Slashdot Mirror
SETI@home having Problems
Foxman writes "Due to
failures in coping with the overwhelming response from
volunteers, the SETI@home project has been erroneously
sending the same packets of radio data to its 500,000 participants."
The scariest comment is the estimate that SETI@Home is using
8 tons of fossil fuel per hour.
Please upgrade your client.
Really? You test your software with 500,000 different client connections coming from different parts of the Internet?
Wow, you must be really good!
They claim that their pipeline is not up to speed and that UNIX users are cheating. First of all, 115 work units is nothing. They could have sent more data using Morse code. Secondly, even if users are sending duplicate data, it should be fairly trivial to filter it out.
Who are they trying to fool ?
The beginning of the article seemed kinda rude. I don't see how anyone could possibly have expected the project to run perfectly smoothly when. 1)They had 5 time the number people download the client as anybody predicted. 2)The whole project is living off of a shoestring budget. and 3) There are people rude enough to cheat on the meaningless statistics (Which I think would be the true waste of time. The crackers are analagous to people trying to cheat the lottery by buying 500 tickets with the same number. The most sorry thing about it is that they fail to win the lottery in the process of wasting $500.)
and wont be back for 1435 years
Maybe their hardware or operating system is causing them problems, but they can't blame their corporate sponsors who have generously donated stuff. Pleading for more/better servers would be an insult.
finger://johnc@idsoftware.com
Anderson said one advantage to having so many volunteers is that the project should easily catch up with the backlog of data once the problems are ironed out. On the downside, he said, some volunteers are cheating. Yeah its really nice to have so many volunteers, I wonder how long they're going to stay around when youre not only wasting their time and valuable resources but call them cheaters as well!
Actually, they discovered the transmission was the source code for Windows 2000 and MS shut the whole operation down.
"Is nothing sacred?" is a rhetorical question which is always asked about something that's clearly not.
and in case you cared to read the article you would have realized that they did do stress testing. their biggest problem is simply not having enough data for everybody. this has nothing to do with stress testing and there really is no easy way to prevent this. thankfully sun has donated some machines to them and this should help solve the problem, allowing them to prepare and serve enough data for everyone.
With crap like this going on to legitimate, not-for-profit science, is it any wonder the term 'hacker' gets bad press.
Won't argue with you there. It isn't any wonder, and it does kinda-sorta invalidate some of the utopian "we can all work together" propaganda. The people promoting stuff like this are shineing a really bright light on the whole OSS concept.
One world, one nation, one GNU. er... let me rephrase that....
>Anderson said that at least two of the top 10
>work groups have only reached the rankings
>because some of the members had cheated.
>
>"I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's
>fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing
>most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker
>mentality."
Come on folks, instead of pouting at that jab, why don't we just condemn the practice of deliberately undermining a worthwhile project? I don't doubt for a second that if someone is screwing with SETI@home it's us linux hackers. Very few others would be capable or interested in figuring out how. The fact that most of the cheating has come from unix/linux users is utterly beleiveable.
Now lets just be real and say "Stop it!", and quit defending obviously dishonorable behavior.
Marlboro
mmalone1@pdq.net
'it's fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker mentality.'
As a scientist, this type of crap makes me sick to the pit of my stomach. They are pulling out the old 'cop the blame on a suitable scapegoat' trick, and it stinks.
I hope these guys lose their funding, if not for being arrogant pricks, for their incompetence.
And don't run Linux on your laptop. I've left my laptop running Linux beside my bed at night. The spinning up of the drive over and over and over again as it syncs has sort of a calming affect as I sleep. Except the time I came in the room to find the machine going "ack ack ack ack" as the hard drive worked furiously (near as I can tell there must have been a hard error on the drive media, and sync was pounding it to death). When I run Windows on said laptop, with power management enabled, it goes nicely asleep after some idle time.
Real OSes (tm) idle the hard drive, the monitor, and the cpu itself when nobody is using it. Of course, a server has to be ready to do work at any time, the ethernet has to be listening, etc. so it can't go into deep power management sleep. So people who run a server OS on their desktop (a few OSes come to mind...) are wasting quite a bit of power, logging that always lauded 'uptime' on machines they use maybe 5 hours a day.
Don't miss those cron jobs, dude. Keep it running. The electric company loves ya for it!
It's all a conspiracy, man.
The Aliens figured out what we were up to and have us running in loops now.
Besides, if the people aren't using the HLT command, they're really not wasting anything
Actually the only OS's not using the HLT instruction are those based on DOS (like that dos app called Windows). So at least the Linux/Unix cheaters were wasting power (running WinDos of course is allways a waste of power).
(unless they're intentionally leaving their computers on longer than they otherwise would have;
You mean like everybody I know that are wasting their resources with this crap?
Now I look like an idiot.
Let this be a lesson to you. Check your mirror regularly.
What would you have done with idle CPU time, anyway? Run Life simulations to generation Googol?
Use them for another distributed project.
Basically, these cowboys can get stuffed. Mersienne primes and RC5 are much better places for me to spend spare cycles; and to think, I'd stopped my distributed.net efforts to help out the SETI@home people. Pity they're arrogant (we won't release the client, then it won't get cracked!) , obnoxious (Unix users suck!) and disorganised.
I'm sure distributed.net will appreciate getting those dozen or so Pentium II and IIIs back.
What's the deal?
They said they had prepared for 150,000 users, and that because they got 500,000 users it caused everything to behave wrong...
500,000 is about 3,5 times more thn 150,000. That's not a big deal...
It's not as if they had prepared for a crowd of, let's say 10,000 and then ended up with 50 times more volonteers. Not that's a difference.
What I mean is, when you get 3,5 more users, your system is supposed to become slower, of course... but it's still supposed to function.
What do you guys think?
Furthermore, recent advances in RF technology have made it clear that it's positively idiotic to believe that alien life forms would be using the same modes of radio transmission we do.
so what your saying is that all potential alien life is and always has been more advanced than us? how do you know so much more about alien life than everybody else? please explain this because i', sure that many here would really like to hear your answer.
now it may be true that a more advanced life form could be using a radio signal that we cant detect but to claim that all potential alien life has and does use technologies that we currently cant detect is absurd. most scientist involved with these projects do realize that there is no way for us to detect all possible forms of alien communication.
stop spreading your FUD and get a clue.
No, that would not work because public-key encryption is extremely CPU intensive... They already have load problems, this would only add more!
If they were more familiar with distributed computing projects on the internet, they would have known to check for duplicate data being sent. Distributed.net has been doing this for years.
Better yet I haven't participated, now I know it wouldn't have been appreciated any way !!!
(Yes I'm a LINUX fanatic)
It seems to me the only time that calling people cheaters isn't offensive is when it's actually true.
Grow up? now that's a really matrure response. Who the f*ck are you anyway telling me when to take offence or not? And yeah there is something you should know about, actually there are a lot of things you should know about but you won't hear them from me. Get a clue, dumbass!
This is all part of project echelon. SETI stands for Secret Echelon Technology Initiative. This is how they break everyones encryption. ;-)
Is SETI worthy science? You bet.
Yes, the odds are very, very long. Yes, there's no way to ensure that a given extraterrestrial civilization uses similar radio technology as we do. And yes, we don't expect to start listening in on the Galatic version of CB Channel 19.
However, there IS a finite probability that there IS extraterrestrial life, and another finite probability that they DO use RF technology that we can both detect and recognise. Small perhaps, but finite. So we look.
Sure, all I've got is a very crude telescope, and some pendulums, and some sticks, and this inclined plane. Sure my technology sucks, and there's bound to be better ways to observe the universe, and to measure the passage of time, and speeds of objects, and whatnot. But if I'm Galilieo, I can still make some pretty amazing discoveries with my shitty technology and historical viewpoint.
The fact that success may or may not be likely is not something that should prevent the effort.
115 WU over the last weeks, 350 KB each. What kind of pipeline is that ? Even at 2400 baud...
336,000 is greater than 100,000.
115 is nowhere near 100,000 now is it?
Duh!
The moral of the story? Sit back, relax, unistall SETI@Home and turn your machines off when youre not using them, the people at SETI won't be doing anythig usefull on them anyway. Sheesh yourself.
I don't get the fuss about waste.
It's not just about the wasted CPU usage. It's also about the huge waste of bandwidth and money for people who pay their telco for their Internet connexion by the minute.
That's ridiculous! Distributed.net has stats that are way more elaborate and they don't have any problems with duplicate data.
For a list of links to worthwhile distributed projects, visit Mersenne.org.
Yep, if I'm not dialed in it won't send them back. I've only had two that actually made it, out of 4 that I have done.
The day I signed up for SETI@Home, the first day of availability for UNIX clients, I read the FAQ. There was something to the effect of "If the total number of computers should exceed the amount of data available what will you do?" The answer was "We will send out duplicate data." This has been available on their website for quite some time now, and should not catch anyone by surprise. Certainly there is some waste of energy, but I for one am happy for the flood of volunteers. It would be nice if they would donate their extra power to d.net or something!
Don't get your shorts in a bunch, though-- they have been saying that they would do this from the get-go, and I am a bit worried that so many of you are mad at them without checking your facts.
They are doing a great geek thing, looking for aliens with idle CPU cycles. Can you think of anything more completely geek? Be nice while they work out the kinks. Or send them a buck so they can by a second tape unit for the telescope so enough data can be recorded for all the excited volunteers.
"I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's fair to say the Unix
and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the
hacker mentality."
Dr. Anderson should be more direct and less insulting when asking for help with his security audits.
There is a very simple solution to result validation, just send the same data packet to two different clients and compare results.
That it's actually possible to turn a machine off when its not beeing used? Besides that all modern hard disks have a power save function.
I don't get the fuss about waste.
That's probably because you are the kind of guy who allways leaves the heating and all the electrical appliances in his house on (not to mention the water running).
What would your CPU do otherwise?
Provided that it isn't turned off, something usefull perhaps, or maybe you could explain what the use of processing the same 115 data packets a couple of million times was?
I don't see how you could take it personally unless a) you are cheating, b) you have a big chip on your shoulder.
So if I called you an asshole, you wouldn't be offended because you knew it wasn't true, right? And it isn't very gratefull either now is it?
they will describe it in great deatail
Will that be before or after they find alien life?
They are using UNIX on their back end and...
Ahh, so when you run Unix yourself you can offend other people running it, now I see, thanks for clearing that up!
they are trying to do real peer-reviewed science
They should try not to offend the people helping them out.
I think their concern about doing what they can to eliminate tampering is a valid one.
You make it sound like security sofware could never be opensource. Wake up dude, opensource is more secure because there are more people who know how it works and where the vulnerabilities are. This way stuff has to be really secure even from people who know how it works. So If they were serious about wanted to do something to stop tampering they'd opensource it!
In my opinion anyone relying on the "what you don't know won't hurt you" security policy will get what they deserve (sooner or later).
And you should never ever blame crackers for any security holes (bugs) you created yourself.
I don't mind you beeing stupid, I just mind you advertising it over here!
"If the total number of computers should exceed the amount of data available what will you do?" The answer was "We will send out duplicate data."
You are actually saying that they can't handle more than 115 machines, that's very reassuring
I don't think that these "brilliant" scientists actually need our headache-bringing hacking skills, it seems like they've got everything perfectly under control!
500,000 simultanious connections as extreme as 150,000. I am not sure they actually tested it against the latter number. In fact, given that fact that they claimed to have 35Gb a day of work-units (and 350kb per unit send), we have 35,000,000/350 = 100,000 users per day. So, given the fact that they expected at least 150,000 they would max out rather soon. Bad planning.
well given the fact that i average about 3/4 of a block in 24 hours of processing on a p2 400 (windows) and given the fact that the average machine it is running on is probably not as fast as a p2 400, your numbers begin to not look so bad. their estimates were fairly good with a little extra room to grow.
Now, pardon my mood, but I am completely pissed off the fact, they released extremely slow Win client, while according to their own statistics Pentium/Windows platform leads by at least 5-8 times. Excuse me, but if they had a bit of brains they would optimise first WINDOWS client, no matter how they hate it.
they probably already have but what would the point in releasing it be, it would only agravate the problems they are currently experiancing. in case no one told you, this isnt a race.
if you chose to think a little more about what you are doing instead of thinking about yourself then maybe you wouldnt be so angry in the first place.
So the Windows client is actually perfect and can never be hacked? That would be a first!
> My computers have been on anyway!
Like I realy care what you do with them!
None of the people who complaind asked half a million other people to help them, and then after wasting their resources, called a very large mount of their volunteers cheats. Talk about guts! These guys should be lucky to get CPU-cycles at all with such an arrogant attitude.
Here is my distributed client, it produces allmost the same usefull results(no screensaver though):
main()
{
while(1) ;
}
And the next release will have the "waste network bandwith" feature
Come on Man!
15,000 People are signing up daily. Through word of mouth users will mushroom to 2 million by July! We could do a lot of good with all this free computing power.
How does it feel to be on the recieving end of a bigoted gernealization?
...about the fact that some bunch of idiots is screwing with the system...
First of all wo wrongs don't make a right (but three lefts will). Generalizing slashdot users won't help either, unless your point is that it's OK and we should keep on doing it. However none of these posts end up as aquote from a key figure in a world wide published computermagazine read by "ordinary" people. Even worse we don't ask windows users to help us out before insulting them now do we?
1. They should have fixed their own bug long time ago instead of whining about people abusing it.
2. They should have released a new Unix Client
3. Yeah right Windows has never been hacked, and hackers never use windows, dream on.
Therefore the majority of the "headaches" for the project come from the Unix/Linux community with the hacker mentality, correct? Isn't that what Dr. Anderson said?
Well if that's the case maybe we should all leave that poor man alone and quit bugging him with all our Unix clients
Right only it's not the people wanting to see their name in lights but the so called scientists that are supposed to be running this system! And that's excactly what were upset about
They should have oss'd it from the start!
Man some people here should really grow up...and learn to sign their name if they are gonna troll for responses with four letter words! Grow up chicken shit!
Now this is really mature! Like I explained about 1,000,000 times before, I really, really don't need yet another stupid login account.
I multiboot Linux and Nintendows 98. Eta on Nintendows is typicly 43 hours, reboot into linux and do it in half the time 22 hours. This, with one of our cute lil Celeron hacks (dual Celeron 475s) and return times become stellar. Its possible they didn't cheat, no metter how quickly its returned. I think they have a parrallel version of seti, and if thats true a 55 second return is possible.
Cracking is done by the kiddies not those who seek to improve the system. They should release the source so we can fix it.
The power is mine.
They (or RZ13XNET-TEAM at least, which is the only one I know of -- they immediately admitted the cheat when asked) just kept sending the same result file over and over again -- no need to download any new work units.
1. they are way late delivering their client programs
2. they wouldn't release source to their client because
they were scared it would screw up the scientific reliability
of the results. but on the other hand their attitude
towards data integrity is to assume that people
won't exploit loopholes. this is a contradiction in basic logic.
3. the servers have been up and down, off and on, for a while
4. these guys are payed to do this. how come rc5, etc
worked so much better, tho it was run by volunteers?
they said they would send out the same data
to several clients in order to provide more reliability
in their results.
I guess most of the Windows users have only one CPU, but many of the unix users have many many more. I used to run 30-40 CPUs while there were still Unix clients for my platforms. Some are running hundreds of computers under a single user name. I think you can at least assume two CPUs per user.
Arrgh. This has been said many times by many people: Just send the units out twice, at random times, and compare results. And they know the id of users who send bad results. If the problem gets big then just send out each unit three times and accept it when two are the same. A simple scheme which would not be easy to cheat!
Having started from an entirely different point, why would a completely foreign culture do things anything like we do?
Because space and time are the same, no matter where in the universe you are. Light and radio waves are not human creations. Seti@Home is looking for radio waves. Why wouldn't aliens use the physical world? Or do you expect they all communicate with telepathy?
What are you complaining about?
...That the windows client isn't the fastest client they have? Did it even occur to you that it might not have been anything to do with the amount of time spent coding it?
Perhaps (!GASP!) its because windows isnt the fastest operating system. Why didn't they optimize the Unix-based client for linux, since they probably have a higher number of linux boxes then BSD servers running the client (no, I haven't checked, I might be wrong)?
Because this program isn't made to get the job done in the shortest amount of time possible. Macs do generally better than windows boxes because their multitasking isn't quite as developed. As a result, I can notice quite a difference when my mac is running s@h from when it is not. on my PC with windows, I don't notice much even though the processors are comparable. Booted to linux, with the text mode client, I hardly notice at all since right now my proc load is only between 5-10%.
NOTE: This software is not benchmarking software. (Thank god)
It almost seems like you are mad that your computer isn't as fast as a quad-SPARC server. Get a life. This "Mine is bigger than yours" mentality is so unneeded.
- Im not really anonymous...just lazy...the cookie left on vacation.
The fact is a message was found in all that static. And this is all part of a massive cover up which is in turn part of an even larger conspiracy. They are coming!!!!!
David Anderson is probably like a lot here, a geek (me included)
/. look like Sunday school)...
Geeks (not all) tend to have poor communication skills. Plus if he is a scientist, I would think they would tend not to like to disclose mistakes until they have exhausted all avenues (there peer review process makes
Ok, asbestos suit on, all the geeks with terrific presentation skills follow up with how great a communicator you are (even when you f%$#ed up)
I'm sure they're really upset that the author of the epic "i r0q you, wh0r3" isn't impressed with their scientific credentials. WTF are you?
Well,
I think it is kind of noteworthy that in the articale the entire community gets labelled as unreliable.
And those guys may actually have a point here...
Now, the big question is, how much of the 12y/4y headstart team slashdot has over MS is due to cheating?
Well,
I think it is kind of noteworthy that in the article the entire community gets labelled as unreliable.
And those guys may actually have a point here...
Now, the big question is, how much of the 12y/4y headstart team slashdot has over MS is due to cheating?
To All who think clectricity is clean power:
Coal produces 56% of America's electricity.
http://www.chevron.com/about/coal/main.html
I hate to say this, but Meister Anderson's attitude reeks of academic calcification. The official FAQ on the S@H web site disdains Open Source because "there may be a few people that want to deliberately try to screw up our database and server". (You think this guy watches too much X-Files? This sounds like fear of conspiracy...) This indicates to me that he _thinks_ he understands OS, while being quite far off from the truth. He now blames the same people who are powering S@H for its problems, rather than the real cause: Lack of preparation and disconnection from reality on the part of the developers.
Also quoted from the FAQ: "We decided not to make source code available for security reasons and for science reasons as well." 'Good Science' REQUIRES review and verification. 'Junk Science' flourishes in a black box environment. S@H chose the 'dark side'.
As he states in the Wired article, any cheating could be quickly verified; so doesn't he discount his own reason for fear? A quick look at the distributed.net successes would counterpoint his fears as well... Where did they get the idea for S@H if not the success of other projects? (Projects that never blamed their problems or setbacks on the participants!)
My conclusion is that a couple of academic stiffs whacked this together and never expected anyone but astronomy majors to be interested in running it. The media attention struck them like headlights strike a deer, they missed their projected deadlines, and like most academics they can't recognize their poor planning so they claim 'death by success'. Blaming the participants is a sure way to make sure those Suns are never needed.
I personally have uninstalled the five copies I was running, and I won't be installing S@H on the lab equipment or the server rack.. After all, I wouldn't want our lab equipment to be blamed for their failure.
-ck
Agreed!!!
Sagan is awesome.
BTW, The Demon Haunted World is still my #1 Sagan book. The chapter on "Baloney Detection" is pure genius.
(And "Dragon In My Garage" is not bad either!)
I've seen several posts now that question whether there is hard science behind the SETI project. Several people have posted that they dobut the SETI researchers would be able to tell alien radiation from background waves, and if they could, they don't have precise enough equipment to detect this radiation.
I also noticed that several people posted complaining that SETI has not released their source code like the team at distributed.net did. I know they SAY they won't release the code because they don't want people to hamper the accuracy of the results, but...
I was just thinking...could the answer to both of these questions be that the SETI project isn't searching for alien signals at all, but instead doing something else with our idle cpu time? It could be they just want the computing power to do something else that is government related. (This would also explain why the project has been carried out so ineptly...if they hadn't tested the program for more than 150,000 computers, why did they let people keep downloading it after the downloads passed 300,000???) This propsal has absolutely no fact behind it, and I realize it is somewhat preposterous. I think it is an interesting thought. (Kind of X-Files-ish though)
I feel the need to respond to a few of these claims that SETI is rather pointless.
First of all you claim that alien civilizations
would never use narrow band transmissions, because
they are inefficient, and wide band digital
transmissions are a much better means of
comnunication.
I think you've missed the basic assumption that the SETI folks are looking for intentional inter-stellar transmissions, and not RF leaking from a planet. Given current antenna gain and signal processing it isn't believed we could detect RF leakage more than a few light years away.
We assume that any civilization sending an intentional signal would want to make their signal easily distinguishable from a natural source. One good way of doing this is narrow
band transmissions.
The other point you seem to make is about a large
amount of differing modulation techniques. Well, the SETI search isn't trying to decode any signals, only distinguish "natural" RF from
an intentional signal.
I think everyone understands that the chances of
finding anything are EXTREMELY remote. But it
still needs to be done, but I'm not sure the entire point of all this is to JUST find something. All searches need to start somewhere,
and there will undoubtedly be more searches in the
future that cover a wider spectrum, detect weaker
signals, more of the sky, and for longer period of time. The seti project also inspires peoples imaginations of what's possible and lends some
credence to the idea that there may be intelligent life out there trying to contact us. These are all very important things for seti searches to expand. Science is inherently political and the more people that support an area of research the more $ and advances that will likely come to it.
NO. You can blank screen in your Control Panel, which is available to Administrators on Windows NT 4.0, and disabled for others (in my case), why do you assume everyone has assess to Admin Tools? There is _no_ such option to disable drawing pretty picture in v1.0 of Windows client.
Answer to others:
What are you complaining about?
...That the windows client isn't the fastest client they have? Did it even occur to you that it might not have been anything to do with the amount of time spent coding it
Give me the source and I will fix bugs that annoy ME, where is it? While I could dedicated time for this fix, I most certainly have no desire to DBG it in WinIce, no thanks. Their's fault is not because Win client is not the fasters, fault is that they could do simply optimization in 5 min and release v1.01 and double performance of Win client, but they (for some reasons I see no big justification) didn't. Again, if they release source I won't complain but fix it on my own.
Perhaps (!GASP!) its because windows isnt the fastest operating system
Are you in your mind? What function of the OS this client is using beyond nice (slow) GUI? Client is ultimately has main math routines hard coded in Asm, it doesn't rely on MS SETI API to call it does it? So, this has nothing with OS, it's poor programming. Again, give me source and I will point out what _and_ fix it.
Now, multitasking, these guys didn't program it well at all for windows, period. I bet you tried both d.net client and SETI@home, found any difference? The latter won't let you work even in MSword, while the first is just fine. Of course some knowledgeably people suggested to change priorities manually, but why on Earth (or Mars) you think everyone is Admin???? Give simple, 5 minutes to code option in your program to change priority.
You don't get it, I don't really try to compete with SPARKS or whatever, but such a clearly poor implementation, which _can_ be easily fixed has no justifications, and they don't even admit it!
well given the fact that i average about 3/4 of a block in 24 hours of processing on a p2 400 (windows) and given the fact that the average machine it is running on is probably not as fast as a p2 400, your numbers begin to not look so bad. their estimates were fairly good with a little extra room to grow.
I agree. Their estimates were good. If so, why they are saying they didn't estimate it??? Perhaps they estimated, but were not ready, which is legitimate. Servers cost money and I appreciate that they will have them some time later, but software is in their full control.
You guys are weird, you should be fair to recognize poor ports which run badly on Windows and run well on Linux, not to blame the first OS (except GUI which is pretty, but after looking at it few hours it has little sense).
Peace.
So you think you can get away with killing someone which you fist invited to your house, and then shooting him for opening the bathroom door???
Which states are that then???
You should go to the police to report that your bike was stolen and then tell them that it wasn't locked down properly. And youre right it is still theft, but that won't mean it won't happen now will it? So have faith in Allah but tie up your camel dude!
As you are yourself probably!
As soon as you actually read the post you are reacting to!
If you are so concerned about the quality of the software, why didn't you volunteer a year ago when they asked for people?
I probably will as soon as they'll realease the source under GPL
If you know how to fix the bug why don't you e-mail Dr. Anderson with a solution?
Wouldn't that be a little difficult without the source? Besides they allready know what the problem is, they fixed it in the windows client did they not???
Just because I see the door to a store opened at midnight, doesn't mean I should be allowed to walk in and do what I want.
Neither does it mean that you won't just because it's immoral or illegal. You're actually saying that if I left my wallet lying outside on the sidewalk with the money sticking out it should still be there the next day? I don't think that's very realistic do you?
You clearly don't understand the basic premise:
1) We have radio telescopes that can detect far-off radio emissions
2) We, a form of intelligent life (for the most part) use radio trasmissions for communications
3) Other civillizations MAY - not "will", not "do" - MAY use radio transmissions similar to our own.
4) We have the technology and ability to recognise these signals, if they exist.
Ergo, we should look for them.
There is NO judgement on the efficiancy of radio, or on modulation, or whatever.
Pull your head out of your ass and think for once.
When you log in to a Netrek sever, the server queries the client with what amounts to an RSA "challenge", based on how the client identifies itself.
The servers have a store of all the keys that go with known blessed clients, so they know which key to encrypt the challenge with. If the client does not return the correct response, it gets booted.
Furthermore, the key is spread throughout the client, so examining the client to determine its key is very difficult.
It's a very well done and proven system.
------
...the former Netrek Home Page and Amiga Client Maintainer.
*no, I didn't write the Amiga client, Ogre did that. I just had posession for a while
Good points especially the review and verification one, I wish I had something usefull to add (instead of saying me too!)
I don't really care that things went wrong (happens all the time), I just hate their attitude towards the volunteers!
They should have GPL'd this thing from the start!
Judging by the weakness of the excuses offered up by the fine folks at SETI@home, I am led to conclude that there must be darker, more sinister forces at work here; I suggest that important, perhaps earth-shattering evidence of some kind must have been discovered in the early data sets, and the rest of the data is being withheld while the SETI community (at the urging of the MIB and other secret government agencies, no doubt) scrambles to alter the remaining data or otherwise prevent the general public from becoming aware of the situation. Noting some recent /. headlines and the "coincidental" disparaging remarks in the SETI@home press release regarding hackers and the hacker mentality, it seems clear that alien transmissions must have been discovered to contain detailed instructions for the construction of a cold fusion device.
:P
"Paranoia? No such thing, it's all a conspiracy by the mental health profession."
That SETI@Home has been Slashdotted and is having a little touble scaling is unfortunate, but understandable. They just need some time to fix the problems that the massive reponse they got dragged to light, No big deal.
But I find the fact that people are trying to exploit loopholes and bugs in the the client to be sickening, even revolting. Come on guys, SETI@Home is worthy science and a chance to demonstrate to the world how good and powerful we are when we co-operate, Can't you find some other place to vandalize?
Is nothing sacred?
Netrek does that, for the most part. They distribute the source to all the clients, but most servers will only accept a "blessed" binary. A blessed binary is one that was personaly compiled by one of the coding gods. They used to verify it by sticking an extra .c file in just for that purpose, which was not distributed. Now, however, they use RSA keys. Methinks that once you have that done, signing the results should be trivial.
I personally alwayss thought the SETI project was a little far fetched anyways. I'd rather spend my CPU time with distributed.net hoping to change stupid laws. The odds are a lot better, anyways (: Of course everyone should run what they want; but why not give SETI some time to settle down, work all the bugs out, and apologize for calling *nix users cheaters (:
A signed binary buys you a degree of assurance that the binary is what you think it is. It is useful for the person installing the binary on their machine.
A signed binary does not buy others confidence in the results of the binary -- they can see neither the binary itself nor its signature. This is a general problem in distributed computing, SETI@Home is just an interesting case.
My understanding of digital signatures (the probable solution, IMO) is that they rely on a secret maintained by a user, where the integrity of the secret can be trusted. With a binary, you have an object which may be accessed by several users, and either the object or the user may be trying to hoodwink you. What would be required is some way to at least verify that the the binary itself is what it purports to be. I see a challenge-response of some sort on data transfer as the only real way for this to happen, however the mechanism would have to rely on something not apparent in either the source code or the binary itself.
Possibly a twist on public key encryption, where the compilation host generates a key pair for each binary (or for a collective set of binaries), in which one portion of the key is coded into the binary and its pair is retained by a trusted host. This would allow for public distribution of code, however production results would have to come from a binary compiled on a known trusted host.
I'm talking through my hat and making this up as I go. The idea sounds intriguing however.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
I was reading with some interest the notes at SETI@Home discussing why an open source client wasn't being distributed. Apparently there are concerns with what would happen if an OSS client were hacked to provide wrong answers. I have two key thoughts.
First, closing the source apparently isn't preventing exploits based on the existing client. Whether or not anyone's tried to reverse engineer the code or not I'm not sure, but it's probably a matter of time before an RE or exploit-capable client is produced.
Second, this problem is something which OSS must face in general, particularly in a distributed computing environment. While digital signatures can be used to validate individuals and email, I'm wondering if similar means can be used to verify a program and its results. What SETI@Home needs is a way to distribute its source (to get benefits of OSS development), but to be able to mark the "canonized" version of the code in such a way that a non-forgeable signature can be attached to results and not just the code.
I'd be interested in knowing how or whether this issue is being persued elsewhere.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
They're completely un-responsive, having not updated their news since the project began.
You have not been paying close attention. They've been changing the status items (the bulleted list) on their web page about every other day. I also sent them a note about the non-standard port on a proxy issue, and while I didn't get a personal response, the problem made it into the 'known bugs' list 24 hours later.
If you analyze the page a little, you'll see that the entire operation is being run by 4 guys, reportedly on a part-time basis. Give them a little slack.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Joining distributed.net made me feel like I was joining a team, joining Seti@home makes me feel like a tool.
You must have joined a different distributed.net than the one I dropped out of. Or did you miss the day-after-day blasts on the mailing list about how uncommunicative Nugget and the other founders were? Granted, that was a year or more ago, and things might have changed. But, these two progjects are more alike than you might think.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Could they at least provide an simple option NOT to draw pretty pictures, making it v1.01 in the next day?
Why, when it's already in version 1.0?
From the web site:
If you want your PC to analyze data as efficiently as possible, you can have your screen blanked (no graphics) after a given period. To do this, go to the Display Properties control panel, the Screen Saver tab, select SETI@home, click Settings, and check the "Go to blank screen" box.
Now I don't think these instructions have been on the website since day one, but the option has been there all along. There were a lot of messages floating around discussing it. Didn't you look in the client and say 'Gee, I wonder what this does?' If not, what's more the shame, that the Seti@home programmers aren't up to your high standards, or that you're not capable of doing a little independent investigation of software you're installing on your machine?
Nevermind that stupid URL at their site, why on Earth they needed SSL in it? seti.berkeley.edu could do fine.
I'm sorry to hear how Berekley sets up their network doesn't meet with your approval. I'm sure they can use a network consultant of your caliber. I presume you're going to jet right over there and set them up correctly.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Posted by frogbert:
Anderson said some groups are claiming credit for processing the same data packet over and over..
WELL DUH
I do hope, Prof Anderson will publicly appologise
for his words. Basically, equivalent of his words
in the "Real word" would be:
(Prof Anderson commes to classroom)
"I am sorry that I couldn't make it to a class yeterday. Someone has robbed me on the street, while I was walking alone, trough one of the worse slums in the whole USA at 2:30 in the morning, so I had to spend the whole morning at the Police station - first they were waiting me to get sober, then I had to describe the man...
And, I don't want to name names, but
it's fair to say the blacks have caused all this trouble. It seems to be the neger mentality."
I don't want to name names," he said, "But
it's fair to say the blacks
are causing most of the headaches. It
seems to be the neger mentality."
Now, I just wonder how long could he stay a professor with such an attitude?
Yust for the case he does not come with a public appologies, I think we should organise a strike.
(A very public strike)
Yours
Denis
My machine has been pumping in results all week but my totals haven't been going up. Also if you add up the number of results sent in for every one in a group it doesn't seem to match the result for that group.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
"And read more Sagan."
Always good advice. I read "Billion and Billions" a while back and I though it was so good that I recently read "Contact", "Cosmos", "Broca's Brain", and am now on "The Demon-Haunted World". It's very interesting stuff, even though he sometimes loses me on the physics(still in HS and haven't taken Physics yet).
Nope, it's not just you. Here's the snippet of text that Fizgig is referring to. (In case some of you missed the second page of the article.)
Anderson said that at least two of the top 10 work groups have only reached the rankings because some of the members had cheated.
"I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker mentality."
-Derek
Biggest problem I have with this group is that they're yet another Distributed-type project. It would be nice if we could have some sort of concerted effort on one distributed project before we spawn another. Distributed.net has a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and so they've got the infrastructure to handle it. We're spawning ANOTHER group, and they're reinventing the wheel as far as the organization, the client, etc. (Although, I admit, the screen saver IS pretty -- and I'm tempted to run SETI@Home on my home PC alng with the Distributed.net client.)
For now, I just run SETI@Home at work, where I don't want to explain (or even have a possibility of having to explain) "Code cracking" on my work computer.
You know how I feel about it!
and I'll quit and join distributed.net - where they don't blame Linux users for their problems.
and where we are slowly catching up!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
To me, the "hacker mentality" is to look at something, figure out how it works, and see how it might be adapted to other purposes. Anything that relies on "security through obscurity" is a prime target, and the Seti folks should have realized this.
IMHO, distributed computing will ultimately have to rely on open protocols and software. It seems to me that redundancy is probably the easiest way to validate data; send the same block to 2 or more randomly-selected clients around the world, and compare the results (ideally, there would be some sort of checksum returned rather than just a Yes/No result). I would also think that participants could "earn" trust over time if their blocks were always legitimate. I know it's nowhere near as simple as this in the real world, but I think this is the direction in which people should be heading.
BTW, I downloaded their client for Linux/x86 but it wouldn't talk through my SOCKS5 proxy server. My other computer is a Netwinder, and I didn't see a Linux/ARM client there. And I don't have anywhere *near* enough free time to try to spoof their servers, so I've abandoned the whole project.
I thought that the reason that Windows clients were not cheating was due to the fact the the Windows client did NOT have the bug in it that caused it to do a WU ever 5-10 minutes. From the article - Anderson said that at least two of the top 10 work groups have only reached the rankings because some of the members had cheated. "I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker mentality."
Not to mention they have no respect for the people putting their CPU cycles into this. They close up their software totally, cut off all communication. I'm sure they had good intentions, but they did it to themselves. Many people in the free software community were willing to help with developing clients, but they basically ignored them; now they're using a shortage of manpower as an excuse. I do not consider these people a part of the scientific community, and from what I understand, neither do many scientists.
Ok, They (whoever they are) probally use more advanced technology for communications. But remember when we get a blip from a star 300Ly away, we are getting the blip as it was 300 years ago. If an advanced race was sitting, Oh...about 40Ly away, they would probally hear good old 50's rock and roll on amplitude modulation. Sure! We're using microwave to satelites and whatever, but that's what they would be hearing.
Whatever advancements they may or may not have, odds are they used radio at some time. After all, look at how we discovered the concept of carrier wave RF signals
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Why must we keep killing all these webservers? Can't we all just get along?
I have to return some videotapes...
Section 3.11 of their FAQ states that if they don't have enough data then multiple users will receive the same data.
If their servers are being overwhelmed(as their site indicates) then it's entirely possible that they didn't have enough data online to send to all the clients.
as it's only using the idle time of the computer. I have SETI running at home(the new OS/2 client) and work, but the computers are only on when I'm using them, thus no extra fuel is being used.
they are instead running some variation of Windows:-) As such, they don't gain the power benefits of the CPU's idle state.
off-topic: battery life on laptops is one place that OS/2 and Linux really shine at :-)
I think they're referring to 'cheating' in the sense of 'team slashdot' utilizing the slashdot effect to gain the lead. They shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, is what I think. They should admit "Wow! We weren't ready for that kind of response! But give us some time and we will be...". They should be grateful that this resource pool is being offered to them.
**>>BELCH
SETI@home should consider NOT posting ANY user/team related stats publicly. Situations like this, wherein one can get his or her "name in lights" INVITE DISASTER.
Seti@home probably posts these statistics in the hope of generating a spirit of competiton in order to get more people involved. Understandable but unnecessary. Let those who wish to contribute do so for their own reasons. Your pool of players may shrink considerably, but the quality of the players will rise dramatically.
Remove the "game" aspect of it and you'll rid yourselves of most of those who seek only to play games.
Post only the most fundamental overall statistics, to give contributors an overall idea of how much work is getting done.
When you believe that 'Contact' has actually been established, THEN you can say who processed the data in question, when, where and so on.
**>>BELCH
Nuclear power is still the cleanest and most reliable sorce of energy available, except for hydroelectric. But hydroelectric is for wimps. Give me cerenkov blue-glow over Hoover dam any day.
Of course, I don't subscribe to Seti@home either. After all, my processor cycles are Mine, not anyone else's. I'll use them as a darn well see fit.
From the wired article... /. effect. However, he (project director David Anderson) states in the paragraph before the one I quoted about *some* members of the teams had cheated. Then in this paragraph he makes it sound like the entire Unix/Linux userbase has a "hacker mentality" that somehow equates to a desire to cheat.
---
"I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker mentality."
---
"Fair to say"? Hah! I don't think that is anywhere near fair to say. Before reading this portion of the article, I had planned on posting in defense of SETI@home, it seems basically they suffered from a massive
I certainly will discontinue running the client until they fix these problems so we're not all wasting our cpu cycles and even after the bugs are fixed, in light of the attitude of SETI@Home expressed through the project director, I may never run it.
I fear you totally missed the point of my comment.
I'm not denying that the cheating could've been done by Linux/Unix people. I'm saying that the vast majority of Linux/Unix did NOT cheat.
So his statement would be like me seeing one white person steal something and then saying "Well, I'm not going to name any names, but you know white people love to steal, it's the white mentality."
Another key point to my post was that the "hacking" mentality that Slashdot promotes is NOT the urge to cheat, but the urge to learn, to tinker with things, etc. This is the crux of the hacker/cracker issue, keep up with the posts on Slashdot and you'll see what I mean. Just today there was a story posted about it.
I'm also not asking that he detail exactly what happened - I don't care. Much of your post doesn't seem at all to be in reply to mine - why did you post it as a reply???
bash-2.02$ cd ~otis/setiathome
bash-2.02$ ls
outfile.txt
setiathome-1.1.sparc-sun-solaris2.6
setiathome-1.1.sparc-sun-solaris2.6.tar
state.txt
temp.txt
user_info.txt
version.txt
bash-2.02$ cd
bash-2.02$ rm -rf setiathome && echo "too bad... one U2/333 down..."
> And 8 tons of fossil fuel a day? Like all those people would have otherwise turned off their computers.
:-)
> Waiting patiently for contact,
Please keep in mind that under Real OSes (tm) idle CPU
time actually does use signifigantly less power then CPU
time used for computations, because the "noop" or "halt"
commants repeatedly given to the CPU during the idle
loops uses almost no power.
Haven't any of your overclocker friends noticed how their
CPUs run colder under Linux than Windows? Thats why.
So don't run seti@home on your laptop.
Host your own websites, anywhere!
> Won't argue with you there. It isn't any wonder,
> and it does kinda-sorta invalidate some of the
> utopian "we can all work together" propaganda.
No argument there. Anyone who thinks that people won't be real jerks at least some of the time (even where there is considerable counterincentive) need to get in better touch with reality.
> The people promoting stuff like this are
> shineing a really bright light on the whole OSS
> concept.
Are they? Last time I checked, SETI@Home certainly was not OSS, and their decsision to avoid OSS doesn't appear to have helped them significantly either.
You can maybe say something about shining a really bright light on the inherent good of mankind concept, but this is neiter a vindication nor an indictment of OSS specifically. OSS depends on the same kinds of you-scratch-my-back-i'll-scratch-yours economic exchanges we're used to, just as much as it does on altrusim.
[ n.b. economic != monetary ]
Very few people would do OSS if they couldn't realisitically expect to get something back, and that's usually more than just a clean conscience. However, neither is it World Domination...
> One world, one nation, one GNU. er... let me
> rephrase that....
Godwin's law, you lose.
---
DNA just wants to be free...
it's not like anyone is going to find ET anyway (unless you think that there's some serious reason for thinking the x-files is real). I mean...Star Wars and Star Trek are lots of fun but let's get back to the real world and find some intelligence on _this_ planet? Thank you
---
Man that article paints a pretty dim picture of the whiny Seti@Home client user.
However, I think they should smile more often, nothing is irrepairable. The only thing lost in things like this are tolerance, which i didn't know had a limit or capacity to begin with...
Lastly I still don't see why they don't OSS their project, something like this should be open, all of science should be open! I'm tired of privacy of informative information. I'll eventually find out what your hiding, but in the end you've made me waste hours of searching and digging to find the abstracted hints!
Keep'n it real,
Malachi
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
That's just it. They apparently started sending the same data to everyone because they didn't have enough resources to store and process the returned data. Basicly, they put it into an idle loop until they could get the resources they need.
The other option would be to tell everyone to stop and they would lose much of the momentum they had.
Yes, the lack of communication sucks. But these people are bigger nerds than we are (trust me!), and communication skills aren't their forte.
jf
PS.. BTW I'm sure all the data is interesting to them...
The article starts out implying that due to the some kind of bug, all the effort so far as been wasted. THEN it states later that the SETI people have been trying to get it to scale to 500,000+ systems (which is 3x the origional number expected) and have been sending out the same information to everyone for testing and sanity checks.
Why all the negative vibes because of this? People volunteer and then get mad because SETI stopped to try to get the system to scale?
It's very hard to do testing on something like this. How could you stress test a new distributed system with 500,000 nodes beforehand? You probably can't.
Distributed.net had to start over a couple of times due to programming errors. Granted, the communication about this could have been better, but do they HAVE to tell you that they are in a test mode? Cut the ET watchers some slack.
On another note, does anyone have any information about the "Unix and Linux" uses that are 'cheating'? If you know anyone doing that, SLAP THEM HARD!
First Carmack getting mailbomed, now this. Some people on the Internet are REALLY starting to suck...
jf
SETI is an extremely long term project
I doubt it. I don't see how the Unix comment could have been taken out of context. I was running the SETI client on 4 boxes, but their down now, and I don't plan to bring them back up. I'm not going to give them my help if they don't want it. Someone insults you and you defend them and then continue to further their cause, SETI@HOME will just have to search for extraterrestrial life without my extra cycles.
-- Hawk
I came. I saw. I coded.
We wouldn't have to rely on the news stories if the jerks at seti@home would post some accurate, in-depth information about the problem on their site. The "data pipeline" excuse is bullshit and justifiably irritated people who've devoted CPU time to this project. I know guys who are (WERE) constantly running seti@home in the background even though it slows down their system during normal use. Needless to say, these guys are pissed that they've been suffering through shitty performance for nothing. I've been running it at night, so I really don't care that much...but I can certainly understand why people are upset.
And all it would take is a one line apology for not being ready...
Maybe SETI wants to piss off a certain % of volunteers so their systems can handle the resulting decline in clients.
Anyone want to start "SI@SETI@HOME"?
"I don't want to name names," he said, "But it's fair to say the Unix and Linux crowds are causing most of the headaches. It seems to be the hacker mentality."
Well that's pretty thinly veiled.
Whatever- get it together before you launch such an ambitious project.
The linux and mac boxes I have working on it have been chugging along (45 units returned) for a couple weeks, that sucks if they're just chewing on redundant data.
I note that the Wired article says they've put most of their computing power into webservers to handle the demands of people downloading the software and not enough into data block allocations.
Have they ever heard of mirroring? They do host the main download site at ftp.cdrom.com, but the other 4 or so sites are all their own. Why not just ask for support from some of the main FTP sites around the world and have them serve everything except the blocks?
Ow, that's low. We're getting our place by cheating?
Now let's see... I've noticed that on my dual-boot machine, the Seti@home client runs about twice as fast under Linux than under Windows 98. (Maybe it's the pretty graphics.) This is clearly going to give Unix users a hand.
Second, uh, the Slashdot effect. I suspect Unix/Linux types are disproportionately represented among Seti@home users, more sci/tech enthusiasts or something.
Unix/Linux implies hacker (read: cracker) mentality? Yeah, it's a good thing that there is no such thing as a Windows hAXX0r d00d. (sarcasm)
Do you really expect the SETI@Home folks to kiss *your* very personal butt, just because you contributed a few cpu cycles and were even thinking of throwing in your mighty RS6000?
Hardly. What I meant to communicate was that if one's project depends on the good will of volunteers, going out of your way to offend those volunteers is counterproductive. Moreover, it's not very nice, which is the worst part of it. I know that being nice is not considered important in some quarters, and that some people confuse it with butt kissing, but it matters to me. That's all.
What offends me, or more accurately, bothers me about Anderson's remarks is that:
SETI@Home is a volunteer project relying on essentially personal motivations to encourage participation. I personally didn't care for what Anderson said, I told him so, and it is possible that I will cease to participate because of it. I offer my opinion as a personal opinion, not a recommendation that others think or do likewise.
Did it ever occur to you that the statement might have been meant in a positive way, as in "while it's been mostly the Unix/Linux crowd, it's not because they're all criminals, but rather because of the hacking spirit"?
That strikes me as highly unlikely given the rest of the things he said. If a retraction or clarification appears, I am willing to be convinced otherwise.
If you don't like the project, get out. If you like it, stay in.
But shut up either way, right? No thanks.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
To SETI@Home project manager David Anderson:
I am not concerned with the recent technical problems with SETI@Home. While the decision to continue accepting new clients before the system was ready for the load demonstrated dubious judgment, problems of this sort are to be expected with a large distributed project during the early stages.
What was not expected was the poor judgment to make the following statement, among others, to _Wired_:
>"I don't want to name names," he said,
>"But it's fair to say the Unix and Linux
>crowds are causing most of the
>headaches. It seems to be the hacker
>mentality."
I have the SETI@Home client running on eight or nine workstations at present, some of which are Linux boxes. I was about to take three backup servers that are currently idle -- an IBM RS6000, a Compaq Proliant, and an IBM PC Server, all of which are running one flavor of Unix or another -- and devote them wholly to SETI@Home until such time as they are needed for other purposes. I thought it would be a nice project for my "hacker mentality". That plan is no longer on the burner. I don't know if I will go as far as many Unix admins already have and take the trouble to pull SETI@Home off the machines it's already running on, but I'm giving it some thought. It certainly won't be going on any new servers. You guys clearly don't want any of us hackers burning CPU time for you.
The next time you have problems with a few individuals, you might want to address them directly, rather than the largely innocent and devoted demographic to which they belong. If you have problems with a businessman who happens to be Jewish, you would not launch a polemic against Jews as a class, would you? Yet, faced with a few problematic vandals who happen to use Unix and style themselves "hackers", you denounce law-abiding, honest Unix hackers as a class. That was stupid and indecent. Shame on you.
If we do someday manage to achieve contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, it is my devout hope that their first impression of humanity does not come from the likes of you.
--Eric O'Dell
Director of Information Services,
The Gadget Guru, LLC
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
That they are having problems is understandable for a new project struggling to scale to unanticipated load levels, and it doesn't bother me at all. I wasn't using those CPU cycles for anything else anyway, and I think SETI@Home is a great idea -- certainly more important in the broad scheme of things than the encryption projects run by distributed.net, which are merely political rather than cosmic in scope.
On the other hand, their wholesale slam against the Unix/Linux crowd on the basis of what are probably a tiny percentage of idiots was just plain stupid. I won't end my participation in the project because of it, but I'm insulted enough that the next time they screw up I'll give it some serious thought. It's precisely because of my hacker mentality that I'm participating in the first place.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
500,000 simultanious connections as extreme as 150,000. I am not sure they actually tested it against the latter number. In fact, given that fact that they claimed to have 35Gb a day of work-units (and 350kb per unit send), we have
35,000,000/350 = 100,000 users per day. So, given the fact that they expected at least 150,000 they would max out rather soon. Bad planning.
Now, pardon my mood, but I am completely pissed off the fact, they released extremely slow Win client, while according to their own statistics Pentium/Windows platform leads by at least 5-8 times. Excuse me, but if they had a bit of brains they would optimise first WINDOWS client, no matter how they hate it. Could they at least provide an simple option NOT to draw pretty pictures, making it v1.01 in the next day? It is shame that Berkeley has got associated with such a poor programming. You might hate windows, but you should not be a fool and ignore thousands of people who dedicated their Win boxes, we feel like being treated as 3rd class users!
Nevermind that stupid URL at their site, why on Earth they needed SSL in it? seti.berkeley.edu could do fine.
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
Well, it's using some extra. Since I started running this, I haven't shut off my machine. It used to only run maybe 12 hours a day. Same with a couple of machines at work (all Windows machines; I don't shut off my Linux boxes). I bet others have been doing the same.
If you had read the information on the SETI@Home website, you would understand the reasons for not making this an open source application. They specifically addressed this.
Releasing the source code would provide ample opportunity to the same kind of idiots who do mail bombs, hijack ratings, and generally screw a good thing up. Arguing that it would be more good than bad is crazy : They have working clients for many platforms right now, and that seems fine to me. What good would open source do? Open source is good stuff, but it's NOT the solution for everything!
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
"I've sent three requests for help for a problem with using a solaris client behind a standard firewall, and haven't recieved a single response."
If you'd read their page you'd see:
We're a bit overwhelmed with emails and bug reports, and won't be able to respond to them
individually.
We're still probably talking about less power than it takes to keep the porch light on.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Right now, Seti@home seems to be going through a lot of the same growing pains that Distributed.net went throught a couple years ago. Distributed.net hasn't had problems with issuing duplicate keyblocks, but we have had the problems with stats, bandwidth, and many other issues. Its a shame seti refused the Distributed.net offer to join projects. They might be doing better now...
Ironic if you ask me. They have a large ammount of corporate backing and are having tons of problems (which started when their network of users was far smaller then the distributed.net userbase), yet distributed.net is entirely vollenteer based with very little funding and doesn't have too much trouble with bandwidth and network stability.
--
Actually, it seems like a really easy way to check for faked responses is to occaionally send data from which a known response can be expected. If they send back a fake response, send a second set of data for verification. If that is also falsified, use the client to upload a pirate copy of Office (TM/R/) 2000 and then send an anonymous email to piracy@deathbyfacistsoftware.com.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Arecibo produces one 35 GB data tape per day. The data is cut up into 350 KB blocks to send to the SETI@home clients. 35 GB divided by 350 KB supposedly gives us 100,000 blocks per day. With 560,000 registered SETI@home clients working at an average of 40 hours per block, we can handle 336,000 blocks per day.
336,000 is greater than 100,000.
Add to that the fact that anyone who actually watches the processing can see for themselves that the blocks have all come from Jan 7 and 8. What's the statistical probability of that?
Add to that the fact that SETI itself has said on the homepage since LAST WEEK, "Our 'data pipeline' is not flowing at top speed yet, so we're sending out the same work units (mostly recorded Jan 7 and Jan 8) repeatedly. This will be fixed shortly."
Duh!
Even without the technical difficulties, the processing will outpace the input within a matter weeks. Such is the broad appeal of this project. If you guys are this upset now, I'd hate to see what you'll be like when it happens for real.
The moral of the story? Sit back, relax, boost your rankings while helping SETI to stress test the system. It's just a bloody screen saver, so your machines would have been on anyhow. Sheesh.
to blame other people for their mistakes.
;-)
It's Microsoftish.
(also, testing for bugs after the release, and they did that)
"We're having trouble and wasting everyone's CPU cycles for nothing"
would be much better than
"Unix hackers are fucking our systems".
I have used Seti@home just for a day,
(since I heard there is a slashdot team),
and I'll quit and join distributed.net - where they don't blame Linux users for their problems.
Yeah, I rather waste my cycles on something useful.
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
People don't run their home computer all the time.
You have to remember,
Although most of the packets come from fast alphas and such, that would work all night anyway,
Most of the computers that run it are home computers,
used by people to play games and chat on IRC,
and would otherwise be turned off at night.
(or when not in use)
The people that conribute to Seti@home,
may leave their computer on for the night for that matter.
I know I did.
(Until I heard I'm wasting CPU, I thoguht I contribute to an important project)
As a proof for my claim,
you can see clearly the statistics that state that most of the clients are Windows/Intel ones,
and that almost everyone is runnig this project AT HOME.
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
I hope at least that they're getting the same answer from each client.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
or did they allude to Slashdot as cheating? Oh well.
I don't know about that 8 tons of fuel per hour. For one thing, they gave no credentials for the guy giving the estimate--I estimate 4 tons, so there! Besides, if the people aren't using the HLT command, they're really not wasting anything (unless they're intentionally leaving their computers on longer than they otherwise would have; I don't put it past them). So they're really wasting nothing.
Sure, more advanced life forms will probably have means of communication we can't imagine. But WE'RE emitting all kinds of detectable and clearly nonnatural signals. Who's to say they won't discover our primitive signals and respond in the same manner?
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
Consider this, my dumb-ass title is a more intelegent comeback than the previous posters entire post.
I don't get the fuss about waste.
What would your CPU do otherwise?
Wait, I know, Linux uses HLT, saving power. Too bad your hard disk, RAM and power supply are still burning up significant wattage.
Oh, wait, you would be cracking RC5 keys. Can you say boring?! Can you say, it was an interesting project the first time but it isn't any more?
Get over it. Get over the perceived slight against UNIX & Linux users, it was a general comment. I don't see how you could take it personally unless a) you are cheating, b) you have a big chip on your shoulder.
If you are cheating, shame on you! If you have a chip on your shoulder, keep in mind that this guy is probably a UNIX/Linux type of guy. They are using UNIX on their back end and they are trying to do big science on a small budget.
On the subject of publishing source. I think their concern about doing what they can to eliminate tampering is a valid one. There are various ways to deal with it, but they are obviously resource constratined. Ultimately though, they are trying to do real peer-reviewed science, so you can be sure that even if they don't publish the source, they will describe it in great deatail and provide a lot of background on how it works and why they did things the way they did.
I said "Right On!"
1)Software is done when it is done, unless it isn't.
2)I can lock everything down really tight, that doesn't mean that people trying to break in aren't still a "headache"
3)Lets see how you deal with triple your wildest design dream on a limited budget.
4)Don't know what to tell you.
Nice hatchet job on my post. I will not bother giving you a clue other than to say that I no more tolerate crackers who exploit the security holes they fine than I tolerate someone who tries all the doors on my house, finds an open one and then walks inside. In most states, I can kill you, nice and legal.
A lot of people are getting worked up about the tone of the SETI guy in the wired article.
Keep in mind, this article is a news *story*. Like all news storys, it is designed to try and get a reaction out of the reader. This one is clearly constructed to insite your outrage.
Well guess what, it looks like it worked you have been manipulated by the media.
I can't be sure, but I bet if you had the full text of the interview, or if you talked to the guy yourself (please, don't try, he obviously has enough to deal with) you might feel differently.
Well before they released the windows client I was having all kinds of trouble, servers timing out, the client crashing.. Then they go off prematurely releaseing the windows client, so their servers can be even more overloaded. If they are going to go around throwing blind generalizations about Linux/Unix + hackers, then screw it, they don't need my cycles.
Apparantly some of you "deep thinkers" need to read more... preferably some stuff written by
real deep thinkers, like Carl Sagan.
For example, if you'd read the book Contact, you
wouldn't immediately assume we're only trying to
detect signals being sent accidentally by aliens.
What about the aliens that are advanced enough to
attempt "Contact" with surrounding worlds?
How would they go about doing that? Well first
off, they'd know that different civilizations
evolve differently, so to do things right, they
would build a transmitter that could broadcast on
all possible spectrums, frequencies, modulations,
and in all directions. So it would have to be big
and spherical, and very high tech. It'd also have
to be out away from the planet's atmosphere, for
the best effects. And ideally, it would not just
orbit around the homeworld, but travel through
space sending these signals.
I'd feel really special right now, if I hadn't
just stolen that entire scenario from Sagan's
book. Instead of assuming you know everything, and
that SETI is "stupid" for trying what they're
trying, you ought to open your mind...
And read more Sagan.
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
OK first of all, that over generalization if UNIX/Linux groups is uncalled for, but we know that. Secondly, they're writing the client and we don't have access to the source, so what's the deal, can't they just encrypt the stuff internally with a public key so people don't even know what's being sent. They have full control over this, why can't they monitor it?
Can I be pissed off that they didn't code up an X screensaver module with all the pretty eye-candy? I don't care how fast the blasted thing churns out keys (4 proc Alpha), I want a neat-o graphics hack on my root window, dammit!
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
From the SETI@HOME web site:
/. the same place that derides Windows users for NOT having a hacking mentality, which states time and time again that Linux/Unix is a hacker's OS, that Windows users can't hack or that you can't hack with Windows? Should we then be surprised that when somebody is "hacked" they then blame it on members of the Linux/Unix community? Come on! Either were "hackers" or were not. We can't be "hackers" when its cool and be upset at being called "hackers" when its embarassing.
"Dr. David P. Anderson, Project Director. David is Chief Technology Officer at Tunes.com Inc. A former member of the Computer Science faculty at UC Berkeley, he has authored 65 research papers in operating systems, distributed computing, and computer graphics"
I've glanced at some of those 65 papers and a great deal of them have to do with operating systems, distibuted computing and secure computing. IMHO if Dr. Anderson says the Linux/Unix crowd has done the "hacking" and is responsible for his headaches, I tend to beleive him.
And why not? Isn't
As for his aloofness about who is doing it and exactly what "it" is - I find it perfectly understandable. He's already been hacked/cracked. Telling people exactly what happend may invite others to try. Identifying specifically the pereps may have 2 unwanted effects:
1. A costly lawsuit for defamation or slander. I understand you guys dow there in the US sue people a lot. Seti@home has very little money for this kind of thing
2. The worst - the "hackers" launch a more vicious, destructive attack and destroy the whole project in some bizarre Cyberware, akin to what the FBI is going through right now.
In either case, the project ends. I suspect Dr. Anderson thinks this is too important a project to risk that. So he minimizes and acts aloof...
Perhaps a group of us here could do some "hacking" in DEFENSE of SETI@home instead of against it..."hacking" might even get it's good name back! (remember script kiddies, just because I 'can' cheat or f**k with a system, doesn't mean I 'should' or will. Everyone thinks 'hackers' are evil because a few bozos did some stupid destructive things - a few bad apples blah,blah,blah...)
Maybe the sending out of the same data packets is the result of a "hack" not a bug. Something to think about.
I for one will still support the project, since my conscience is clear...
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
...instead of just calling me names (as the poster below seems to have done)?
/.ers don't seem to like to be on the recieving end of the same treatment they often dish out (and I've been on /. a long time, I see it daily). Again this was just an observation, not a judgment.
Well I'm glad I irked some response. This seems to have touched a nerve.
First off I never said it was RIGHT. I simply asked how it feels. My point was people are upset because of what Dr. Anderson said, yet don't seem to be very upset when they act like him when it comes to people who use Windows (through choice or circumstances at work) I was certainly not saying ANYBODY should be treated like this. This was more of an ironic observation that
Secondly, I stand by the fact that, through the logic of my arguement, his statement is factual. Should they have fixed the Unix client a long time ago? Sure they should have. But they are an all volunteer force and very few in numbers, so at times it can be hard to do all this and keep up with the regular job. If you are so concerned about the quality of the software, why didn't you volunteer a year ago when they asked for people? If you know how to fix the bug why don't you e-mail Dr. Anderson with a solution? Just because I see the door to a store opened at midnight, doesn't mean I should be allowed to walk in and do what I want.
My crack about Windows users not having the mentality is SARCASM! Look it up in a dictionary sometime. You seem to want it both ways - when it suits you, Windows users are idiots who can't type or even use a command line. Also when it makes you look not quite so bad, Windows users are brilliant hackers who seem to have just missed this one.
When he stated that the majority of his headaches came from the Unix/Linux community, I read it just as it is - a small group of people who happen to belong to the Unix/Linux community are causeing all his problems. I didn't see the word "all" in front of Unix/Linux community. Your answer to this never really addressed this. Read it again. If Dr. Anderson has 10 problems, 9 of which are occurring only in the Unix/Linux clients and those 9 problems are causing the system to work improperly or reflect erroneous data is it not fair for him to say that the majority of HIS headaches are caused by members (not ALL members, just members) of the Unix/Linux community, especially when that erroneous data requires purposeful action on behalf of the individuals to create (they have to find the bug and then exploit it)? Given what we know about this problem, what part of this statement is false?
You also seem to be taking Wired as gospel. Do you have the entire transcript of the interview this was based on? Do you know the total context in which this statement was made? Maybe you should feel a little angry at the Wired article for not giving a balanced opinion or sharing both sides of the story.
I think the biggest mistake SETI@HOME did was post the names of the groups and individuals and make it a "competition". Maybe if the get rid of that feature, some of these script kiddies will have no reason to try and send the same results back to the server 5000+ times.
As for generalizing the Slashdot community, as a long time member of that community I would like you to point out in my post where I did that. I beleive I was very specific about the few immature individuals who are doing this.
Does any of this make the project any less interesting or not worthy of support? I don't think so. This is a tempest in a teapot. After all, its a screen saver. If you are so insulted by the truth that you don't want to volunteer - don't. It sounds like with 3.5 x more response than they expected and more people trying to download every day, you won't be missed much.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
And this has what to do with the argument I made in my previous post?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
But what if its true? /.er generalizing about Windows users in every third line of every post about every story. How does it feel to be on the recieving end of a bigoted gernealization?
Somebody is 'hacking'/'cracking' them and chances are they use Unix/Linux. Painting ALL Unix/Linux users with that brush is unfortunate and unfair, but no more unfair than the average
Keep that in mind next time you throw a "Winbloze" or "Windows Sux" or a "point and drool" reference to Windows users in a post.
As for the accuracy of the statement well consider:
1. Most of the "headaches" come from people sending too many responses from one downloaded packet (download once, analyze the data and then upload it 5000+ times so it looks like you processed 5000+ data chunks and now your "in the lead"). This results in overloading of the servers (they aren't scalled for 500000 users remember) and running out of disk space. This software bug is causing hardware failures. SETI@home does not have the money to just buy new equipment.
2. This bug is only a bug in the Unix/Linux client, and can't be done in the Windows version. Therefore only Unix/Linux users will ever do this.
3. The bug is a loophole which is exploited by people who go looking for it and code around it - that is people with the 'hacker' mentality. My understanding is that if you don't look for it and exploit the bug, the Unix/Linux client works as expected (Windows users aren't hackers or don't want to be hackers... right?)
Therefore the majority of the "headaches" for the project come from the Unix/Linux community with the hacker mentality, correct? Isn't that what Dr. Anderson said?
Instead of being upset for some percieved insult by the head of the SETI@home project, maybe we should be upset about the fact that some bunch of idiots is screwing with the system just so they can get their names on the web site.
Maybe the person who discovered this should have done the OSS thing and done the exploit once to show it could happen then e-mailed SETI@HOME and tell them about it. But I guess it's "closed "software so it deserves everything it gets, even at the expense of good science.
Man some people here should really grow up...and learn to sign their name if they are gonna troll for responses with four letter words! Grow up chicken shit!
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Let's be honest, the people running this Seti@home crap have screwed up in so many ways it's not even funny.
Their clients (particuarly the Winblowz) suck ass. The windows takes 2-3x the time to process a unit if you have the graphics on.
They're completely un-responsive, having not updated their news since the project began. I've sent three requests for help for a problem with using a solaris client behind a standard firewall, and haven't recieved a single response.
Then we find out that they've been sending the same 150 units to everyone.
While we're at it, let's discuss their excuse -- they said they couldn't run the servers to distribuite new worksets because all their load is being used by the webserver. Does anyone else think that their priority should be the worksets instead of the web page?
Guess that's what you get when you're more worried about the press releases than the science.
I think it's a great concept, but until they get the bugs sorted out I'm sticking with distributed.net
In all things there are complainers and there are doers. Here we have a project that is grand in scale. Just because someone else is doing this kind of distributed networking more efficiently has NOTHING to do with SETI's efforts. That's like saying that because the Commodore 64 was so wildly successful and efficient that all computers ought to be. Well, I would assume that all C-64's would be that efficient, but not something that does something totally different. Sure, computer hardware is essentially the same, but the way it is implimented is not.
And to say that "I will not waste computer cycles on this buggy program" is almost as laughable as the people who have gotten offended at the Unix/Linux slur. Am I not mistaken that the Linux/Unix version came out first? I don't see these folks being anti-Linux with this sort of evidence. And just what were you wasting your computer cycles on before SETI? This is like saying "I wasted my Saturday helping to search for a lost child and then I find out the parents hadn't looked hard enough for the child yet." Sure, it can be frustrating, but you volunteered, didn't you? No one meant to take advantage of you. You joined SETI because it was cool, not because you wanted reward.
I guess that some people just cannot mess up.
And about the hacking...if the hacking took place and it was verified to have been done by LINUX/UNIX then their statements are justified. Perhaps not the hacking statement, but the dig against the platform is justified. If he had said that "Widnows users seem to be the cuplprits, but that is probably because of the MS mentality" then we would have all cheered. But I guess the double-standard is ok?
In essence, I volunteered because I thought it would be the coolest thing since sliced bread. It has been. I like the screen saver. My computer is on anyway. Nothing is lost by me in any way shape or form. That I have been chewing on a duplicate packet is unfortunate, but they will fix the issue. Anyone invlolved with SETI knows that Congress has gleefully been chopping away at its budget for years and calling it a victory while they continue to pour funds into more "dubious" research. If I can help them out I will.
::sigh::
----------
Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
Then that 8 tons would be equivalent to about 2 pounds of uranium
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
You know, before I release a production version of any software, I run it though some stress testing...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I don't care that they've managed to push out the same packets over and over again. At least they get to stresstest the system real hard (they must have one hell of a load if they only expected 150k users and got 500k users).
I'm still gonna keep on working on it. I don't care about the group results or the team results. Maybe It's just me, but I'm still stuck with the image of one day (not very likely to happen) checking the result output and find a spike kind of like the spike Jodie Foster found in contact. That's the reason why I personally stick to it. The hope and dream of discovering that we are not alone.
-Spaced out Blyant.
Has anyone considered the possibility that at some stage there might be more data to process? There is more than one radio telescope in the world you know. (and it's possible to search wider bands).
(Sorry for flamebaitish tone - I'm just a bit peeved with people coming down hard on what I see as a worthy project with some teething toubles.)
This apparently happened on or before the 5th, as mentioned here:
.plan
Carmack's
But there are few details.
Graeme Devine was also bombed, he gives a little more detail:
Mailbombs suck. They can cause delays and make it hard to find the meaningful
emails from the noise. Please stop. I can't even read the language the email is
in to know what it says!
I don't remember the details, by I heard from the "grapevine" that it was done by tricking SETI@home into thinking existing users had joined a team when they hadn't. No data was fabricated, just team credit.
I think the biggest problem with the whole Seti@Home program is that I have processed about 20 packets and none of them have ever made it BACK to the server (Ever since the windows version was released) Sheesh.. At least the screen-saver has a whole bunch of crazy movin' colors.
It probably isn't too significant, but a modern processor uses less power in a "true" idle state than when it is running. Also, SETI may keep the HD from spinning down as it writes results, causing it from using power as well.
More significantly, a lot of people are leaving their computers on so they can run SETI, rather than turning them off when they aren't being used.
This would be the perfect example of a project that should be open source. Seti is a public organization, not a corporation. They shouldn't need proprietary software. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of programmers who would have been willing to develop, debug, and optimize both the servers and clients, not to mention stress testing, and the entire process could have been completed in a fraction of the time.
The algorithms in use for searching these signals shouldn't be secret, and practically everything else has been done before in one point or another, and reinventing the wheel is a pointless venture. I recall that distributed.net had been in communication with the seti@home project over a year ago for incorporating it within their client, but they never heard anything from them.
As for cheating, I was under the impression that they set up teams, so group collaboration was permitted, or so I thought. And as for the real cheaters, I presume they keep records and would be able to make corrections, or disavow those who are cheating. Who really cares about rank anyways? Its nice to know, and maybe even fun to brag about, but in the long run it makes no difference at all.
Wasted fuel? PUH LEASE. People run their computers all the time. All we've done now is replace one screen saver for another. No additional loss has taken place.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Here in the Pacific Northwest we primarily get our electrical power from hydroelectric generation. That is huge dams that ultimately are powered by Old Sol. So, we estimate that in terms of computer cycles, we're killing a few thousand salmon per hour (because of the dams).
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
There seems to be a gleeful joy in subverting the system somehow....
I think they're subverting the system quite well by themselves. Before blaming others they should really examine the way this program runs - it's certainly not governed by anything WE would call intelligence.
Personal experience: After downloading my first packet (January 7, and therefore computed thousands of times before), I've gone 97.806% through it before it abruptly stopped and started downloading a second one - now from January 8th. Guess what, the first packet was never registered as completed! Not only can't they send out correct data, but the client can't even properly process the data it gets! I realize that my case may not necessarily be typical, but it makes you wonder - what other bugs are out there?
Saying they couldn't predict how many people would be interested in this is silly considering the coolness of the original idea and the fact that most people interested in science/astronomy/alien intelligence actually have computers and are on the Net! Thinking that hundreds of thousands of people might show up would not have been a wild guess, folks!
I'm still hoping this is a short term organizational problem they're having, otherwise I might just consider switching to some of the other worthwhile distributed projects out there.
Intelligent life on planet Linux :)
Idle machines use less energy. When idle, the
processor executes the halt instruction which
saves power. This does not hold for Windows 95.
As I understand it, they process one work unit and just keep resending the results. The end result, take 9.5 hours to calculate one work unit then send it back to them 5000+ times. Thus putting yourself at the top of list.
Aparently it's easy to due with Unix clients, I don't know of a way to do it in Windows.
Ok...8 tons of FF/hour...I wonder what that figure would be for all the damn screen savers running around out here.
As for whether their tech would be more advanced...Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...duh long ago. duh
Linux again get's some bad press.. Why? because it's easier to program in, has all the tools to do the job,is 900000% more powerful than any microsloth product and will attract trouble makers like bees to honey. It's a given.. Linux = hackerOS that will never change unless you get a new system that has commands like ...
#crash all computers
#make new virus -o erase mbr -o destroy bios
#hack password @ www.whitehouse.gov
Actually that's probably a script kiddie's dream.. as a hacker I prefer the OS on my altair..... toggle switches!
100101101 10001011101 1000101011 1110110101
Simple... distribute pgp signed sources.
if a byte of code is modified then it will ignore all packets from that host.
the nettrek guys have it down to a science!
(Although I am sure someone can get around it.. some of them are tooooo dang good!
very true! my computer and house is running on NUCLEAR power! the only clean and safe power source short of hydro-electric/solar/wind/geothermal. yet we dont have many nukes because the greenpeace idiots spread their lies..
Save the nukes! Bash the seals!
OK. Color me stupid, but since I don't have the "hacker mentality" that they're alluding to, and since they don't come out & say how or what the cheat is, what exactly is it?
Are ppl hacking the results (I thought they were encrypted)? Is the client unsecure and so now ppl are using it as a backdoor into systems running it (God I hope not)? Are ppl copying the results files when they're almost complete, getting a new work unit, swapping the results out, and then sending them back to artificially inflate the numbers (most likely and probably easy to do since *we're all getting the same WU over & over*)?
I hate to jump on the 'me-too' bandwagon but I agree very much with your assessment. Let's give them some time to work out all of the bugs. I find it interesting that we jump down the throats of a non-profit organization for the comments made by one member regarding what to him must be a serious headache.
And as for his comments against this community, I think he has every right to complain. If I had servers crashing left and right and complaints flying in faster than prunes through and old man, the last thing I would want to deal with is a hacked result saying that an analysis that should be taking at least a day to process is only taking some people 20 minutes. Lets all just let them do what they need to do so we can get back to scanning the skies.
This project ultimately means more than just searching for signs of life in the universe. It's a statement of our culture as a whole, and it's need to believe in something greater and bigger than us all. For once in human history we have at our fingertips the ability to reach out to the stars together. Granted this is a very small step towards it, but it is, never-the-less, a step in the right direction.
-The Mythril Dragon
---- Vincit omnia veritas.
I should have known something was _VERY_ wrong at S@H when I saw that the client SUCKED !! What did they do? Write it in BASIC? Of course if it were OS I would have to Fix It Or Shut Up.
It is the worst piece_of_crap software that I have ever used... (rest of flame redacted). I wiped it & went back to www.distributed.net where I belong.
If this is any indication of the quality of science being done there "the ET's will never let us find them."
He's just some user down in Florida that made some stupid statement about 8 tons of fossil fuel being wasted on this. What an idiot!
Everyone is running on fossil fuel? All the computers that were involved would have all been shut down and not be running?
Give me a break. That story only used that lunitic fringe guy to beef up the story instead of reporting on the facts and stating that this is a REASEARCH project....there WILL be some snags along the way.
Besides, it's not like Keating BOUGHT the program!
Moron...
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
Very well said letter. Good job.
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
I can't believe the reactions that have been shown by slashdotters! Do you think Anderson hasn't been checking logs to find out that some of the UNIX/Linux clients are returning packets back with IMPOSSIBLE times!? Are you guys stupid or something to think that it's a baseless comment? It's easy to trace this kind of thing and I'm sure they have. The fact that he refers specifically to the UNIX/Linux versions as being the culprits is that it's really only possible to do this kind of thing with those versions of the client. Add to this the hacker mentality that ANYONE running a version of UNIX automatically has and you will understand that the "hacker mentality" mentioned is using "hacker" in the good sense of the word, and is only pointing out that people using versions of UNIX are more likely to screw with things. If that bothers you, and if you don't admit that that is true, then you have a problem, not them. I believe it is entirely true that "MOST OF THE HEADACHES" have come from the UNIX/Linux community. That is a perfectly true statement, because only the UNIX versions can be messed with like this. Therefor, "most" of the problems DO come from this community. In any case, this is an offhand comment taken out of context, most likely prompted by the reporter, and anyone offened by it is damn insecure in my book.
The fact that Wired got some idiot to email them with a stupid figure of the amount of fuel wasted makes me want to cancel my Wired subscription, not my SETI participation! My computers have been on anyway! It's not like I would constantly shut my machines down if it weren't for SETI! More stupidity and FUD and I'd be ashamed if I were one of the people who have fallen for it.
I'm just sitting here waiting for all the ABSOLUTELY PERFECT distributed computing clients that all the complainers will be writing and releasing, because obviously SETI doesn't know what it's doing but the people who have complained and vowed never to run SETI again do. I mean, come on people! Get off the high horse and get a clue! Nothing is perfect, especially in the first few months of release, and if you think otherwise then , once again, that's your problem, not theirs.
I will be running SETI on as many machines as I can as long as I keep getting a packet at least once a month. It doesn't cost me anything, it looks really neat, and I still feel like I'm doing something useful and wonderful. I'm also not going to give up at the first sign of trouble as many seem to have. Hell, I wouldn't even have an OS on any of my machines if I gave up every time something didn't work perfectly (and this goes for Microsoft, Mac and any UNIX variety you can name. None of them have worked as advertised). To give up so easily on something so noble and possibly Earth shattering simply because the administration got dumped into something over their heads is pathetic. Cut em some slack! Because of all your complaint mail they probably haven't had time to tell you that the pipeline was screwed (which they did point out once they got the time). Like I said, where are all those perfect distributed clients guys? Haven't you had time yet to test them with 1,000,000 simulated users? You haven't? Wow, maybe that's the same problem SETI@Home is having? Gee, imagine that, nobody IS perfect after all...
To expect perfection is to invite your own failure.
>In all things there are complainers and there are doers.
/. and complain about some perceived problem? Get a life! Grow up! You don't see me sitting here bitching all day do you? NO! I'm far too busy complai^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdoing real work!!!
Right on! If these damn complainers would start doing instead of complaining... But all they do is bitch and moan. Complain, complain, complain. What is it with them? Nothing better to do with their time? I mean, are they just sitting at the computer during school/work hours with nothing better to do than read
:)
#%@*^!.... SETI@home is a program??? I friggin' thought it was a directive! I guess I'll quit staying up late at night in the attic with a flashlight looking for little grey men.
Thoroughly ticked off,
JRR Tolkien
There have been a number of comments in defense
of the seti@home project. Certainly, it's understandable that they were overwhelmed with users, that they had a few bugs to start with, and
(maybe) even that the windows version is snail-like.
I'm pissed off because I've been running this sucker in the _background_ on all my machines while I work. Needless to say, this has been mildly inconvenient, but I put up with it because I thought I was contributing to real research.
Now I find out that my efforts have been for naught, and further, they don't even have enough regard for the contributors to let us know that we're wasting our time.
Further, I talked my girlfriend into running it
on her computer, with a grand speech about contributing to furtherance of knowledge, and I've been promoting it to friends as a 'cool' thing to do.
Now I look like an idiot.
Those folks have completely ruined their credibility with me, and I definitely won't be wasting any more of my time with them.
Thanks for providing "vent" space,
loopy
What worries me about this is that the project
kept quiet about the problem. They are very bad
on replying to bug reports & problems with the
client s/w as well.
I think it's a little sad that even with a project
of this nature hacking & faking is taking place.
Jesus who cares if your top of the list or not.
Just run the software and help out.
Hope we all noted the bit in the article where he states that people have been cheating. The largest headache apparently 'obviously' has come from the Linux / Unix community. He says it's something to do with 'The hacker mentality'...
I don't think the guys at SETI said they were pissed off at it, though. They just said it was a big headache. I think the whole point is that they're feeling overwhelmed with what has become a big fat Slashdot Effect.
SETI has been surviving all these years through abysmal funding, squatting radiotelescope time, and the only reason they haven't fallen through is because everyone recognises their research as being fundamental, although the chance of positive results are practically nill.
So I say: give them a break, guys. It's normal they take a little while to organise, and at least they're being honest about it.
What would you have done with idle CPU time, anyway? Run Life simulations to generation Googol?
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
The complaints seem kind of short-sighted.
People have to realize the odds against finding intelligent life through this project are pretty long, so these people are crying because they've lost a couple months of work?
Sure, maybe over the last three months the mothership has been transmiting messages about a utopian society, but transmissions will likely continue. If these people wanted to do it in the first place, they should cut such an ambitious project some slack.
And 8 tons of fossil fuel a day? Like all those people would have otherwise turned off their computers.
Waiting patiently for contact,
Mike
Troll Like a Champion Today
Just call it the Rabid Hyping Press Mentality. I don't want to name names, but it is Wired after all.
Always be careful what you say to the police/press
rbb
As for the specific problems with SETI administration, yea there are some real problems with the adminning of the project, but you know, it's a research project run at (and maybe by) a research institution. Let them work the kinks out and move on. Instead of dwelling on how much fossil fues are wasted (which aren't really wasted since the computers would be otherwise idle), how about we all learn from this?
And maybe you nay-sayers could donate your time and expertise to the project.
-- Robert Hayden aka rhayden@geek.net
The Wired article may have been writen over the weekend when there were duplicate packets being sent, but users were reporting new blocks late Saturday and early Sunday.
Refer to the alt.sci.seti newsgroup for the blow by blow details of the problem and its passing (all with time and date stamps)
Jay!!!
We can't make any realistic assumptions about alien life-forms that aren't refracted through our own self-concept as a species. Either we think of ourselves as too primitive to go on the air (an unjustified inferiority complex left over from the arrogance of the Industrial Revolution), or we preen as the only creatures bright enough to "invent" radio (unlikely). Both attitudes are archaic, self-destructive, secretly resentful, and (worse) miss the point.
Continuing the effort to make contact, by whatever means we have, is intrinsically beneficial as a human activity, regardless of whether our local planetary cultures understand why that is so, and regardless of whether we get it right in the first 1000 years of the attempt.
If we are eventually to become galactic citizens of some sort, we'd probably make the best possible first impression if we develop a vaster worldview before we make definitive offworld contact. If we can use the process of seeking that contact to develop a seriously long view of time (in which our "history" is a drop of food coloring) and to cultivate some cosmic patience, at least we might have something reasonable to say when we do build a fancier toy that tunes us in to the request line for the Galactic Top 40.
-- minotaur73 (Any sufficiently advanced technology is incomprehensible.)
When did that happen? What are the details?
Mike Caprio, mikecap@nospamworld.stdspam.com
Digital Renaissance Man - Writer, Coder, & Artist