Peer-To-Peer's Dark Side

[impact]

Lavasoft Ad-Aware Webpage might I add.

[spoogenet]

Not sure how many of the services are still around, but last summer there existed a plethora of free net access services. I have heard, though, that a number of them have closed up shop.

The story that I read a while ago involved companies planning on paying people for their CPU time. Similar to what AllAdvantage did (before going under), but for CPU time rather than advertising. The funny thing, though, was that the price they paid for CPU time was well below the price for energy to keep your system running for that long. People will do anything for "free" money.

Anywho, I'm not psychic or anything, but I foresee one of three things happening.
1. Juno goes down. Burn baby, burn!
2. Juno changes their model.
3. Idiots just don't pay attention to things and are never aware of it, and blame MS for why their computer keeps dialing some strange server.

b

[Gurm]

Impact,

Remember this - their agreement holds YOU responsible if your computer gets messed up. Or, if the company they have sold your cpu time does something illegal. YOU are legally liable.

Will it hold up in court? Probably not. But I'd rather not take such chances.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[The PIT]

I think you'll find "Free" involves a monthly charge with free phone calls. That ain't really free is it.
I think this idea will get either outlawed or suffer from such a backlash the company will decide it's bad practise to do it.

[impact]

Well Juno's agreement is a bit strict and unfriendly, but there will be other companies.

And with free I mean free, like you don't have to pay for the phone calls/connectivity etc...

eg a ISP offers the computation power and labs, research centers, companies (or others in need of it) purchase it from them. The money that the ISP gets are then used to cover the expenses for having a toll free numbers and connections to the net. All that the ISP asks from the users is to have the computation program running in the background (during nights; or having preset number of hours per week each user must 'submit'). Obviously they *should* guarantee that the program is harmless to maek the users feel safe.

They even might setup ladders and reward those users who donate the most 'power'.

Why couldn't it work? Yes, Juno's offer might not be very attractive, but they are the first ones to offer it. (20 years ago, internet was just a bunch of computers able to send messagess between buildings.) This really could evolve into something both useful and user-friendly.

[spoogenet]

It is a viable business plan under a few conditions.

1. You make it very well known to the users, in plain language, exactly what you will and will not do. Also make it known what you can and can not do.

2. They have the choice to accept or reject it. In the case of Juno, a user certainly has the opportunity to go somewhere else for service.

3. They accept at least some liability for any damages that their software incurs. (I think this should apply to any software).

4. You get something for it. Be it free service or a check.

5. Users are aware of what kind of calculations are going on, who they're going on for, and what the purpose of them is.

Distributed computing is very powerful. Schemes like this could be used to great effect. However I think users need to be aware of just what is going on. Personally, I wouldn't want someone using my computer to run calculations to be used for biological warfare (an extreme, but an example nonetheless).

One question, though, is who would be held liable for such things. Let's just say a company offers to pay users for their CPU time, and then uses that time for something horrid such as biological weapons. Could I be held legally accountable since my computer contributed to the research or production of biological weapons? I really don't know, that's why I'm asking.

b

[The PIT]

Good choice. Letting some company running you don't know what on your machine slowing it down making it crash, trashing it, possibly introducing virus's and remember you cannot block it or you'll be voilating your agreement.
Nope I wouldn't go for that free internet access. Anyway in the UK I don't know anyone who offers truly free internet access. Free calls maybe but nothing else.

[Greebe]

From the Langalist newsletter...
"Juno Replies

The recent coverage of Juno's plan to take over the spare CPU cycles of
its users' PCs finally got a reply from Juno itself in the form of a
"Dear Juno Member" letter from Charles Ardai, the President and CEO of
Juno Online Services, Inc.

Reader Richard A. Levin was one of many (millions?) to get that letter,
and he wrote:

Today I got Juno's announcement of the Virtual Supercomputer.
You probably will get 1,000 copies of this so I won't forward
it but I was going to comment anyway.... When you read the
announcement it is painted as much more benign. They
specifically say they aren't going to do things the terms of
service allow. Well, we both know which is the ruling legal
authority....Your warnings about this proposal are all on
target.

Indeed, the letter intends to be very reassuring: The "Virtual
Supercomputing project" is all voluntary, it's all up-and-up, no one has
participate, the project is only beneficial, etc etc etc.

But let's be real: As Richard says, the letter is not legally binding.
(In fact, it's based on a *press release* from some time ago:
http://www.juno.com/corp/news/supercomputer.html )

The only language that matters, legally, is in the Terms of Service
contract. According to that, the only element of being voluntary is that
you have a choice to use Juno or not. According to utterly-clear
language in the TOS (and contrary to the happy-talk President's letter)
if you use Juno, they can take over your system, period.

For citations from the TOS, or links to everything you need to know
about Juno's plan, click on over to
http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20010222S0004 .

I was skeptical about Juno before. But now--- seeing a happy-talk and
legally worthless letter that is directly contradicted by the legally
binding Terms Of Service--- my skepticism has vanished. Until and unless
Juno changes its TOS to match the kinder, gentler, noninvasive tone of
the president's letter, I have to conclude that Juno is consciously
trying to obscure what they're really doing.

Perhaps there's another explanation for why the TOS would say one thing
while the promotional materials say something else. But I can't think of
one."

[Greebe]

Here's another...

http://www.highstream.net/

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">How it works: While online, your computer's idle capacity performs computational tasks received from our server. It's that simple. As part of the set up process, our software application is loaded on your pc. It runs in the background and does not interrupt or degrade your internet access experience in any way.</font>

Worst part is they still charge! Geesh

[spoogenet]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">...does not interrupt or degrade your internet access experience in any way.</font>

Does is interrupt or degrade anything else running on your machine at the time??? Now that would be funny.

b

[The PIT]

Well you'll have to accidently disable it or corrupt the program.