Message to the SETI TeAM from Smokeball

[Smoke]

Hello TeAm Mates,

Well here we are in 6th place in the world. Now that all of the venting is over (hopefully) it is time for us to make up our minds what we want to do.

We are faced with a situation that the SETI project is being besieged by vandals. The officials at the S@H project have reluctantly taken their time to help remedy the situation. At first they were completely removing any account that was found using, let?s say, questionable means to enhance their statistics. Lately S@H has chosen to only nick accounts for the amount of WUs that were found less than correct.

I personally think they are making a big mistake. The message they are sending is ?if you cheat, all you are risking is the cheated WUs?. There is another penalty involved and that is the loss of respect you may have had from fellow Seti Crunchers. But a lot of the people engaged in this sort of behavior could care less how they are perceived by their constituents. The scientists and astronomers are great people but their management skills are a little lacking to say the least.

I?ve been informed that Seti-2 will be ?extremely hard to cheat?. Instead of counting WUs the project will use some sort of credit measured by the amount of computation done. My only concern is: ?If the richest man in the world who has hired the smartest programmers in the world cannot keep his operating system free from hackers ? what chance do a group of scientists, astronomers, and computer science professors have at creating a hack-proof client??

I think there needs to be put in place ?an enforcement office? whose primary job would be to see that the integrity of the project is beyond reproach. There are people who have the best interest of the project in their hearts that would volunteer to serve in such a capacity. I believe S@H needs to look to its volunteer User base for help. This would relieve them of a duty for which they have no taste to begin with and spend their valuable time doing the actual science.

I will attempt to get founders from other top teams to join with me in an effort to modify the organization of the SETI program. I hope we do not get the cold shoulder.

Now all of that is good and fine and hopefully will make Seti-2 the better, but, what about the here and what about now?

TeAm AnandTech SETI has come a long way and #6 is not too shabby. Can we overtake a team or two that is ahead of us before Seti-1 ends? Do you want that to happen?

A lot of TeAm AnandTech has grown weary of the SETI project and with ?all of the goings on? I don?t blame them one bit. Many have joined small, new projects where they feel they can have a larger impact. How can we overcome this feeling?

I have felt for a long time that there needs to be a better way of categorizing USERS. Something like:

Users with only one computer.
Users with only two computers.
?
?
And so forth.

This would give each USER (that?s what S@H calls us ? I?d prefer CRUNCHER or SEARCHER) a category in which he/she has a chance of advancement. This would encourage computer upgrading, recruitment, and competition which = MORE FUN.

Maybe I should put up a POLL and see exactly what the computer ownership of our TeAm AnandTech membership really is. I know this has been done before to some extent but maybe a detail POLLING would make such a categorization possible.

So what do you say my fellow TeAm Mates? Do we crawl up and hide? Or do we come out fighting?

Back in my old Army days we had a saying.

?When the going get tough ? the tough get going!?

So who are we? And what are we going to do?

 

[soni]

We come out fighting for that 4.th place with OUR Team Name on

 

[Freewolf]

Well you know sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is. I don't know about the rest of you but I liked being in 4th but if it is with bad wus I don't want it. I'd rather be in 6th without cheating. I think we can and will put this behind us and show the backbone to retake 4th and be proud knowing we did it the right way. A great team can take what is thrown at them and keep right on going forward and I happen to think I am a member of the greatest team in Seti and proud of it.
Now lets take back what is ours!

 

[dmcowen674]

It would be great if they allowed the help of a Volunteer "Police" force if you will. I hated to see that the guys at the SETI crew had to take their time out because of the "Vandals" as Greg said.

Hopefully we will have some interaction with the project team as it is in beta and get these suggestions incorporated in to the overall project.

?When the going get tough ? the tough get going!?

>So who are we? And what are we going to do?

Sounds more like Jim Bulishi in Animal House

Who's with me? Let's goooooooooooooooooooo...........

 

[Wiz]

Thanks Greg,

at least the cheaters have had the effect of making S@H do something to secure the next incarnation of the software.
I remember the days of the game Quake, there were cheaters who could manipulate the standings so they would have better stats. The programmers at iD software had to start spending time making their software cheat resistant. This makes the software suffer because time that could be spent making the software better for best use has to be spent developing security.
It's a tradeoff situation, to make the product better the software can not be "all that it can be" due to time & resources spent on security.

Security always comes with a pricetag. Increased security usually means decreased comfort and usability.
This is not a perfect world. There are people who will try to cheat, steal, deceive etc...
I choose to believe that most of us are good honest people who would not stoop to that.

Seti can do one great thing now, Immediately give founders the ability to kick and ban any user!!!
This would provide group founders with the ability to police the group.
There would be some real threat, some real punishment and some real justice done if someone is found to be cheating.
Where there is no promise of judgement there is no fear to offend.
Maybe that's too much power in some peoples view, but to me there is no strength in the current system. We can not self police without some kind of tool to cull out those who don't deserve to be with us.

As to the direction of our TeAm?

Of course we must regain our #4 position, ASAP!!!


MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!

 

[Michael]

I agree with Wiz in that I would prefer that the team founders be able to kick users from the team as their form of "policing" vs. being directly involved as a volunteer police force.

Michael

 

[Smoke]

I too have expressed a wish for Founders to have the authority to expell members from their teams but there is one problem with this strategy. There will have to be some way for the Founders to have access to the S@H Database and the proper tools to determine the validity of any account. When you consider the large number of teams that exist ... it would be a major undertaking to provide each founder with such access and tools.

I believe a smaller group would be more workable. The makeup of this "Police Force" or "Enforcement Division" or whatever it may be called could be representatives from each of the top teams. I'm sure there would be no shortage of volunteers for such a job. Complaints or requests for investigation could go to this body which could be assigned on a rotational basis so each member would share an equal load. There would be a limited number of people that would have to be provided database access and the needed tools to do their job. That is the reason I have suggested this route.

 

[dmcowen674]

Greg's right, it's the old "Too many Chef's can spoil the soup" situation.

 

[JWMiddleton]

SETI Mods....hmmm, interesting concept! Dave had an idea many months ago that might work to reduce/eliminate cheating. I'm not sure I can explain it properly, but it had to do with a certificate with each WU. It would have to be returned with the results to be validated. It would be only work once for that WU and user. It would be very small so it would not generate any real increase in bandwidth, but could really put the brakes on duplicate submissions.

Did I get close on that Dave?

 

[Robor]

I totally agree with you on the current policy regarding the caught cheaters. As you said, there's no real risk in cheating. I prefer they just delete the user from the project all together. In fact, I'd like to see Berkeley shut down the SETI1 project to new membership. I know this would angry some members who would like to join but it's very late in the project and SETI2 is just around the corner. Plus, this would prevent deleted cheaters from creating new accounts and causing more trouble.

I definetely like the idea of a moderation force made up of founders from some of the experienced and respected teams. This would be a little "checks and balances" system that should reduce the load on the SETI admins and reduce the risk of cheats.

Now let's get that 4th spot back!

 

[BadThad]

I'm with you Smokeball....wherever, whatever, I agree with what you say. When SETI2 comes I hope EVERYONE turns off SETI1 and moves on....I know I will.

 

[Mardeth]

Lets just hope that in Seti2 its really is hard to cheat.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: JWMiddleton
SETI Mods....hmmm, interesting concept! Dave had an idea many months ago that might work to reduce/eliminate cheating. I'm not sure I can explain it properly, but it had to do with a certificate with each WU. It would have to be returned with the results to be validated. It would be only work once for that WU and user. It would be very small so it would not generate any real increase in bandwidth, but could really put the brakes on duplicate submissions.

Did I get close on that Dave?

You got it right John, I never even mentioned to Dr A and the SETI crew yet. Basically a VPN without the V or the Tunneling Protocol itself, call it more like EPN or EEPN Encapsulated Encryption Protocol Networking.
Another thing I probably should get a patent on. If it ever come into being you all heard it here first. The other thing that would help is getting the DC technology accepted and incorporated into the Operating install itself. Just as you have the options for the goofy Graphical Screensavers, you would have a pull down option of what project you would like the computer to work on when not in use by a human. It would be easier to increase the security having the files already part of the Operating system itself.

 

[Wiz]

Dave, right on about the encryption idea. Simply incorporating a small private / public key system into the WU's would solve a great many problems. For instance, did this WU get processed by you or someone else pretending to be you? If it doesn't contain your key then it's not from you and it could be rejected or held for inspection. The only good reason to do this is the very big concern of identity theft. If you steal my identity and do evil while pretending to be me that reflects on me negatively.

Sorry though, I don't trust MSFT that much (incorporating the client into the OS). Besides, they have enough trouble getting a stable OS out the door without this.
Now I know they are not the only OS mfg out there, but they are the 900lb gorrilla.

I do think they should build security into the WU's and the client server from the start and not leave it for band-aid programming later.

 

[deerslayer]

Originally posted by: Mardeth
Lets just hope that in Seti2 its really is hard to cheat.

 

[Smoke]

Well, I'm definitely not a programmer and I don't really understand what you all are talking about but I bet a smart, determined hacker(s) can defeat anything put in front of him(them). I'm all for making the next CLIENT as bullet-proof as it can be but I still think we need to have some sort of "enforcement body" that can handle anything that falls through the cracks.

We definitely need to restore confidence.

 

[Wiz]

There's some very good cryptography available now and any computer that can do seti would have no problem exchanging keys and communicating securely. I doubt they are going to do anything real though and I will bet their programming will be easily cheated. Unless they spend some major resources making it secure then Smokeball is right, determined hacker(s) can defeat anything put in front of him(them).
Also the latest and best cryptography can not be exported to all countries, there are restrictions in place.

If however they used the latest available cryptography and required every unit signed in to pass security testing it would render the cheaters almost completely impotent, as long as the WU itself was also somehow secured.
There are many levels, and when you want to prevent cheating you will have to put yourself into the cheaters mindframe, or hire some good ones and see how they beat your system. Kind of like hiring ex-cons to see if they can break electronic security. The down side to that is that you are not using the "best" cheaters that way. The "best" of them would never get caught nor would they hire on to help "the enemy".

So in the end they will build it the best they can and then work on fixing the security after it is beaten.

So I agree with Smokeball, there should be some controlling force that can help to police the whole.
There's very little chance they will get the programming completely right out of the gates so having a mechanism in place to deal with the security problems (cheating & identity theft) is going to be important.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Some good ideas here.

I agree that determined hackers can find away through most defenses, but you can make it tough enough so that only the skilled, determined experts can hack it, thus discouraging "easy" cheating and script kiddies.

I also think it's a good idea to have a hit squad to help the SETI scientests monitor the project for cheaters.

I also agree that accounts that have been caught cheating should be zeroed out (there are ways for Berkeley to keep any valid processed WUs without having to give credit for them to hackers in order to be used for analysis).

I also think that it would be great if the Team leaders could banish proven cheater accounts from the team.

I would also make a suggestion that there be an appeal process to help make sure that politics and personal vendettas don't cause problems. if a team leader banishes an account for cheating, then they should be able to appeal to the "hit" squad, if the "hit" squad made the determination, then the person could appeal to Berkeley.

Strange things have happened, even on this team, we had a teammate that was submitting bad WUs, and was accused of cheating by other teams, but it was determined that he had a flakey PC, which was fixed, and we moved on. Some people tend to be quick with assumptions and actions on those assumptions, so a course of action for anyone wrongly accused should be made available.

Not that the leaders of this team would act that way, but there are a lot of teams, and a lot of immature hotheads that thrive on power over others.

Just my 2 cents

 

[Smoke]

Your idea of an appeal process is very good. I like that ... wish I'd have thought of it. LOL

 

[JWMiddleton]

If we keep this up, Greg will have a fully developed plan to present to Dr. A.