1003 and counting...

[ffutures]

Some time in the last 24 hours or so I passed a landmark...

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I've done 974 on and off over the years. I'm on again, doing one every 8 hours or so, will I catch you?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure - Since I got my 1.8 ghz box I'm generally knocking out a couple an evening, more at weekends and during holidays when I'm on-line for longer. But they're about to introduce a new system anyway using different software, with variable sized data blocks, which will apparently be more robust but will make the old-style units obsolete. See
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/transition.php for details.

I'm going to download the new software now, seems as good a point as any to switch over, if I run into problems I will comment.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well, the first snag is that the software doesn't want to download - server must be too busy or something. So it goes...

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

So you're using software that you allow to write files to your machine, and then read files (presumably the ones it wrote, but how can you tell) and send them to a random destination?

I've never understood why people do this. If it was a Microsoft program.... oh, wait, XP does that too.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Given that there's more than a million users and I've never heard of any security problems with the programs downloaded from their site I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. When and if I can actually get the new version to download I'll have to see how that goes, but I'm reasonably confident that they aren't deliberately messing up my PC.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

No no no: think like a super-villain. You've got a program that reads and writes files to over a million computers. Do you use it right away? You certainly don't use it to add virii (although a back door is a possibility). How do you know where virii on your machine come from? Does your anti-virus software screen the SETI online files? Does anything?

The new software is even more disturbing: it upgrades itself without any intervention on your part, multiple projects can use it, it uses a non-standard XML (so again, good luck figuring out what it's doing), and has a lengthy FAQ explaining how it isn't secure.

The new version explicitly states that it is snooping on your machine to optimize itself: if it's looking at your hardware capabilities, what else is it doing?

You should take a look at the FAQ, especially the security portion. And think like a super villain. I know I do. Here's what I'd do:

1) Collect all sorts of information on users.
2) Use everyone's machines as processing power for government surveillance projects... or my own surveillance projects. Yep, SETI's churning away on decoding something... but is it alien signals or breaking encrypted e-mail? How many computers does it take to crack 128-bit encryption?
3) Prepare machines for the mother of all computer meltdowns. Imagine what you could do to the internet if you had full control over 1 million machines.

The possibilities are endless, and the current project is tailor-made to appeal to technogeeks with high end equipment.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

And the new version comes with a built-in warning: it's called BOINC. I cheerfully suggest that if you're not familiar with the term, do a dictionary search on "boink."

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Having seen what Kazaa and MS Messenger can do to a PC I doubt that even a program with this name can be that much worst...