I myself is a contributor in the rosetta@home science project and I would like to see that Boinc gets installed on workplaces here in Sweden. Although, since some things concerns personal privacy and therefore security must be very high in some places, I guess that it isn't possible to install Boinc everywhere, unfortunately.

When it comes to computer security I believe and think it's very important for sceptics to be aware of the consequences of hacked servers and so on.

Can anyone in this forum answer if Boinc with Rosetta@home could cause serious security problems for companys or private people?

I as a person believe very strongly in high computer security, in fact it's one of my personal interests and that is why the question is interesting for me. I know how a computer firewall works and that Boinc needs a certain port to be open to be able to accept incoming and outgoing IP traffic.

The general security issues involved in distributed computing such as BOINC (and R@H) are discussed here along with the approaches taken to address these issues.

Specifically, all data-distribution and communication from our servers are 'pulled' by the client, at the client's request, from the server. We don't make un-solicited communications with client computers, excepting rare project update emails to those who've elected to receive them. For BOINC to work on your computer, firewall configs need only allow outbound connection to ports 80 (http) and 443 (https). [BOINC running locally on your computer needs to be able to connect back to other ports on your computer as well.]

-KEL

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I myself is a contributor in the rosetta@home science project and I would like to see that Boinc gets installed on workplaces here in Sweden. Although, since some things concerns personal privacy and therefore security must be very high in some places, I guess that it isn't possible to install Boinc everywhere, unfortunately.

When it comes to computer security I believe and think it's very important for sceptics to be aware of the consequences of hacked servers and so on.

Can anyone in this forum answer if Boinc with Rosetta@home could cause serious security problems for companys or private people?

I as a person believe very strongly in high computer security, in fact it's one of my personal interests and that is why the question is interesting for me. I know how a computer firewall works and that Boinc needs a certain port to be open to be able to accept incoming and outgoing IP traffic.

The general security issues involved in distributed computing such as BOINC (and R@H) are discussed here along with the approaches taken to address these issues.

Specifically, all data-distribution and communication from our servers are 'pulled' by the client, at the client's request, from the server. We don't make un-solicited communications with client computers, excepting rare project update emails to those who've elected to receive them. For BOINC to work on your computer, firewall configs need only allow outbound connection to ports 80 (http) and 443 (https). [BOINC running locally on your computer needs to be able to connect back to other ports on your computer as well.]

-KEL

So, could you say, for instance, that it would be safe to install Boinc on the screensavers on, let's say: a hospital?

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Specifically, all data-distribution and communication from our servers are 'pulled' by the client, at the client's request, from the server. We don't make un-solicited communications with client computers, excepting rare project update emails to those who've elected to receive them. For BOINC to work on your computer, firewall configs need only allow outbound connection to ports 80 (http) and 443 (https). [BOINC running locally on your computer needs to be able to connect back to other ports on your computer as well.]

-KEL

So, could you say, for instance, that it would be safe to install Boinc on the screensavers on, let's say: a hospital?

Sure. The primary weakness in computer security is the individual touching the keyboard. So, in a controlled environment such as a hospital I'd say:

Yes, if a given computer is user primarily to retrieve data: information kiosks, nursing/physician stations, office desktops, cafeteria registers, etc., the vast majority of the installed computer systems.

No, if the computer is a source for customer/patient information or provides dynamic information (monitors, etc). {Not because of BOINC's possible security issues, but because simplicity is the key to timely and efficient troubleshooting of critical infrastructure - problems could be masked or made more complex by BOINC's behavior.}

[It won't happen here in the US, at least in hospitals, because of the need for medical practitioners and researchers to comply with the HIPPA act (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which mandates that healthcare providers and health plans protect the privacy of patient records). We, the Baker Group, have to comply with the HIPPA act as well.]

But, if a company/organization wished to harness the idle cycles of their installed computer base, they could implement a BOINC project within their own network, or donate their idle time to a 'trusted' BOINC project.

For example, the University of Washington has a large base of installed desktop machines under central control and administration. They run BOINC on their installed base (if the individual users allows) and their contribution to our work is considerable - see the Nebula project.

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what i know from the IT stuff at our school it is, basicly a basement full of servers and around 200/300 portals, these things can only dial in into the servers and work partly on the servers. but since it is a school there is no load on the servers at night, but none the less the servers run 24/7 summer holiday excluded partially due to maintainance.

so this means the servers are sitting idle in the night, with the heating in the whole school off, now since we dont have that strong winters in the netherlands using it as heating is no argument, cause we dont need it. but in america in some state's it might be handy to use those servers as heating in the winter, so the building dousn't cool that hard during the night, so the heating system has less to do during the day.

this is one of the many great examples were boinc would come in really handy.

so if you know istitutes like this you could ask them if theyre up to it. but i think we need a real good cost/profit image, in wich it showes it is not that expensive running boinc.

One suggestion, though it might have been addressed elsewhere, I'm not on this project much (probably will be again in the future though) and therefore do not read all the posts.

Create a page on the website for a press kit, with some photos, short quotable detailed info, link to it from the main page as "Press Kit". After this is done perhaps even write a few articles and submit them for publication in scientific news magazines such as Scientific American, Science News, etc. Include a details of success stories in the articles, and hype it up a bit for the general populace. I think this will let you reach many people who would be very interested but have no idea what Boinc even is.

Edit** Additionally with regular professional press releases, you could submit them to major newspapers. Many would come back to the press kit and use the graphics/info for write ups which will reach large audiences that would otherwise never hear of the project. Perhaps even a news journalist or two that crunches this project (there must be a few) could assist in creating/spreading press releases. Maybe even talk with the instructors of the journalism class at UofW, they can make a class assignment of it.

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"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules -- and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Kurt Vonnegut

Hi Folks: In thinking over what I can personally do to help advance the cause of R@H, it struck me that I have lots of friends who own PCs. Some political organizations use the "please e-mail all your friends and ask them to help" approach. Forgive me if this has already been suggested or done, but if there were an elegantly simple explanation e-mail template set up which included a link to download the software, and a simple plea to "please consider doing this" I could easily send out 30 e-mails, some percentage of which would result in new contributors.

Another thought which struck me (a rare occurrence, so I try to document them when they happen!) is the clear need we have to re-motivate contributors, "keep up the good work yada yada". I believe a fair percentage of newbies download the software, run it for a while but at some point lose interest and delete it. I may be typical of the small contributor - a couple of PCs running and I've tried to slowly but surely increase my CPU contribution. I rarely post to message boards, but I do look at what has been posted and monitor my own progress, overtake stats and fun stuff like that. I was looking this morning for reassurance that I am making the best use of my CPU contributions - I read the various discussions out there about folding@home vs Rosetta vs Poem, etc. I found myself wondering what Dr Baker would do (were he not so intimately linked to this particular project). Would he run some other client(s) besides R@H? Is there some mix of contributions which would be a bigger contribution for the overall protein study community?

Sorry for the length of this, but one other point -- I downloaded the CPU throttling utility (forget what it's called) and only lately realized that, every time the version of the number-crunching software changes it evades the setup parameters in the registry intended to allow more than 15% CPU time for BOINC/Rosetta - takes me a while to realize this and reset the parameters, and this has happened a few times now, attenuating my efforts. Maybe I'm the only numb-brain out there who has been hobbled by this, but maybe there are others?

Thanks for all, especially for providing R@H as a way for me to contribute in some small way toward this important research.

Hi Folks: In thinking over what I can personally do to help advance the cause of R@H, it struck me that I have lots of friends who own PCs. Some political organizations use the "please e-mail all your friends and ask them to help" approach. Forgive me if this has already been suggested or done, but if there were an elegantly simple explanation e-mail template set up which included a link to download the software, and a simple plea to "please consider doing this" I could easily send out 30 e-mails, some percentage of which would result in new contributors.

Another thought which struck me (a rare occurrence, so I try to document them when they happen!) is the clear need we have to re-motivate contributors, "keep up the good work yada yada". I believe a fair percentage of newbies download the software, run it for a while but at some point lose interest and delete it. I may be typical of the small contributor - a couple of PCs running and I've tried to slowly but surely increase my CPU contribution. I rarely post to message boards, but I do look at what has been posted and monitor my own progress, overtake stats and fun stuff like that. I was looking this morning for reassurance that I am making the best use of my CPU contributions - I read the various discussions out there about folding@home vs Rosetta vs Poem, etc. I found myself wondering what Dr Baker would do (were he not so intimately linked to this particular project). Would he run some other client(s) besides R@H? Is there some mix of contributions which would be a bigger contribution for the overall protein study community?

Sorry for the length of this, but one other point -- I downloaded the CPU throttling utility (forget what it's called) and only lately realized that, every time the version of the number-crunching software changes it evades the setup parameters in the registry intended to allow more than 15% CPU time for BOINC/Rosetta - takes me a while to realize this and reset the parameters, and this has happened a few times now, attenuating my efforts. Maybe I'm the only numb-brain out there who has been hobbled by this, but maybe there are others?

Thanks for all, especially for providing R@H as a way for me to contribute in some small way toward this important research.

HI Larry--the email your friends approach sounds good as long as it wouldn't annoy people. I don't think we ever tried this. anybody willing to help make the template? as for me, I would run rosetta@home definitely! (but then I'm a bit biased).

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Larry, thanks for the ideas.

As to your CPU throttling issue, this function is now a part of BOINC. Just get the current download for your system type and set the CPU % you desire in the computing preferences on the website, or in the local preferences for the machine.

...I thought I'd seen that an "EMail a friend" capability was incorporated in to more recent BOINC server code. If not, Fold It! has one that could perhaps be adapted.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

hi jonathon!

i vote feets, as long as it doesn't go to his head and project leader does have a good ring to it.

the submission to NPR has been written up and sent. i'll check back later to see if there's anything else i'm qualified to do.

That's the best idea I've heard so far! Did they ever get around to interviewing Dr. Baker?

The trouble with those image-based verification systems, is that they involve a lot of quite high-level coding, and at the moment, I couldn't make them. I have made the as ott with seperate verification processes (I wont discuss what exactly - kinda destroys the point of putting them in!). If you trigger any of the validation, I will also (or the webmaster will) get an email telling them (me) that the validation has been triggered.

If you're looking for a free anti-bot CAPTCHA system, look up reCAPTCHA.

I know nothing about web site creation, but I gather they provide a fairly simple plug-in for web sites.

A possible source of grants for global health, etc.:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation

http://mr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12714.html

http://beta.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/default.aspx

A possible source of grants for global health, etc.:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

http://www.answers.com/topic/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation

http://mr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12714.html

http://beta.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/default.aspx

they're a major funder of some of the bakerlab work already!

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