On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
I have been wondering about malicious hackers getting into these pools. would it be possible for them to contribute false data that screws up the end results? or are such anomalies easily discarded or disregarded by the final processes?
future implementors of these programs might amuse themselves with trying to create such safeguards or anticipate such "attacks" which are pretty significant the more the processes become distributed.
I guess I would have to ask you why you think hackers would be interested in these projects in the first place? Your typical hacker would care very little about such a project and in fact may be interested in seeing it succeed.
the malicious type of hacker has the psychology of taking great glee in tearing anything meaningful down. they don't necessarily need a plausible reason. the purpose of destruction alone can be a powerful motivating force. those who destroy carefully constructed things for fun obtain a sense of power from it.
However, I do feel that you may have a valid point when switching "hackers" to "opponents of the research." Anyone with an interest in preventing or slowing down the progress in such a project would be more dangerous in my mind than your average hacker.
the point is, when you are sharing your project among a lot of elements "out there" on a network, you have to worry more and more about "safe computing". when you are working on a purely voluntary basis, what is your guarantee that everyone who volunteers is actually on your side? again, a bigger problem the more a task is decentralized. one interesting argument in favor of centralized computing (I'm not saying it is a definitive argument, quite far from that of course-- just pointing out that Distribution is not necessarily the Panacea to All Problems).