Once this new one is verified, it will be interesting to see if there is a
prime either just below or just above it, to see if this elusive and highly
unverified "island" theory sticks in this case or not.
There are still plenty of exponents to check below 6M, so there could very
possibly be another undiscovered prime *less* than the one being examined
right now, although the prize is awarded to the *first* megadigit prime
*found*, not the first one above 1M digits... :-) For that matter, there
are still a few double-checks left to prove that M3021377 is the 37th
Mersenne Prime, or that M2976221 is the 36th. For all we know, there's
another one lurking somewhere in the 2M range...
While the prize money would be nice, I for one would think it cool enough
just to find one, one reason I don't mind having even some fast machines
doing double-check work. I hope people aren't going to be discouraged just
because there's no big juicy carrot on a stick in front of them after
this...
Maybe it'd be good to reinstate the Primenet prize money for new primes,
after this EFF one is claimed...just to keep some people's interest? I plan
to keep on chugging regardless...I've been doing this for over 3 years now,
it's in my blood! :-)
Speaking of, I posted this earlier but never saw it show up on the mailing
list...was it too off-topic?
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Subject: Did I break US WEST's network?
Hate to interrupt here, but I've been digesting something recently. There
have been a number of articles and various misinformation put out about me,
and I feel I need to take some of the authors to task, so I'll start by
putting this here (knowing that several of them subscribe to the list).
Here's a snippet from an article by Ivars Peterson in his Dec. 5, 1998
"Mathtrek":
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/12_5_98/mathland.htm
"It turns out that Blosser wrote his own program for distributing the
search software throughout the U S West system. He made a mistake. As a
result, thousands of U S West computers tried to reach the PrimeNet server
at the same time, causing U S West's network to slow down. At the same
time, the computers failed to retrieve assignments to start calculating.
Gridlock."
""If this had been properly done, U S West might not have ever been
concerned at all," Kurowski insists. "We have a few hundred other
businesses supporting the research project without incident.""
I just wanted to take this opportunity to say, once and for all, that *I
did not* cause *any* problems on the US WEST network. This was an
allegation made by US WEST in total ignorance. The search warrant, for
those that have read it, states plainly that "on or about May 18, 1998"
they had noticed problems on their machines on the network on Phoenix,
mentioning slow response times, etc. As I have always said, this was NOT
unusual for US WEST and I can recall several instances in the past when
this happened, sans any involvement by myself.
Further, thanks to Scott Kurowski's excellent record keeping on the
Primenet database, it can be clearly seen that I did not even install the
NTPrime software onto ANY US WEST machines until May 20, 1998, a Wednesday.
This jibes with my recollections of the event. And furthermore, to drive
the point home even more, I did not install the software to machines in
Phoenix until Friday, May 22, 1998, a full *FOUR DAYS AFTER* they reported
problems down there.
Sorry for wasting bandwidth, but I want to emphasize quite clearly that
NTPrime was very well behaved, and, as I recently found out from a
conversation with a tech at US WEST who helped "find" the software (nice
guy really), they found the software *entirely* by accident. According to
him, US WEST is now in the process of *finally* removing the software from
all the machines. They had removed the service, but kept the files there
for whatever reason (evidence?) and, it being a year later, are finally
deleting it all.
Anyway, I thought this a relevant time to mention all this, it being close
enough to the 1 year anniversary of it all (tomorrow, the 27th is the
anniversary of them finding it anyway.
As always, you can find the search warrant at www.tipjar.com/blosser (best
version) or at www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/7676.
It is interesting to note that every single one of the other allegations
made, such as me dialing in after I was terminated, have been proven false
(some were proven false even before the execution of the warrant, as it
turns out)!
Now if I could just convince the FBI to return all my stuff...sigh...I'd
sure like my PII-333 back. Fastest machine I have now is a P-233. Takes a
lot longer to run an LL test :-)
Aaron
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