Now Macroumours are picking up the pace

Michael_qrt · Post by **Michael_qrt** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:26 pm

It seems that another team on our overtake list, macroumours, has decided to up the ante over the last few days. They've outproduced us so far this week and don't look to be slowing up at all.

Anyway, at one point it loked as if we'd have no trouble moving up into the top 20, even the top 15 but now the dates for such team milestones keep getting pushed further and further back. I think this is mostly down to various teams pushing their production up, notably MacOSX and EOC but others too. I'm just wondering if its the other teams pushing thier production up or whether its us falling a bit behind.

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:00 am

It's a little of both, but mostly other teams increasing their membership while we remain static.

We should overtake Futuremark, SpeedGuide, and Sudhian, but it's going to be hard to move up much after that, leaving us stuck at #20.

David

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 11:12 am

Sorry. We have a nasty habit of lighting fires under other folding teams.

Some respond better than others. Here is a link at MacRumors as to the main reason for increase in their production. Fold on!

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread. ... 709&page=1

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 12:44 pm

I have to wonder if that person is setting himself up to get in a lot of trouble?

I can't imagine an employer willing to donate that kind of electric cost. 1 or 2 computers maybe. Maybe even a few computers if the company is large enough, but 100's of computers?

Give it 30 days for the electric bill to arrive and see what happens.

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 12:52 pm

Evidently he works for the 'government', so that would explain the 'non-concern' for cost! Have you ever seen what government contract merchandise costs?! It is a sight to behold! Well, at least that 'waste' will be put to good use. I'm sure if they are indeed government owned equipment, then they are left on 24/7. Again, might as well make it work for the greater good. Keep on folding!

unregistered · Post by **unregistered** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 4:00 pm

We have a nasty habit of lighting fires under other folding teams

That's a normal reaction, anyone who gets passed by a bunch of "macweenies" has got to do something!!!!!!!!

Evidently he works for the 'government'

Either that or he is screwing his "customers" so well that a little bit more is what they expect. (did I just define government

) Maybe he just has lots of friends

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:20 pm

You may be more correct! The thread has some new posts to it, and here is a link to Folding Community. I sure hope this is some sort of misunderstanding or hoax. I would hate to see Folding get a bad name from something like this!

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=8158

unregistered · Post by **unregistered** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:44 pm

Looks like he is making all kinds of new "friends". He has jumped up to nearly 13K pts for today and there is still a few hours left.

I wonder if he realizes the legal trouble that may be in his future?

I hope this doesn't get much press, thousands of good folks folding get hardly any recognition but one bad seed gets tons of press.

I better make sure my username/team haven't been changed!

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 6:03 pm

Yikes. I don't want to lead with my chin, but this doesn't look good.

Look at this guys production history. 10 days ago he was doing 1K per day. Yesterday he did 17K!

David

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 6:15 pm

I originally thought the guy was on the level when I was having fun with him over at the MacRumors forum. Now, all the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place. If the report over at Folding Community is indeed true. Then, if you look at his amount of active processors showing up at Stanford at a measly 16 for 50 days and 7 for 7 days, it would tend to support the story. The attached files were emailed from his few personal computers (i.e. copied) and thus they all appear the same to Stanford in the stats even though they are all installed unwittingly on different computers. Not good for the reputation of Folding and Stanford to say the least! Ouch! I sure hope he comments at the MacRumors forum again, but I fear that may not happen. Keep on folding!

Putz · Post by **Putz** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 6:30 pm

Always wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm trying to believe that somebody from another team posted that link in order to discount jethroted's integrity.

However, the evidence (and my gut) indicates otherwise. Especially the # of active processors thing. Plus, even if he really was just installing it at his workplace, guaranteed he didn't get permission from his employer. Nor could he possibly be doing any real work if all he does is walk around the office installing F@H!

Oh well. As virii go, it could be a lot worse. But I don't like the potential for bad press, as others have mentioned at folding-community.org.

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 7:03 pm

The main FAH executable was renamed to Win32.exe and it was installed in directory C:\Win32\dll. There was obviously an intent to hide this. This is not an innocent mistake, but enemy action.

I've got to say, it has been a little "slow" lately, so something like this is kind of fun to watch, in a twisted sort of way.

I am hoping there is some "other explanation" than the obvious one.

David

Putz · Post by **Putz** » Thu Jun 03, 2004 10:32 pm

haysdb wrote:The main FAH executable was renamed to Win32.exe and it was installed in directory C:\Win32\dll. There was obviously an intent to hide this. This is not an innocent mistake, but enemy action.

Unless (and this is possible, but very unlikely) chad5871 (the person who was "infected") is actually just lying in order to discredit jethroted for some reason. I know it's unreasonable, but it's possible.

tragus · Post by **tragus** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 4:38 am

Hmmm, the whole incident is turning most entertaining--in a black humour sort of way. I'm following the thread at folding-community and Macroumors with great interest. At the moment, the public hypothesis is that someone put a folding.msi installation on a P2P or crack site, which is then promulgated/installed by unsuspecting [not quite ethical] downloaders (including self-professed d/l junkie chad5871). Stay tuned...

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 8:16 am

What I found interesting is that jethroted made no mention of how this could have happened or what steps he's taking to put a stop to it.

This lends an air of insincerity to the whole deal.

M

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 11:11 am

He did make this post at the MacRumors forums and then linked to it from the Folding Community thread.

It has come to my attention that an app I threw together has made it's way onto some peoples computers who did not want to fold. I am still trying to figure out how this is going on, but for now if you encounter this issue follow these steps to remove the app.

1. First of all the app is called "folding.msi"

2. It installs with the config file set to "[email protected]" & team "3446"

3. It's installed into a folder called "win32"

4. To remove it, simply delete the folder called "win32" everything is contained within that folder.

5. There is one registry key to make it start when the computer turns on. Leaving the key there will not do anything at all to your system, but if you wish to remove it, this is it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Run \ Win32

Right click on the key called "win32" and hit delete.

This concludes removal. Normally you should be able to run the installer again to remove it, but I am new to msi file buiding, and this is realy just a beta. It jams up and gives you an error if you try to run the app again. If you have any information on how people are getting this file, or where from then please let me know. I am also not going to be putting this on anymore computers at work till I find the source of this problem.

And also this post at the MacRumors forums.

This is the third this week. I didn't think much of it at first, but now I really don't like what I see. For now I am not going to be installing anymore at work until I can figure out exactly what the problem is here. That means that we will not be able to catch team mac osx, but I don't want to take any chances right now.

I sure hope that Dr. Pande provides some input to the whole quagmire. Hey Stevo and Roy, have you guys read up on the situation. What would be your take on the 'virus' feasiblility of the whole thing? You've got protected networks at your business. If jethroted does work for some 'government' facility, would they allow this to happen? I would figure they would be firewalled to the moon to protect sensitive data, let alone allow F@h to pass data back and forth to machines. Unfortunately next to nothing is really known about either the initial poster (Chad5871) or the suspected culprit (jethroted). I'm just worried about the F@h bad publicity that could get buzzing because of these incidents.

Fold on!

mas92264 · Post by **mas92264** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 1:03 pm

I'm sticking by my original statement. It appears that he put a script together and made it available somewhere?

It didn't get on others' computers by itself.

M

Macaholic · Post by **Macaholic** » Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:43 pm

I'm with you M. Check out this old thread at MacRumors dated 3/1/2003 and I think the picture becomes more clear. I will be by later to fill in the blanks if you have not already done so. I've brought this up at our team forums, and I want to see what you can do to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. And to think, the guys over at EOC were worried about the P2P Community! Never a dull moment! Fold on!

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=21262

Michael_qrt · Post by **Michael_qrt** » Sat Jun 05, 2004 4:33 pm

Wow, this really has turned into a bit of a fiasco!

The ammount of points he's putting up is rediculous, If this just happens to drag on for a little while he'll be the number 1 producing folder overall. Stanford really needs to sort this out soon, before anything bad can happen.

Anyway I think it's kind of entertaining, and it sort of serves those downloaders of dubious software right, if that is how this thing has been spread.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 7:30 am

The only one good news in this whole hoax is, that even bad publicity is publicity and folding@home can in long terms benefit from it

At least ppls will learn that the stuff has no background doors and are no treat at all...

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:34 am

And the reason the installation folder is named Win32 is...? Actually, from the stuff I read, it was in a folder named dll or something, wasn't it? I may try to catch up on those threads if I get bored, which I won't be for a day or two.

Edit: Nevermind. The folder was C:\Win32\dll

David

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:53 am

I read it all - mainly including Jethroted boasting on the MmacRumors forum - it give my a rough idea, that he is certainly responsible for the whole hoax and altrought this is good for the project in general, it's pretty bad way to doing this just for points

Simply unfair.

It's weird. I would not enjoy such nice points even when I got them - because knowing the way I got them is cheating and consuming resources of other users, well, then the points are divided to them, not to me...

I could not enjoy it. He seems like it, and thats all - including the nick under their the points get accumulated, that proving him guilty.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 8:29 am

I still don't get it, he's posted up as much as 47,000 points in one DAY, yet on the Stanford stats, it shows only 6 active processors in the last 7 days. How's that work?

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:18 pm

AZBrandon wrote:I still don't get it, he's posted up as much as 47,000 points in one DAY, yet on the Stanford stats, it shows only 6 active processors in the last 7 days. How's that work?

Perhaps they are all folding under the same Machine ID? I didn't think that would work, but maybe it does.

David

Michael_qrt · Post by **Michael_qrt** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 12:53 am

Looks like his points have been cut off now. It seems that the fall will be as fast as the rise. Still it was entertaining, I wanted to see just how many points he could post in a day. I dare say 47k points in one day is some kind of record.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 7:23 am

That they killed the points must mean Stanford has confirmed that there is a malicious file loose, installing F@H without the user's knowledge or consent. Jethroted claims he is not responsible. It'll be interesting to see where this goes from here.

I feel bad for Macrumors. Those guys were all excited with the new points and then this happens.

Copper · Post by **Copper** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:14 pm

There it is!

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=8213

haysdb · Post by **haysdb** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:07 am

Looks like Jethro's points have been removed from Macrumors score, putting them, all of a sudden, on our conquests list.

David

Wrah · Post by **Wrah** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:36 am

Copper wrote:I feel bad for Macrumors. Those guys were all excited with the new points and then this happens.

Either they were very naieve or the large influx of points blocked their ability to reason logically (ie 1+1=?). It was clear right away that this stunk, whatever version of the story is right.

edit: after reading a bit on the macrumors forum its clear they're still drugged...

trodas · Post by **trodas** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:06 am

The obviousness of the hoax was clear when he hit 20k PPD

However it took long to the Stanford took action

They perhaps like the power donated, however can't overlook the legal issues...

Frankly, I wish they overlooking it a little bit longer - the donation for the project Jethroted did was simply... AWESOME

...okay, okay, I did not say he is not guilty and he did a bad thing, but the Macrumors are thanks to it very optimistic and so it keep them volunerable for the SPRC team to STRIKE!

Now let's show them hell