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ZDNet article regarding SETI - Now with link to a response from Berkeley

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I am sure that there will be no one that agrees with me on my take on this but here goes anyway.

A cheater is just a common thief, what does he steal? He steals your right to win. There is no winner in SETI other than maybe you will be the one that will decode the signal. A SETI cheater does not increase his chance to find the signal that qualifies as a communication from afar.

So cheating in SETI actually decreases the cheaters chance of winning by finding the signal that we are looking for.

It is the science that should be the prime concern here not the stats, I like states also but it is not the most important thing in the project.

As someone mentioned before that they built and own all the machines that they use for SETI and I am in the same catagory, I made a post about this relating to what amounts to corporate sponsership and trying as a individual to compete with them and was really taken down by some of the members and at that time I quit the team, but I came back for some reasons that I will not go into here.

Some of the members on TeamAnandtech are not team members at all in my humble opinion and the big hitters are sometimes glorified to be superior beings, this attitude is the one that promotes cheating by those that have to have the adulation of their fellow team members.

Wether I have moved up or down in the stats by the action of a cheater is to me of no importance, what is important is the science.

Bleep
 
That's a good take on it Bleep, I doubt you would find many here that disagree with you.

Of course we want to do better than the French, they beat us a long time ago and it's taken forever to catch up with them.

To do it we had to become a team. Not just a bunch of people doing the same thing in the same place, but actually a group that cares about each other. Tries to find out what makes each others days and try to get to know others on the team as friends.

The cheaters ended up hurting the teams they were theoretically trying to help. They were either misguided, stupid or evil. Depends on who you ask. They were wrong to do it, that is for sure.

I'm proud this hasn't been a problem on our team. Mainly because I respect the people on our team, and I would hate to lose that.
 
Originally posted by: Bleep

It is the science that should be the prime concern here not the stats...
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That is basically what Dr. Anderson told Dave. He was hoping that they could finish BOINC, which they are tying to make "cheat proof," and put the current issues behind them. I feel that he totally misjudged the impact of cheating on the SETI community.

Still stuff posted by: Bleep

As someone mentioned before that they built and own all the machines that they use for SETI and I am in the same catagory, I made a post about this relating to what amounts to corporate sponsership and trying as a individual to compete with them and was really taken down by some of the members and at that time I quit the team, but I came back for some reasons that I will not go into here.
Click to expand...

I have mentioned that in the past as one who built and paid for his own fleet. It is nearly impossible to compete with the corporate and educational fleets, but I try! 🙂


 
Dr Anderson's response when I metioned that I believe the issue is behind the project and the response went well.

Dave:

I'm very pleased by the way all the teams are trying to clean themselves up. Renews my faith in humanity.
 
The cheaters ended up hurting the teams they were theoretically trying to help. They were either misguided, stupid or evil.

Since I don't see "All of the above" as a choice, my money is on stupid. 😀


 
Bleep
I agree with your 1st 3 points 🙂

Don't try competing with the big guns😉 ,just be glad we have some ,otherwise we'd be a lot further down! ,& yes the small guys are very important too.If the big guns were by themselves they'd be an iddy biddy team 😉
Anyway ,glad you came back to us 🙂
 
Thanks Poof, hopefully that is the end of all the hoopla. Also glad to see the Netherlands people were able to comment that it was beyond their control too however I wish they didn't keep saying SETI was ignoring them, that is not true, they just didn't take the time to take such action they they were just forced to do, there is a difference.
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
however I wish they didn't keep saying SETI was ignoring them, that is not true, they just didn't take the time to take such action they they were just forced to do, there is a difference.
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Dave, just semantics. Whether they were intentionally ignoring the problem or whether they choose not to do anything about it until forced to based on their own priorities, the end result was the same. Inaction by the SETI team allowed cheaters to run rampant and screw up the stats (which doesn't affect the science, but does affect the participation) until the SETI community got tired of the inaction and joined in protest to force them to deal with the problem.



 
Even though the "band aid" (Rickman's description) of allowing founders to remove "any" member might help and be a 'quick fix', the problem would still remain, for there are no tools available to the "teams" or the "founders" that can actually check results with 100% certainty. This can only be accomplished by the S@H administrators using their database and equipment.

There will more than likely be further revelations. :Q
 
Dave - I sortof agree with Ray here... Granted, I know that there are literally thousands of teams and each has a Founder... But when the leader of the #3 Team (at the time) emails about a possible problem and the person doesn't get a response back for months until all hell had to break loose, I think things like this could have been nipped in the bud fairly early on.... 🙁

Oh well... Hope that all's well that ends well... 😉
 
Originally posted by: Wiz
Good to see them taking action, too bad it took them this long.

Poof and Dave, you young kids....

heheheh... 😉
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BTW Wiz - didn't get chance to respond, you bum! 😛 😛 😛

(of course /me knows that you are a kid to Smokeball hee hee... *runs off to hide in the hot tub* 😛)
 
Now that was uncalled for! :|

/off to get my snorkel and mask/

Lookout Below! 😛 😀
 
Originally posted by: Smokeball
Now that was uncalled for! :|

/off to get my snorkel and mask/

Lookout Below! 😛 😀
Click to expand...

:Q

😀

(/me gets the champagne ready... 😉 😀)

 
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