Cheats Wreak Havoc on SETI@home: Participants

[Balandar]

From: http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1101f.html#item5

"Cheats Wreak Havoc on SETI@home: Participants"

ZDNet Australia (10/30/02); Colley, Andrew

As the race to contribute the most computing power to the SETI@home distributed computing project enters its final two-month stretch, participants are accusing project administrators of ignoring claims of cheating. The sudden gains made by relative newcomer SETI@Netherlands, which have helped it rapidly close the gap between it and current leader ARS Technica-sponsored Team Lamb Chop (ATLC), are arousing suspicion. IT professional and SETI@home expert Max Nealon notes that some members of Team Netherlands are returning 5,000 work units (WUs) every day, but estimates that it would take a 1 GHz PC devoted to SETI@home processing six hours to complete just 1 WU. The idea that team members could possess 1,250 GHz of processing power dedicated solely to the project is dubious, he explains. Adding fuel to his argument are allegations reportedly made by SETI Netherlands' team manager, claiming that cheating is common and that 41 percent of the team's work is invalid. Nealon says there are several ways to cheat: In one scenario, partially completed WUs could be distributed to other team members' SETI@home accounts. Yet he reports that his notifying SETI@home administrators of cheating has not elicited any response, and he believes this is because they are more concerned with the project's paucity of resources. Nealon warns that if such cheating is rampant, then the approximately three million results compiled by the project thus far could be called into question.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstec....,00.htm

Here are my Set @ Home stats:

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/fcgi-bi....ats_new