords..... and all they found was a laptop!?!??! What a crock!
I got nothin'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"So far nothing noteworthy has come out of this massive project"
Dismissed a trend-setting project with just that one line. Of course, it does not matter that SETI@Home showed the power of volunteer computing for the first time, led to new advances in distributed computing, motivated Grid computing and PlanetLab among others and spun off BOINC, an open source project that serves as a base for similar @Home projects.
But, of course, it no find me any ALIEN!!! Bah,
... unintelligent life on earth.
Man, if I ever meet whoever is responsible for that headline, I'm going to burn down your house.
I haven't felt this let down since I walked in on my dad bangin my mom while wearing a Santa costume on Christmas morning.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Well don't be too hard on him. Seti@Home is some kind of demon; it posessed my computer. After I closed the window, it was still running!
would be Linus sitting in the pumpkin patch. :)
dum de dum de dum de dum de dum
Simple enough, though it generally requires a warrent.
All blocks of IP addresses are owned by somebody, mostly ISPs.
Once you have an IP address, you look up who owns it and you call them. They do their research, looking at things such as DNS records, DHCP assignments, DSLAM logs, etc... They then look up which customer that was, and there you go.
In a corporate enviroment a simply DNS lookup should give you a computer name, a little more the switchport it's connected to, and a little digging who's logged into it.
I don't read AC A human right
Sure it turned out handy this one freak incident, but wait till there's smoke in the house and he looks back and forth between the plasma screen and the laptop a couple times, finally grabs the laptop and is out the door without so much as a look in her direction.
Of course, if the laptop started the fire then the choice is much easier
That was a truthful headline. Something WAS found using SETI@home. If SETI@home had found evidence of intelligent life, the headline would've said so. As if the truth of the headline wasn't enough, the huge foot icon should've been a big indication that it's humorous. Furthermore, you are the exact kind of person who needs this kind of article. Laugh a little bit. Life's short, may as well enjoy it.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
man woman
...are we to understand that E.T.'s (who listen to bad rap music) stole this laptop?
I RTFA, and the police used the IP to locate the laptop, but no one has been arrested. Hmmm...
MIB: "We'll take over from here."
Police Man: "But this thug stole a woman's laptop!"
(MIB puts on dark glasses)
MIB: "Officer, I'm going to need you to stare into this pen for me for just a second..."
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
You have her grab the laptop and you grab the plasma screen. Geez. You call yourselve a geek and cannot even figure out this simple puzzel?
Now if the comment had been "I always knew that a geek would make a great father" then you would have had a point.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ok, which one is more likely:
SETI finding intelligent life?
or a GEEK getting married?
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
So is yours.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?