[CMYKid]

I guess there's a reason it's called SETI@HOME

http://www.daytondailynews.com/local...8alienweb.html

[AKcrab]

Shall we use your registration to read the article?

[d4nth3m4n]

L/P? and macnn/macnn didnt want to work...


idea: someone with free time set up a macnn gmail account for stuff like this...

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by d4nth3m4n:
idea: someone with free time set up a macnn gmail account for stuff like this...

Or maybe use a .mac alias?
The login wants name, email, and password. I do usually try macnn/macnn for giggles.

[Truepop]

CMYKid could you copy/paste the article?

[FulcrumPilot]

most amazingly "macnn" uid and password works!!

Here is the cutandpaste anyway

The search for extraterrestrial life has ended at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

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Top 5 stories

* Dayton police seek missing Findlay man
* State fires employee over his search for alien life
* Dayton police use taser on uncooperative teen
* Dayton police officers get more face time
* Wright-Pat general denies any wrongdoing

The department on Thursday fired a computer programmer who admitted using a state-owned computer server to process data for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project, run by the University of California at Berkeley.

Charles E. Smith, 63, told administrators he didn't think loading the SETI software on the server was much of a problem because he ran the program only on weekends and on weekdays between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., when the server wasn't being used, according to a disciplinary report.

Department director Tom Hayes disagreed.

"I understand his desire to search for intelligent life in outer space, because obviously he doesn't find it in the mirror in the morning," Hayes said. "I think that people can be comfortable that security has beamed this man out of our building."

Smith, who earned $60,000 a year, didn't return a phone call seeking comment from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There was no immediate response to messages left Friday by the Associated Press at the two phone listings in Columbus under the name Charles E. Smith.

[Truepop]

Originally posted by FulcrumPilot:
"I understand his desire to search for intelligent life in outer space, because obviously he doesn't find it in the mirror in the morning," Hayes said. "I think that people can be comfortable that security has beamed this man out of our building."

Those are some crappy jokes and he used them almost as if he knew that the guy was running it for awhile, spent nights and nights writing and rewriting those two "ziggers" and then decided to fire him in hopes he could use those jokes.

[Synotic]

BugMeNot seems to work well enough. The first result gave:

heywood/[email protected]
blowme

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by FulcrumPilot:
...who earned $60,000 a year...

Why the **** do they mention this ?

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by Truepop:
Those are some crappy jokes

I thought they were pretty good.

[d4nth3m4n]

Originally posted by Synotic:
BugMeNot seems to work well enough. The first result gave:

heywood/[email protected]
blowme

nice link!

[ThinkInsane]

[email protected]

I'll get rid of these invites one way or the other

[d4nth3m4n]

whats the pw?

i tried that as well, but it was being a bitch about similar passwords...

[ThinkInsane]

the password is 'lounge', sorry about that. The security question is pretty easy too, if you try to log in and guess the password. You have a 50/50 chance

[Kenneth]

I do run SETI on the workstation at work.. haha.. it completes one WU in 3hrs.. an A64 2800+.

My DP 1.25 finishes one in ~6hrs.. but I set it to do 2 WUs at a time.

[ThinkInsane]

Oh, and you guys are free to use that macnn/gmail account to set up usernames and passwords for stuff you are going to link, but try not to use it as a dumping ground for all the spam you don't want to get on your own account.

We should keep a list of sites that the macnn/macnn log in works with. I've set up a couple, but the only one I actually remember doing is the NY Times.

[macaddict0001]

Originally posted by Kenneth:
I do run SETI on the workstation at work.. haha.. it completes one WU in 3hrs.. an A64 2800+.

My DP 1.25 finishes one in ~6hrs.. but I set it to do 2 WUs at a time.

yeah but the problem is that the client is crappy on osx my g4 800 is only marginally faster than my g3 450. guess which one is running os9.

[chris v]

I run either SETI or RC 5 on all my Macs. The guy who comes in to support the PCs (I won't touch 'em beyond configuring email for employees) is utterly paranoid and has convinced my partner that SETI is a security risk. (It downloads work units automatically! Any one of these could be a trojan or a virus!) So I don't run SETI on the PCs.

The point is not to install and run any software on any computer that you don't have explicit permission to install. There's plenty of sysadmins out there who DO run SETI on big corporate server rigs, but they do so with permission from their higher-ups, or they lose their jobs. This isn't the first time this has happened, either.

[MilkmanDan]

I had a beige G3 233 that did a unit in 24 hours. Those were the days.

[chris v]

Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
I had a beige G3 233 that did a unit in 24 hours. Those were the days.

Heh. My PowerTower Pro 150 took 105 hours at first, but I managed to fine-tune it to where it could turn a work unit in 55.

[Gamoe]

Although it was not his private computer, and he should have abided by the rules (if this was indeed clearly against the rules, which was not explicitly stated), I do not see how it is justifiable to fire an individual on the basis of this alone, considering that seti@home can run as a screen saver, and in any mode, uses only unused processing cycles. How many "state owned" computers don't run screen savers?

[storer]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Why the **** do they mention this ?

mmm, it is a bit strange...

[galarneau]

I can see getting reprimanded, but fired?

I think this guy must have been on someones sh*t list, and this is an excuse to get rid of him.

[CMYKid]

meh. sorry kids, I forgot they'd started requirin' a registration recently. lame.

I'll copy/paste next time.

[macroy]

Originally posted by Gabriel Morales:
Although it was not his private computer, and he should have abided by the rules (if this was indeed clearly against the rules, which was not explicitly stated), I do not see how it is justifiable to fire an individual on the basis of this alone, considering that seti@home can run as a screen saver, and in any mode, uses only unused processing cycles. How many "state owned" computers don't run screen savers?

Whether or not it was justifiable depends on their organization's security policy. Given that it was a University, I would think it would be more relaxed - HOWEVER, governments (fed, state, local) typically have fairly stringent general policies. And it can gets more strict as you dig down to the different departments.

The key phrase from the article is "..process data..". Thus this CAN be considered as a misuse of State owned property. Can one be fired for this? definitely, if it's in their security policy (and he acknowledged reading it - which most places do by having you signed a paper). Should he have? That's a different issue.

[DigitalEl]

Why the **** do they mention this?

To illustrate the guy lost a damn good job for a dumb reason.

I'm not sure the guy should've been whacked for that, but you are taking a serious risk installing anything on a "work" computer without permission. Of course, I say this as I post on a non-work-related website while on the clock, using Firefox, which I installed without permission after various, well-documented problems with I.E.

Maybe the guy had more issues and this was just the final straw, as it does seem a bit extreme.

[itai195]

They probably just take their policies seriously. I think the same thing would happen where I work, where they'd consider it misuse of company property. Anyway, the important point is probably that he loaded this software on a server without permission... That's a serious no-no almost anywhere.

[thesearcher]

Originally posted by galarneau:
I can see getting reprimanded, but fired?

I think this guy must have been on someones sh*t list, and this is an excuse to get rid of him.

He's a programmer. They don't need an excuse. At $60K a year though, he should've been holding on to that job for dear life.

[mitchell_pgh]

1) The guy that got fired shouldn't have been fired. He should have been warned. That being said, if it was a secure network... or if by running SETI@HOME he opened up his network... then he deserves to be fired.

2) The person that was interviewed should be sued. I'm almost positive he can be for saying such comments regarding an ex-employee.

I'm guessing there is more to the story, but who knows...

[MilkmanDan]

The man was a jerk for saying those things.

[Markovich]

QUOTE]Originally posted by MilkmanDan:
The man was a jerk for saying those things. [/QUOTE]

Ok, Im late to this discussion. I actually work for the state govt dept that this guy got fired from. I was running Seti@home on my desktop workstation, but after reading that article, immediately removed it the following day.
The general consensus here is that IF this was the guy's only offense and had no other real performance issues, then he shoudl not have been fired. Warned yes,fired no.

We also thought the comments from our director were in poor taste, unprofessional and cruel.This is the same director under whose leadership, we "lost" millions of dollars in a budgeting mistake. So, I guess losing vast sums of money wont get you fired.

On another state website operated by the State Attorney General, there are web pages dedicated to getting the current AG elected as our next govenor. So , running your campaign off of state resources is also ok.


http://jfs.ohio.gov/director.stm

[t6hawk]

The reason people get fired is because all large companies have policies stating very clearly against the practice of installing unapproved software onto computers. Basically the employee has no right to install software on machines he does not own nor have permission to install on. I work in a large enterprise and whoever is caught installing software gets nailed. I completely support this practice since half the crap people tend to install usually have spyware etc in them....and when corporate network services gets wind of someone having installed software, they basically take the computer out of commission while they clean it off.

[Markovich]

If you want to eliminate spyware issues on your work PC, then you should not have internet access. Basically, any web cruising will infect a PC with multitudes of spyware,etc. I spend about 2 hours a week supporting my team's Windoze PC's. The amount of spyware is astonishing. Theyre equally amazed when I tell them I get none at home on my unprotected Mac. So, our Help Desk technicians advise us to install SpyBot or Adaware to clean our systems. However, that is in violation of MIS rules not to install software on your PC. Furthemore, our installed, standard web browser is Netscape 4.5 which crashes quite a bit. It also wont properly display some internal web pages! So, most of us have downloaded and use a more current browser.

I understand the need for guidelines to protect a system, especially a Win2K system that is very vulnerable. However, people who spend 8 hours a day using their PC should be given some level of flexibility in personalizing it. MIS will simply have to suck it in. There are many things they could do from their end that would eliminate some of the security issues. Simply establishing draconian rules is not the answer. I used to work for a certain network firm that was the biggest bankruptcy in the US. We had guidelines, but not harsh ones.

Mark

Originally posted by t6hawk:
The reason people get fired is because all large companies have policies stating very clearly against the practice of installing unapproved software onto computers. Basically the employee has no right to install software on machines he does not own nor have permission to install on. I work in a large enterprise and whoever is caught installing software gets nailed. I completely support this practice since half the crap people tend to install usually have spyware etc in them....and when corporate network services gets wind of someone having installed software, they basically take the computer out of commission while they clean it off.