The workunits have crunched uselessly because none of them have completed even the first decade. So none of this is of the slightest value to the researchers. If you click on the link in my reply to Misfit, then look at the details of the computers\' results, you\'ll see what I mean. There\'s no way a computer owner who doesn\'t even know there\'s a workunit on the computer can get a climate model through 160 years of simulation.

It\'s been a clossal waste of time and electricity, and I just hope nobody lost their laptop through overheating. Fortunately, a lot of models didn\'t survive long enough to even warm up a laptop.

Credits per se don\'t equal scientific data. You can be number 4 in the global stats and be doing nothing of value.

It would be nice if a few of us could go over to the link in my post above Misfit\'s and thank the Italians there.

---

Cpdn news

I would think that anyone who has sent out a trojan to to amass credits needs
professional help.

The day you have not one but 1458 computers attached to cpdn, you will be misused, mistrusted and mistreated for all your past misfeasance, mischief and misdemeanours.

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/hosts_user.php?userid=188887

Actually, you forgot to look at all hosts instead of the 1400+ from the last 30 days. Total hosts for this criminal are more than 5300.

On another note, for grant funded projects, I hope that staff are reporting this incident to their Principal Investigators. In many cases, grant funding organizations (especially government agencies) require the reporting of such illegal activities to at least the funding agency if not to the appropriate law enforcement organizations, regardless of whether or not the project itself is at fault or if prosecution will be pursued.

I am quite sure that Carl, Milo and Tolu will be watching this thread. If we don\'t have a post from one of them to show that they are, one of us will point out to them what you\'ve said.

---

Cpdn news

I am quite sure that Carl, Milo and Tolu will be watching this thread. If we don\'t have a post from one of them to show that they are, one of us will point out to them what you\'ve said.

Please, if you are at all sincere about the kind of damage that Wate the Wanker and imitators can do then report the matter to the police and let them make the decisions. That\'s what we pay them for, that\'s the way it should be done. We cannot assume where it will or will not lead. There may be one little clue CPDN has overlooked that will assist in other cyber crimes Wate might be involved in. Yes, this may only be the tip of the iceberg called Wate the Wanker\'s cyber crime career. There may be investigative means and methods CPDN has overlooked. I say that in response to earlier indications that CPDN (or at least its moderators) feel reporting this incident to police would be a waste of time.

I also feel that even if the matter is never reported there is some benefit in creating and sustaining the illusion that such matters are reported and prosecuted. It might make others think twice about imitating Wate. CPDN\'s behavior so far tells imitators there won\'t be any real punishment so go ahead and give it a shot. Sorry, a million of us good citizens can stand here and scream wanker, tosser and luzer at them all day long but that won\'t deter them even half as much as the thought they might spend a year in jail. Please, don\'t adopt the pessimist\'s attitude on this and point out all the reasons why it might not work and then assume the reasons to be true. We must relentlessly employ every means at our disposal to stop crime. Criminals rely on apathy and fear. Give them no quarter, no advantage. Beat them wickedly and mercilessly any way you can and each and every time you can.

---

Hi All,
Scott Brown wrote,-
\"On another note, for grant funded projects, I hope that staff are reporting this incident to their Principal Investigators. In many cases, grant funding organizations (especially government agencies) require the reporting of such illegal activities to at least the funding agency if not to the appropriate law enforcement organizations, regardless of whether or not the project itself is at fault or if prosecution will be pursued.\"
End of quote.

Any answer to this, does there not have to be an answer...
As Dagorath says,
\"CPDN\'s behavior so far tells imitators there won\'t be any real punishment so go ahead and give it a shot.\"
He continues,
\"earlier indications that CPDN (or at least its moderators) feel reporting this incident to police would be a waste of time.\"
End of quote.


No, it would not.
I like many here, and those recently from the BBC \"creche\" as well, do not have that much computer knowledge. Or time to learn enough, quickly enough, to be sure I can not fall for, or be damaged by (my computer that is) \"people\" like this one.
We would appreciate some action against this \"person\", if for no other reasons than,
1) To discourage other future \"Wates\".
2) Reassure us of the project\'s support and defence of it\'s crunchers..
(I believe you have stopped many previous attempts, at various types of attack,
but this one \"got through\", so it is different.)

---

M/cycle + Highlands = Bliss

click year box to go to Scotland CPDN

I must of stumbled on to an adult thread, it must be so that no minors have access to obscene language? As I understand myself coming over here there are a few minors transferring to BOINC. Gentlemen, time to hold back the tirade, and use a few **** please.

---

Rory
Leave a planet to those following!

I am quite sure that Carl, Milo and Tolu will be watching this thread. If we don\'t have a post from one of them to show that they are, one of us will point out to them what you\'ve said.

We\'ve already passed the information up the line, but I am not sure what will happen. If anything does, I will mention it.

Wate belongs in and everthing that can be done to put him there should be done. After all a crime has been committed.

Steve

---

i think the people with an unwanted BOINC on their computer have to call the police to punish Wate by law. (If they live in the same country as Wate!)

There is no damage, maybe a damaged good name, in the BOINC community and the projects.

Another thing is Wate\'s person as a cruncher...
I don\'t want to have him in my team, my favorite projects or in the whole community...
But he have just to create a new account and the same person is crunching again!
I see no way to keep him devinitivly out...
How to be fair to the next new teammenber without lots of credits?
...it could be Wate with another name!
I talk mutch more as it is for real, but i wish the person Wate to be marked as unserious!

---

http://www.imkerei-kopsieker.at/home/ my passion!
("imkerei-kopsieker@Home" isn't a BOINC project)
http://www.crunching-family.at my team
http://www.altes-beckhaus.com old sites, "still sleeping"

I once sat as a member of a jury on a fraud case in which a man had used a car as a guarantee for a loan: he failed to repay the loan at which point the guarantee was called up - only for the lender to find that the car was leased. The man was charged with theft, the definition of which appeared to be \"the use of property not his own as if it had been his own\". Since it was a criminal, not civil, offence the decision to prosecute did not need the sponsorship of the damaged party, the Crown Prosecution Service made the decision themselves.

It seems to me that on this basis Wate might be guilty of a criminal offence: it is evident that he did use property \"not his own, as if it were his own\"; moreover the rightful owners will have been harmed by his use of their computers, since a computer running a CPDN model uses more power (an additional 30-50 Watts), not to mention the potentially serious consequences of a laptop fire.

If he\'s a Brit, call in \"Yates of the Yard\", I say ...

It seems to me that on this basis Wate might be guilty of a criminal offence: it is evident that he did use property \"not his own, as if it were his own\"

That argument would stick here in Canada too. And, as in the U.K., there would not need to be a complaint from the victim(s). The Crown Prosecutor can proceed at his/her sole discretion and even without a complaint from the victim. Our law is that way so that crimes can be prosecuted even when the victim has been coerced by the offender into not filing a complaint. I will even go so far as to say I think victims can be charged with contempt of court, in Canada, if they refuse to testify though I doubt the Crown would exercise that right unless the case were extreme.

The question in this matter is not who carries responsibility for initiating proceedings in criminal court. The question is... Should civilians take the matter into their own hands before informing the police? Should civilians assume the police will not be able to pursue the matter due to lack of evidence?

I say matters as grave as the Wate case definitely need to be reported to the police immediately. All civilian parties should refrain from any action that might warn the perpetrator he has been discovered unless there is an immediate threat to someone\'s life. Indeed, there may have been very few clues to Wate\'s identity but now that he has been warned there are likely even fewer clues. Now he has probably covered the few tracks he left behind and made any investigation even less likely to succeed.

Another point to consider is that Wate may be involved in other cyber crimes and just 1 single clue gleaned from this offence might correlate with clues he has left in other crimes. That correlation might have led to an arrest. CPDN and the victim have all but destroyed that glimmer of hope. What did CPDN\'s kneejerk reaction gain? Nothing except the deleting of some cheated credits that were of little importance relative to the damage Wate may be causing to the victims. That action could easily have been postponed and the police contacted first. It really makes me wonder if we are not all just a little too concerned over credits at the expense of ignoring other important concerns.

There is 1 steadfast rule that we can never forget... do not take the law into your own hands, report offences to the police and let them do their job unhindered by our kneejerk reactions and emotional responses. Assume nothing about police powers and abilities, just calmly and quietly report the crime.

If he\'s a Brit, call in \"Yates of the Yard\", I say ...

Sadly, due to CPDN\'s bungling of the affair, there is now little chance that we will ever know who Wate is.

---

Are we supposed to \"police the world\" when people run unknown software from the Internet? There isn\'t much we can do other than turn off the account(s) in question. There were 6 other projects involved, do you similarly slam them for not calling Scotland Yard, the CIA, and the FBI?

Are we supposed to \"police the world\" when people run unknown software from the Internet?

Suggesting you can \"police the world\" would be a ridiculous suggestion and that is probably why nobody here has suggested you should attempt to do that.

There isn\'t much we can do other than turn off the account(s) in question.

Actually, there was one other thing you (or whoever made the decision at CPDN) could have done... you could have picked up the telephone, called the police, filed a statement and consulted with them as to what the best possible course of action would have been. They might have told you there is nothing they can do or they might have told you they will investigate and that you should do nothing that might Wate until further notice. I know how hard it is to have faith in the police. Sometimes they aappear to be the laziest of all civil servants (snivel servants if you prefer) but sometimes they do some amazing work. You could have given them a chance. It would have cost you very little and may have led to an arrest. It was a gamble but you had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Indeed there was little chance that an investigation would produce any result but it was not your place to assume there was absolutely zero chance. That decision should have been left up to the police because they, not you, are the experts in that field. It is them, not you, who should decide if they have time and manpower to investigate. Clearly, CPDN made assumptions they should not have made.

There were 6 other projects involved, do you similarly slam them for not calling Scotland Yard, the CIA, and the FBI?

A call to local constables would have sufficed. It would have relieved you of any further responsibility as the constables would have been responsible for contacting the Yard, CIA or FBI had they deemed it necessary. The moral of the syory is... know where you responsibility begins and where it ends. Act within those bounds and you will rarely be scolded.

Regarding other projects, since CPDN had already alerted Wate, I see no reason to fault other projects. By the time other projects were aware, CPDN had already destroyed any chance of an investigation succeeding. Certainly, the victim is also at fault for not informing the police first but at least he did not alert Wate. CPDN alerted Wate, CPDN killed any chance of an investigation succeeding. After what CPDN did, what the other projects did was inconsequential, the damage had already been done. Therefore I see no reason to slam other projects. I would however, address my remarks to the victim. I hope s/he is listening.

This is not the end of the world. There was no loss of life, nobody lost a job or any staggering amounts of money. Computers slowed down, some CPUs may have fried, there was risk of lappys catching fire but we have no indication any did. In the grand scheme the damage appears to relatively minor.

Nobody is calling for anybody\'s resignation. I see no need for disciplinary action or even official written reprimands. The scolding in this forum is sufficient. I appreciate how, in the heat of the moment, CPDN could make the mistakes they made. I cannot guarantee I would have done any better. My only wish is that CPDN will re-consider the events and their actions and resolve to do better next time, if there is a next time. That\'s all I want.

Let\'s allow the matter to die. Or let\'s continue discussing it if you feel a dicussion could be of some benefit. I guarantee it will be of no benefit to CPDN if CPDN chooses to continue and adhere to the indefensible position it could not have handled the situation better.

---

Amazingly, alone among projects, predictor at home is still accepting results from Wate, with a RAC of over 1000.

Indeed, Dotsch posted at BOINCstats, that the admin there has refused to close the account, and has in fact locked threads suggesting that he should delete Wate. Including the thread containing the repost of mo.v\'s original notice.

This is the admin\'s post referred to by Dotsch:

This thread is closed. Please do not create a new one.

Since this thread was first created I have deleted two other threads incorrectly accusing volunteers of cheating.

If someone has installed the boinc client on machines that they do not have permission to that is wrong. I have no way of knowing if this has or hasn\'t happened. Just because \"some guy\" posted something on the internet is not good enough reason to take any action against anyone.

dlb


____________
David Lee Braun
Predictor@Home
Manager of Computational Facilities
for Dr Charles L. Brooks, III
Department of Molecular Biology, TPC6
The Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, CA 92037
(858) 784-7427
dbraun@scripps.edu

I find this incredible, to say the least. It is true that the reposters of mo.v\'s authoritative and excellent exposition (and expose) of Wate\'s perfidy did not credit her as the author, but anyone reading that post, including the copy posted at predictor, could clearly see that it was not from \"some guy.\" Let alone if they had read any of the linked material at any of the projects.

As Dorsch mentioned, there is a thread, as yet unlocked, responding to the admin\'s decision not to ban this despicable person. Hopefully, Mo or someone from here can inform the folks at P@H that this is a serious matter, handled responsibly in the first instance by the BOINC devs and CPDN staff, and thenceforth by every other project except his.

---

Ken

If someone has access to the boinc_projects mailing list, this would be where a note should be posted (rather than on the predictor forums), since the other project adminstrators will be able to lend support.

---

I'm a volunteer and my views are my own.
News and Announcements and FAQ

to post at the boards of predictor isn\'t possible because all threads about this topic are closed and cleared short time after created
furthermore all people posting to this or even reposting link to the closed thread are banned so that they can\'t post
(like many other people and me:

You may not post or rate messages until Jan 19, 2038

)

Now they blocked whole ip ranges to prevent people from complaining

---

I have an email about the Predictor problem from Jorden who\'s much more in contact with the admins and mods of other boinc projects and also the boinc people in Berkeley than most of us here.

The only thing I would now correct in my original announcement about the W*** problem is what the two Italian members of the Boinc Italy team who posted on the boinc_dev forum have now told us. They said the Italian guy with the trojan who went to them for help thinks the trojan was probably downloaded in a file from a peer-to-peer site. (Maybe music, maybe a film clip?)

The Predictor people have had plenty of time to investigate the situation re W***. The Italian team members have come out and explained what happened, the announcement has been kindly reposted everywhere without AFAIK anyone refuting any statement, the boinc guys in Berkeley appear everywhere under their real names and have their email addresses openly available, Rom Walton\'s blog page contains a link to a German online press article about W*** which shows that the boinc people take the problem seriously, and the project admins who\'ve taken action aren\'t exactly incommunicado. My own contact details are easily available to Predictor and everybody else through my sig.

I notice that David Lee Braun\'s Predictor email address is contained in Ken\'s post up above, so when I\'ve looked at all the links I\'ll write to him, probably some time on Saturday. As I may be the person he refers to as \'some guy\', I\'ll be including my real name Maureen Vilar, address, phone number and links to this thread and the one on the boinc_dev forum which are probably the most informative.

---

Cpdn news

... so when I\'ve looked at all the links I\'ll write to him, probably some time on Saturday. As I may be the person he refers to as \'some guy\', I\'ll be including my real name Maureen Vilar, address, phone number and links to this thread and the one on the boinc_dev forum which are probably the most informative.

Thanks a lot for helping. :-)

Btw: I\'m one of those users who were banned at Predictor when asking about the \"W***\" issue and later on when asking there why censorship was happening. ;-)

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Greetings from Cori

Good morning.

I have not used the Name Wate in my postings on P@H, I\'ve only pilloried the censorship of postings. But I have written a mail to his boss with links to all the threads with the thinking about the censorship on the scripps research institute. Also I\'ve forwarded all systemmails from the forum to my mailaddress with the censored post, included the information why and that I\'m censored. The statement line contained only: \"None\"

Here is one of the mails:

Predictor@Home notification:

This email is sent to inform you that one of your threads in the forum has been affected by moderation in Predictor@Home:
Thread: What the hell is here going on?
Link: /forum_thread.php?id=2545

The moderator gave this explanation to why your thread was moderated:
None Given

For further information and assistance with Predictor@Home go to

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