As the one who started all this, I commend Seth L. Chazanoff's comments
below. I realize this is for some an intriguing issue, hard to resolve.
One person resolved it by a personal, and uncalled for, criticism of me;
others have also called this uncalled for. As several have mentioned, I was
indeed recalling the rejection of the "scientific work" by so-called
"scientists" of Germany and Japan during WWII. These results were tossed
out by the Western powers. The case here is not as serious, not as
offensive, and is a good one for a different and lower level of ethics
discussion. Aaron is not to be compared to the WWII "scientists". He is
also very likely to be a really nice person as well.
(Footnote: I seem to recall that the use of penicillan as very beneficial
was give to Germany after 1939).
My vote is to disallow the results when
1) The air is clear on what happened and if
2) Aaron cannot convince GIMPS he had ALL needed permissions.
I emphasize ALL needed permissions. Like many of you, I too work in an
environment where there are scads of idle cycles at night and on the
weekends. But the company only lent me one machine for my use, not the
whole network.
Getting the network would be impossible, as it should be.
A) Someone wants or needs to work at night or on the weekend.
B) The GIMPS program is is on their machine and who is to maintain it?
C) What about the firewall that the company has?
A major problem is that of the appearance of a "hacker" in the
unsophisticated minds of too many people running the network, running the
company, or people otherwise involved (purchasing did not buy computers for
GIMPS). I don't think that Aaron is even up to the level of a "hacker" yet
I worry that the perception will be advanced by the unsophisticated (which
includes uninformed newspaper writers who know far to little to write on
this subject, probably using a laptop.) Maybe some of the unsophisticated
are likening the event to the danger of spam. Of couse it isn't equal to
that or even like that, but perceptions are important.
It may well be true that Aaron Blosser caused no damage to anything or
anyone. Yet that cannot be the sole deciding issue. Surely Seth L.
Chazanoff's method of expression, improper use of comany resources, should
also be used. This is where getting ALL NEEDED permissions comes in. Also
we need to respect the secretary who says "don't put that thing on my
machine" because the secretary does not know _anything_ about computers
beyond the keyboard (but viruses are a worry). Again, ALL NEEDED
permissions raises its head.
Well, we could argue this for a long time. I vote for discarding the
results and asking GIMPS to warn its participants to never do this again.
GIMPS should not credit Aaron for the work.
At 09:38 PM 9/17/98 -0700, you 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 permission to use
> the machines in question.
>
> Let's try this:
>
> Assume that I am your supervisor, and you come to me and and
> make your pitch for permission to put a program on all of the department's
>computers. I like it and I tell you go ahead.
>
>Someone else (an auditor? a P.Oed co-worker) comes along, discovers
>this program on the computers, escalates a complaint to a "pointy
>haired" someone who will listen to the complaint of the improper use of
>company resources, and shows you the door for "stealing" the company's
>valuable excess CPU cycles.
>
> Did you have permission?
>
> If not:
> Did you act in good faith?
> Should we throw out your results?
> Should we not credit you for your work?
>
Vincent J. Mooney Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
