Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: NPR discusses using email to force computers to calculate

Author: Miguel A. Ballicora

Date: 14:31:49 08/31/01

Go up one level in this thread


On August 31, 2001 at 11:07:00, Uri Blass wrote:

>On August 31, 2001 at 10:09:47, Ed Panek wrote:
>
>> The other day while driving home from work and listening to NPR(National Public
>>Radio) the discussion was about a group of scientists at MIT who had succesfully
>>tricked thousands of computers into performing very deep calculations for them
>>and receiving the results with no assistance or agreement from the computer
>>owners. The only catch was the computers needed to be online all the time. I
>>only caught the end of this discussion. Does anyone know about such an
>>experiment?
>>
>>
>>  I am not sure about any laws regarding this. Could computer chess use this?
>>
>>
>>Ed
>
>It seems to me unfair to use computers for tasks without an agreement  from the
>computer owner.
>
>I believe that it means that other applications that are done at the same time
>may become slower.
>
>If time is important for these applications then it is a clear unfair demage.
>One example is computer programs on ICC
>
>I wonder how many programs lost rating because of the scientists from MIT.
>I can imagine a more serious demage.
>
>Uri

Please, read the article before jumping to false conclusions. Scientist
are not malicious hackers. This has been done under consent and what is
accessed is what you make available to the public in the web server.
It uses standard internet protocols, nobody is breaking into your machine
BTW, they are from Notre Dame, not from MIT

see:
http://www.nd.edu/~parasite/faq.html

Regards,
Miguel





This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.