At 09:44 AM 9/18/98 -0600, Aaron Blosser wrote:
>>We have been having quite a bit of discussion on what to do with
>>Aaron's results, given that U.S. West claims that he didn't have
>>premission to use the machines in question.
>
>Maybe I can end this right now.
Ah, if it were only that simple.
>Remember, it's about finding primes!
Correct! Not about something so petty as what level of morality this
committe decides to take it upon themselves to enforce.
>At any rate, it wouldn't do any good to throw out the *results* of the work
>done (even if they were *only* trial factoring results). But I give my
>hearty approval that, if you all think my credit should be removed for the
>work done on US WEST machines, then do it.
If, Aaron, you are some day charged and convicted of some civil or criminal
tort in this matter, then I think that might be a reasonable part of the
punishment. However, I believe that in civilized societies, we follow the
sequence of having the trial *first, and *then the punishment.
(No, as a matter of fact, I *don't consider the FBI's wanton confiscation
to be within the bounds of "civilized society".)
>From all I can tell from this distance, you attempted to secure approval
for loading the program, and obtained it. Perhaps US West should be
pursuing your supervisor who may have incorrectly granted it.
It also seems clear to me that loading NTPrime on so many systems all at
once, and with the 2 minute recall default, was an improper and
inconsiderate action. The good folks trying to maintain the PrimeNet
server had a good deal of difficulty as a result of your dumping so many
new systems on all at once -- you should have thought of that, and ramped
up the number of systems with greater care.
Perhaps whoever set the redial default to just 2 minutes ought to rethink
their decision as well. It's the programmer's responsibility to try to
predict and prevent foolish or ill-advised actions by the users.
I can also realisticly imagine that hundreds of systems all pinging ever 2
minutes might well plug up a firewall gateway pretty severely, and that
such might have impacted the local system. Aaron, I know you've pointed
out the lack of similar failures in other locations, but perhaps Phoenix
was the weak link in the system, or possibly the routing used by those
other cities might have passed through Phoenix for some reason. I don't
know, it's just a guess. But you should have tested for that possibility
first -- blaming US West for having a flaky system isn't an honorable defense.
A few things are clear to me, however:
* Aaron acted without malicious intent, thus criminal charges are highly
unlikely to be filed or sustained.
* US West has a problem with internal and external authority and access to
their computer systems.
* US West overreacted to the situation in calling in the FBI without
sufficient knowledge or data.
* The FBI overreacted to the situation by confiscating Aaron's equipment
without sufficient knowledge or data -- of either the existance of a crime
or of the equipment being confiscated.
* US West, if it is still convinced that Aaron is accessing their network,
has worse security than the average 7-Eleven.
* Most reporters can't tell a prime number from the prime directive, and
worse, they don't seem to care.
* George and this community have here an excellent opportunity to publicise
and promote both GIMPS and a better public understanding of prime numbers.
One of us has already taken a step in this direction, the rest of us should
also consider how we might best turn this incident to good purposes.
and finally,
* The powers that be in GIMPS and PrimeNet shouldn't emulate these fools by
leaping to any of own unfounded and unjustified actions.
Aaron, I hope you'll stick with this group, and with the search. I also
hope you'll keep us informed of your status as the situation permits --
heaven knows we won't get your side of the story through the media.
Now could we all just go back to the math and stop filling up everybody's
mailbox please?
Bruce Metcalf
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.magicnet.net/~bmetcalf/
