Uh, well that crazy leftist radical side of me makes me thing this is a plot to gather marketing information, browsing habits and whatnot from people's computers and as a sort of tax on people's bandwidth. I'm sure corporations could make money to fund their research by selling the results of their marketing research.
Computing power isn't expensive, you know. Also, I'm not sure why they'd need an inordinate amount to do research on something other then physics or mathematic-intensive feilds.
Also not convinced it won't be used by law enforcement to keep an eye on people's internet usage.
Computing Power on gthe scale needed for Proteinfolding
is expensive, since there is just that much data to crunch. There are a lot of fields that use distributed computing: SETI, CERN, Primenumerfinding, Proteinfolding - the list goes on.
The Boinc CLient is really no different from, say, Quake or something: You activate it, it connects to a server, gets some data, does some calculations, sends it back, rinse and repeat.
Except that instead of shooting virtual things and getting data about maps and modifications the server might require, you get some raw data about the makeup of proteins, and your computer folds them virtually and checks if they have certain qualities that come from their three-dimensional shape.
Then, instead of sending back to the server where you move and what you shoot at, it sends back what it calculated about the protein in question.
Same basic principle, same risk.
This has been around for years. If it was a scam, it would have been made apparent by now.
It was originally linked to me by a med student, if it's anything consolation.
I don't trust a med student to know about medicine, much less computers, until he graduates. Once he does, and is no longer a med student, I still don't trust him to know even one thing about computers. I also don't know how trustworthy he is as a person. I might have some inkling about how trustworthy Grakelin might be, but another person-step beyond that is absolutely zero.
Sorry man.
Maybe you trust IBM with Comuters then?
Look, this thing comes from berkeley, a university. A non-profit-organisation, one of those that brought us peer-topeer networks, the internet itself and mp3.
Plus, its open source. So if you dont want to download any old .exe from anywhere, download the source, compile it with whatever compiler you want and - presto! - guaranteed Spyware free Program.
Sony put it in the PS3's preinstalled, so all those plugged in Cpus (and Graphic chips) could be put to some good use.
Man, seriously, do you need Barrack Obama to come to your house and tell you its safe? Or is IBM, a world renowned University and Sony enough?
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Topic: World Community Grid (Read 4495 times)