Well, somebody over in our IS department decided that we engineers shouldn't be allowed to "squander company resources" by running Seti, so the software is now banned on our network. Here is the email I got today from our network security people...
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Unauthorized Use of Company Resources
A number of employees at this location have downloaded a screen saver (SETI@home) that establishes an unauthorized connection to the Internet. This screen saver is a piece of scientific analytical software, which performs a large set of mathematical operations on data that is downloaded from Berkeley University. When the screen saver kicks in, it processes data provided by an outside entity via the Internet and reports the results back to Berkeley.
The company has not investigated the potential security risk associated with this screen saver. Therefore, if you are using it, please remove the screen saver immediately. Additionally, the location firewalls have been reconfigured to block access to the screen saver site in the future.
While we understand employees’ interest in taking part in a project of this nature, it is not an appropriate use of the company's resources. As a reminder, our security policy requires formal authorization from the company to establish a connection between an outside company or University and any system at this site.
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I've really enjoyed being able to contribute to this team, but my WU output from this point forward is questionable. I plan on bringing my two PCs at home online to process WUs but they are nearly as fast as the servers I was using. I've got a 600E @800 MHz and a celery 300A @450 MHz. I'll crunch as fast as I can, but I won't be putting out 24-32 WUs a day anymore. This sucks...
Eric
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Unauthorized Use of Company Resources
A number of employees at this location have downloaded a screen saver (SETI@home) that establishes an unauthorized connection to the Internet. This screen saver is a piece of scientific analytical software, which performs a large set of mathematical operations on data that is downloaded from Berkeley University. When the screen saver kicks in, it processes data provided by an outside entity via the Internet and reports the results back to Berkeley.
The company has not investigated the potential security risk associated with this screen saver. Therefore, if you are using it, please remove the screen saver immediately. Additionally, the location firewalls have been reconfigured to block access to the screen saver site in the future.
While we understand employees’ interest in taking part in a project of this nature, it is not an appropriate use of the company's resources. As a reminder, our security policy requires formal authorization from the company to establish a connection between an outside company or University and any system at this site.
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I've really enjoyed being able to contribute to this team, but my WU output from this point forward is questionable. I plan on bringing my two PCs at home online to process WUs but they are nearly as fast as the servers I was using. I've got a 600E @800 MHz and a celery 300A @450 MHz. I'll crunch as fast as I can, but I won't be putting out 24-32 WUs a day anymore. This sucks...
Eric
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