-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Jukka Tapani Santala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Aan: Vincent J. Mooney Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Datum: woensdag 16 september 1998 15:54
Onderwerp: Re: Mersenne: Should we or not?
>On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Vincent J. Mooney Jr. wrote:
>> Should the GIMPS effort discard Alan Blosser's results on the grounds that
>> they were improperly obtained? Surely we can wait for the whole story, not
>> just a newspaper article, but then if the news stories are indeed right,
>> should we discard the results?
>
>Let's see if I can get through now... ;) The real question, ofcourse, is
>will GIMPS list all results, or only "properly obtained". My morals say
>improperly obtained should be dropped from the main-list, altough
>mentioning them in a some sort of "hall of shame" might still come into
>question (Problem is, while I do see this acton as moral one, it would
>probably encourage people into doing it even more than leaving them on the
>main list;). It would seem this would needed to be done sooner or later
>just for PR reasons, too; GIMPS will probably get lots of unwarranted
>attention when the top-people start to be convicted hackers.
I disagree with you here. Aaron got his results illegally, but that doesn't
make them less correct. I find it not morally justified to distinguish between
legally and illegally obtained numbers. Hasn't science had many cases of
results obtained by people you hate to have achieved those results for not
playing fair? But did that make their findings unfair? GIMPS is to be open to
everyone, and if not all play fair, too bad. What's the main goal for GIMPS?
Test whether 2^p-1 is prime, no? Did Aaron do 'us' any bad? I don't think so.
So let's not bother.
If, as you say, GIMPS will get 'unwarranted attention', i think this will only
attract more 'home users' that'll join, and so speeding up the search. At
companies, there will probably exist the tendency to stop (or: not start) the
search. But hopefully any decent sysop should be able to be convinced the use
of GIMPS will do no harm and can only contribute to the fame of such a
company, if they're so lucky to find a new Mersenne prime, using only spare
cycles!
>Now, ofcourse, there's an at least as important question: How to define
>'improper' means? Personally, I feel if he had permission from one person,
>he wasn't acting "improper" in the way that GIMPS should be concerned.
>It's possible the courts will still find him guilty, though, and while I
>feel GIMPS should be moral in the way of just holding thru it, including
>any possible negative PR, from keeping him listed in that case... proving
>(or for that matter disproving) claim of a verbal permission isn't really
>one of the easiest things around.
I do not like such an implementation of 'censoring' at all!
>To end this ramble... I think the simplest approach is to just decide to
>not touch the listings at all. The very nature of GIMPS is that it deals
>with provable, scientific facts. The list standings are, to some degree,
>such. Starting to judge the "properness" of such isn't.
Exactly. So what you are actually saying in your post, is that you think GIMPS
shouldn't list illegally obtained numbers in the main list, but in the same
post, you say GIMPS should. Sure...
Dean-Christian Strik
