Benz....

[Mictlan]

To all team members:

This situation with both benz and q-_-p is a delicate matter. First, if they are cheating in any way (using a patched client or retransmitting WU) they are surely doing something that is damaging the project as a whole.

Second, I have seen that the leadership and the general community of this team have gone to great effords to contact benz and the SETI@home administration so that this account can be checked.

Some of the current forum members can remember the situation that arised almost one year ago, when one of the team members (he didn't post here BTW) IceT was deleted form the project. After several inquieres, when SETI Admins checked his account, they came to the conclusion that he was using a patched client and all his WU were deleted.

Right now, several attempts of the team to check the results form benz have been tried, and the only contact with the Admins have come to no answer. We can continue to raise our voice to the SETI Admins, but if they don't deem fit to delete any of this account, the only possible answer (and taking the lattest results of the cheater cleanout) might be that they have valid accounts.

 

[Greg M]

The longer I've been involved in SETI, the more I understand how Benz's miraculous 1GHz Athlon @ 1.5GHz is such a farse. The fact that Berkeley can't even manage the project makes me regularly question why I should even bother. So far, I've seen no arguments that convince me to stay with it.

 

[DanFraser]

Benz's miraculous 1GHz Athlon @ 1.5GHz is such a farse.

It could be just his home system, and he managed to bend his Boss' ear to use the computers at work or summat... (unless of course there is proof I havent yet seen that shows him doing a stupidly fast time on that comp)

 

[KenCo]

The longer I've been involved in SETI, the more I understand how Benz's miraculous 1GHz Athlon @ 1.5GHz is such a farse. The fact that Berkeley can't even manage the project makes me regularly question why I should even bother. So far, I've seen no arguments that convince me to stay with it.

Hopefully they'll eliminate all the current methods of cheating with SETI2. Though cheaters always seem to find a way.

Hopefully you will stay with it. Maybe just on the offhand chance that one of YOUR computers will be the one to process a signal from another intelligent life form in our galaxy!

 

[Cy]

I agree with Ken. While the cheaters will always be around to bring things down there is still good science being done with this project. It does not matter in the end if there are 1000 times more work units than are "real". The data from the real units will be processed and the science will move forward. Yes, it will take more time and yes it is very stupid to cheat at something like this but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!

BTW, I'll be sure to mention you all to the President when I find ET and get to go to the White House.

Cy

 

[jamng]

When the WUs are deleted from such accounts, are they thrown back into the pool for proper processing or are those WUs pretty much gone?

 

[Cy]

All WUs get processed several times anyway so there would be no loss of data in those cases.

Cy

 

[Greg M]

(unless of course there is proof I havent yet seen that shows him doing a stupidly fast time on that comp)

Now to Benz. His average wu is done in 45 minutes. The long time members of the team say that there is no computer that can do a wu in that time. Period. And I've come to see that too.

So Benz must be using a patched client.

I agree with Ken. While the cheaters will always be around to bring things down there is still good science being done with this project. It does not matter in the end if there are 1000 times more work units than are "real". The data from the real units will be processed and the science will move forward. Yes, it will take more time and yes it is very stupid to cheat at something like this but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!

It's not just about time, it's also about money. The folks at Berkeley are having a difficult time coming up with funding. To not have a controlled project is so brain-dead, it's mind numbing. With the poor stewardship of SETI1, to assume SETI2 will receive funding is a reach, IMO.

 

[TC]

Funding is definitely a big part of the problem. Not only with respect to equipment, but staffing as well - and that is what is causing the slow reaction to the cheating problem imo.

 

[papounet]

Sorry Mictlan,

I hate to disagree with you and with others that still think that benz and q-_-p could be legitimate,

please read my previous post on the subject pointing to my analysis on arstechnica http://arstechnica.infopop.net/Open...22097561&m=3780985735&r=4050923045#4050923045


or go to this thread Calling out q-_-p
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143493

where I deconstruct the highly synchronized production of benz4140 and q-_-p

 

[Mictlan]

Papounet:

I also don't think that benz or q-_-P WU times are legitimate. We have seen output of sub 1 hour WU comming from benz for quite a time. The problem is is he is just terminating the WU with a patched client or just duplicating the results. But as we have done all that is in our power to clear this members, and if Berkeley can't drop them, then it can mean two things:

Either they don't have time to check these accounts (more probable)

Or they did check them and found nothing amiss (highly unlikely).

As a side note, has anyone come to think tht maybe benz is really crunching all this WU. ANd the only help he is getting is alittle program that identify the WU before crunching and classify them according to one criteria (just like the SETI Screen), then he deltes alll the WU that wouldn't warranty being early terminated. Then clone it, and crunch it in several machines. THat could be easily scripted. In the 4,800 WU I have crunched I think that around 1% of them have been early terminated. So if you can catch them before you begin the real crunching, you could possibly clone it several times. It would be cloning, but each result would be different, so you could theoretically justify it as repetitive crunching.