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.
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.
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.
Ps. Anybody who's followed the computer-industry at all shouldn't really
be surprised by this. To me, it brings echoes of Randall Schwarz's case,
published author who got to be Intel's scapegoat. The case has been
adequately covered online so I don't touch that right now. Actually, when
you think back, there's Operation Sundevil etc. which have clearly
demonstrated the whole techno-phobic picture: Just owning a computer makes
you criminal. I myself have been characterized as "copyright terrorist"
and "unknown hacker affiliated with organized crime" in the general media
(in cases unrelated to GIMPS/Mersenne). The funny thing is, when you do
something that actually is illegal, nobody pays any attention ;>
-Donwulff
