Lost job due to installing SETI software... Dave???

[GlacierFreeze]

He probably wasted a few hundred bucks of electricity. Maybe a few thousand dollars max.

Umm no. Try again. A school district worth of computers can eat up lots of money through a power bill, especially if they're older power hungry systems with no power savings features like the newer ones. That doesn't even take into account if they're not turned off at the end of the day...

 

[ElFenix]

100 computers could easily use a few thousand dollars in electricity extra each year running boinc. add another 0 to the computers and you add another 0 to the dollars.

 

[SagaLore]

And his alleged downloading of alien-hunting software might well have used additional energy resources and caused other related damage or accelerated depreciation to the hardware.

Running computers costs money. Non-idle = more electricity, more bandwidth usage, and more wear and tear on the hard drive.

 

[yllus]

Hopefully he's prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

 

[SunnyD]

Reminds me of when I had BOINC running across about a dozen or so computers with my previous employer. Just checked the other day, looks like they finally turned them all off.

 

[DrunkenSano]

The one million dollars isn't an actual calculation, it's a number thrown out for legality. It's to be used for the future lawsuit that will be fired at the person who got fired. Same thing happened to my friend who accidently re-ended someone in a minor car accident. A few months later, the other person lawyered up and sued my friend for One Million Dollars in damages and suffering.

 

[Vette73]

The one million dollars isn't an actual calculation, it's a number thrown out for legality. It's to be used for the future lawsuit that will be fired at the person who got fired. Same thing happened to my friend who accidently re-ended someone in a minor car accident. A few months later, the other person lawyered up and sued my friend for One Million Dollars in damages and suffering.

I take it you did not read the story...

"The school district estimates these losses at between $1.2 million and $1.6 million."

 

[DrunkenSano]

I take it you did not read the story...

"The school district estimates these losses at between $1.2 million and $1.6 million."

It's the same as the victim in the car accident with my friend estimating damages and suffering at $1 million. They can estimate all they want but it doesn't mean it is true.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Man loses job after searching too hard for aliens
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10406588-76.html


Now the school system is saying he did over 1 million in damage by installing this software.
I thought SETI ran only when the system is not being used? So how could it slow down/damage systems when they were being used in class?

Yea he was not in the right persay, but to say he did over a million in damage seems a little over the top.

I don't get how they even put a money value on things like this, do they just randomly pick a number? How can installing an app cause any damage that has a monetary value? It's not like it caused the server to blow up and destroy a whole section of the building. The biggest "damage" it could potentially do is mess up the computer, in which case it has to be reimaged or repaired. it may cost time (that is already seperately part of the budget) but not extra money, and especially not millions.

Guess if they wanted to get technical they could say the PC was costing them more in hydro but a million? I doubt it.

Though what he did was not really right either, he should of at least tried to get approval.

 

[DrunkenSano]

Them putting a number on it is as accurate as you putting a number on an estimate of what was taken from someone if they were a victim of a robbery. You see on the news a lot where someone was robbed and there was a list of items stolen that are estimated at a value of $$$. That $$$ is definitely not accurate.

 

[James Bond]

I don't get how they even put a money value on things like this, do they just randomly pick a number? How can installing an app cause any damage that has a monetary value? It's not like it caused the server to blow up and destroy a whole section of the building. The biggest "damage" it could potentially do is mess up the computer, in which case it has to be reimaged or repaired. it may cost time (that is already seperately part of the budget) but not extra money, and especially not millions.

Guess if they wanted to get technical they could say the PC was costing them more in hydro but a million? I doubt it.

Though what he did was not really right either, he should of at least tried to get approval.

Dude are you retarded? Read the other posts OR the actual article. Electricity.

 

[Jeff7]

Well, apparently he was doing a bit more than just running SETI.....he was downloading porn, stole 18 computers from the district, was previously told to take the SETI program off the district computers and didn't, failed to fulfill several areas of his job responsibility which included firewall installation.......

So there was a LOT more than just the SETI program involved; it just seems the SETI program gives a catchier and flashier headline to get the reader to read/click on the article, esp. for "tech" oriented news sites.

I think SETI was just the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, for a worker that wasn't performing up to expectations....not to mention being a thief.

And the article is evidently trying to set a record for "Most Allusions to Aliens."

Yeah, ok. SETI. Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. ET. Aliens. We get it.

 

[mb]

I already posted over in Distributed Computing on this.

FreeMcOwen.com is still up.

I kept it up in the hopes no one would ever go through this shit again.

Of course they still spew garbage too.

"The district was forced to replace an estimated 2,300 computer processors because of the 24-hour use of the computers."

Does Intel and AMD know that their CPU's cannot run 24 hrs?

Yea that was the biggest WTF when they said SETI was killing CPUs.
I have never had a CPU fail and I overclock all of them I have ever owned.

It can kill improperly maintained machines, yes.

I don't know what kind of systems they have.

I'd imagine they are probably older Dells and such with P4s.. Prescotts (pres-hots).

They probably have one maybe two fans in the machine and are probably full of dust.

So yeah, maxing out the CPU 24/7 is a good way to kill the machines.

 

[randay]

LOL. fail@home.

 

[Jadow]

I already posted over in Distributed Computing on this.

FreeMcOwen.com is still up.

I kept it up in the hopes no one would ever go through this shit again.

Of course they still spew garbage too.

"The district was forced to replace an estimated 2,300 computer processors because of the 24-hour use of the computers."

Does Intel and AMD know that their CPU's cannot run 24 hrs?

Dave I just read your site, I wonder how much money the state spent on your case! Bet it was a lot more than $2100!

 

[waffleironhead]

It can kill improperly maintained machines, yes.

I don't know what kind of systems they have.

I'd imagine they are probably older Dells and such with P4s.. Prescotts (pres-hots).

They probably have one maybe two fans in the machine and are probably full of dust.

So yeah, maxing out the CPU 24/7 is a good way to kill the machines.

Oh, so improper maintenance killed the machines. Good point in his favor.

 

[mb]

Oh, so improper maintenance killed the machines. Good point in his favor.

If he's stealing computers and using school machines for porn, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd clean the dust out of 1000 PCs on a regular basis.

 

[Sheep]

That CNET article from the original post and most tech-oriented articles about this news story are utter fail because they all make it sound like the guy got fired solely for running SETI, which isn't the case.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Dude are you retarded? Read the other posts OR the actual article. Electricity.

A cpu going from 0 to 100 use is not going to use millions worth of electricity! Like, really.

Last I checked my PC there's only a couple 10ths of an amp difference between normal load (what they are paying for anyway) and full load. So maybe 12w per PC give or take was being used extra. If they're going to sue people for electricity use, may as well sue the students for not turning off the monitor after they're done, because that uses more power then anything especially if they're still using CRTs (couple amps each, so about 200w).

Lets be generous and assume that 100w per PC was being used that should not have been. They don't mention how many PCs in that school so lets be totally off the wall here and say 1000. So that's 100kwh which costs approx 570 cents per hour which comes up to an additional 424,080 extra cents in total per month. If my calculation is correct that would be 4,240 bucks a month extra. So while it is a lot, it's not even close to a million bucks.

 

[Fritzo]

What they didn't say is the majority of the damages came from his AOL connection which he still uses and is charged $6.95/hr.

 

[dmcowen674]

Dave I just read your site, I wonder how much money the state spent on your case! Bet it was a lot more than $2100!

The lead State prosecutor wrote in the court documents that he spent over a $1 million himself during his 18 month investigation.

I still have all the documents, they fill a case that held reams of paper.

I was supposed to finish a book on it and someone mentioned a screen play and that they were trying to get Nicolas Cage to play me. Never got another writer to help finish it so the movie project was scrapped too.

G4 did do a short documentary on it, NBC Channel 11 in Atlanta and the BBC did as well.

 

[oogabooga]

That CNET article from the original post and most tech-oriented articles about this news story are utter fail because they all make it sound like the guy got fired solely for running SETI, which isn't the case.

He DID get fired for running SETI

(and stealing computers, downloading porn, not doing his job)

but SETI is the main reason!

(behind stealing computers, downloading porn, and not doing his job)

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Lets be generous and assume that 100w per PC was being used that should not have been. They don't mention how many PCs in that school so lets be totally off the wall here and say 1000.

That's where you're off. You're talking about a single school. He was the admin for an entire district. There could have been, and likely was, several thousand computers in that school district. Your estimate is likely way under what was being used. A local school district to me has easily over 1000 computers and it's one of the more decent school districts in Mississippi (known for being low in every ranking imaginable). I can safely assume the district this guy worked for has more computers than the one I'm in. It wouldn't be hard for the guy to include a copy of SETI on each computer image.

Also your generous 100w estimate seems low. This chart shows some P4s (likely what the district had a majority of) can use as much as 200w at full load and I believe that's just the processor's wattage, not the entire system. Think of several thousand computers using more than 200w+ going 24/7.

 

[Kelemvor]

I wish large organization would install Boinc type stuff on all their PCs. Not for SETI but for the ones that research cures for diseases and things like that. Imagine the ridiculous amounts of crunching that could be done via major corporations since most people leave their PCs on over night. It'd be a HUGE publicity opportunity.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

S@H is such a waste of valuable computational resources.

I was supposed to finish a book on it and someone mentioned a screen play and that they were trying to get Nicolas Cage to play me. Never got another writer to help finish it so the movie project was scrapped too.