Yes, I saw that.

I'd like to believe that David is going to investigate the matter. He didn't say he wasn't going to, and what he did say is technically correct, just because "someone says something", is not grounds enough to take drastic action. Perhaps when he has checked it out, he will act.

He is, in any case, demonstrably aware of the issue now.

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

If someone has access to the boinc_projects mailing list, this would be where a note should be posted (rather than on the predictor forums), since the other project adminstrators will be able to lend support.

---

Anyone else find David Braun at Predictor@Home's response to this matter puzzling? I have to say I did.

We reopened the discussion. It cannot be that the oldest BOINC project supports abusing!

I just recieved this:

Predictor@Home notification:

This email is sent to inform you that one of your threads in the forum has been affected by moderation in Predictor@Home:
Thread: Discussion of trojan BOINC-installer reopened
Link: /forum_thread.php?id=2521

The moderator gave this explanation to why your thread was moderated:
None Given

For further information and assistance with Predictor@Home go to

After I wanted to post something more, I got this in the browser:

You may not post or rate messages until Apr 6, 2007

And there is another one already started. And "hidden for administrative purposes" as well, he's fast in his censorship ;)

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

As the admins/mods @Predictor censor every single post and thread that tries to discuss this issue, and they don't act against this criminal, I have to draw the conclusion that they condone hacking and Hijacking of computers.

At least 4 threads have been deleted by now, no explanation given to anyone, I stop this project because of cooperation with a criminal subject.

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Looks like Cori got banned again... 3rd time now?

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If anyone is in contact with the CPDN admins, or any other major project that has already taken action, please ask them to contact the Predictor admins privately to confirm the status of Wate, and to suggest that P@h is not doing itself nor BOINC generally any favours by appearing to do nothing.

If P@h are doing some investigation behind the scenes, then that could be announced, and would reassure many, including me.

River~~

Another participant banned (until the year 2030!!!).

http://www.boincsynergy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=65186#65186

I strongly recommend discussing this on the boinc_projects mailing list rather than the predictor forums.

---

Predictor is currently not on Berkeley's list of projects and I hope it stays that way. Predictor gives BOINC and the DC community a bad name by condoning the use of hijacked computers. We need to get Predictor shunned by the entire community. For a start, they should be stricken from the lists of all the stats sites so they aren't advertised via credit brag banners in forum sigs. Are there any other sites that promote Predictor that could be contacted with regarding dropping any and all mention of Predictor.

This post (a starter for a new thread) lasted about 10 seconds:

Is discussion in any way possible, or will every dissenting post deleted?

I'm still totally lost about the censorship that happened here in the last hours. I can't see a single reason for this.

In the later posts, after next to everything was being deleted that didn't reflect entirely the projects point of view, I agree some people (including me) got a bit frustrated and used some harsher words (but imho not remotely as harsh as the actions by the team).

I'd really like to know why you so desperately want to stifle every discussion of the topic "criminal hacker" here on this board. It's far beyond my comprehension to think about a single reason for it (that isn't malicious, and you still have the benefit of the doubt).

My IP has been blocked because of it. They did block whole ranges of IP adresses for another cruncher. That's imho a bit over the top, or, to be more precisely, plain crap.

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

I've been banned by Mr. Braun until 2038 after asking him why he would censor other people opinions. He deleted threads, many posts and banned many others. All posts abid by the Message Board rules (except one :( ). After being banned I had enough of this overreacting ... person ... and sent an email to Mr. David Anderson. Dont know if its any use, but personally, I had to do it.

Dear Mr. Anderson,

I'm supporting BOINC now for a long time - with my time, my computer (and my money) - i do it voluntarily and I really like to do it.

But that what happened today at the Predictor Message Boards is outrageous and in no way tolerable, I would say.

I guess that you know about the BOINC User called Wate who illegally installed BOINC on other users computers using trojan software. Although I'm not one of "Wates" victims, but I do believe that this topic is true and sincere.

Thanks to the effort of an italian team, this has been revealed and most projects reacted adequately (e.g. closed his account). Only Predictor Admin Mr. Braun refused to consider any actions against "Wate". Well ok, thats his opinion, its his right to do so. But it wasnt his right to close the relevant thread, imho.

As can be expected, some users couldnt understand his point of view and posted a few messages at "Predictor Message Boards". They were in no way insulting, they all abid by the Message Board rules!

Nevertheless, Mr. Braun deleted most of these posts, deleted whole threads and repeatedly banned users from posting. I've been banned too until the year of 2038 (well, ok, I opened a thread asking him to do so, but despite that there was no reason to do so - and I'd say he had no right to do so!)

Mr. Braun is obvisiously overreacting, he called us an angry mob, although this so-called "mob" only started at the point when he began to delete posts and threads - but even these posts abid by the Message Board Rules (except one of the last posts of an angry user calling him a fascist - even I gave this user a negative answer!)!

Mr. Braun badly damages the project and the image of BOINC, imho! There were several users posting that they will quit the project (these posts have been deleted as well!)

Honestly, I dont really know what I would expect you, Mr. Anderson, to do now in this case. I just think that you as BOINC Architect and Director might want to have a word with Mr. Braun and asking him for his reasons censoring other peoples opinions! Cause thats what he did: Censorship! As I said before: Except one post, all other deleted posts simply described users opinions in a friendly and respectable way about Mr. Braun sitting on his hands concerning "Wate".

May I give you some more links on this topic:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=1571 Original post by mo.v (The original original post is in italian, dont have this link) - now also discussing the censorship of Mr. Braun

http://predictor.scripps.edu/forum_thread.php?id=2477 The thread at Predictor Message Boards about the Trojan Installation - closed and censored by Mr. Braun

http://predictor.scripps.edu/forum_thread.php?id=2530 My post accusing Mr. Braun of Censorship - closed and heavily censored by Mr. Braun

http://www.boincsynergy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10000 - BOINC Synergy thread about "Wate" - from page 2 discussing Mr. Brauns censorship

Me and including many others are awaiting your answer!

Yours sincerely, Steffen Grundmann

(BOINC Nick Shai Hulud)
Proud supporter of BOINC Projects

I saved many of the deleted posts and I can show that there was no ugly or insulting post whatsoever.

Cheers, Shai

Funny though that everyone complaining a lot about Predictor still has that project in their signatures... So they won't crunch and want everyone to block the project from view, yet allow their signatures to show it anyway.

Before anyone demands of me to remove Predictor from the BOINC FAQs, I can tell you I won't. Not until I hear that it isn't a BOINC project anymore. I only have 1 project in the list of projects on 'ignore' and that's because the owner of the project refuses to give a description.

I am sure the moderators of the BOINC FAQs respond to reason and can't be pressed into removing the entry of Predictor@Home.

---

Funny though that everyone complaining a lot about Predictor still has that project in their signatures... So they won't crunch and want everyone to block the project from view, yet allow their signatures to show it anyway.

THX for mentioning it, I forgot to delete it from my dcstats-sig. Will do that asap.

---

Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Predictor is currently not on Berkeley's list of projects and I hope it stays that way. Predictor gives BOINC and the DC community a bad name by condoning the use of hijacked computers. We need to get Predictor shunned by the entire community. For a start, they should be stricken from the lists of all the stats sites so they aren't advertised via credit brag banners in forum sigs. Are there any other sites that promote Predictor that could be contacted with regarding dropping any and all mention of Predictor.

Thats over the top! And not helpful! Why banning a whole project just because their admin is acting "weird"?

I believe this project is helpful - ok, Mr. Brauns behaviour isnt - but Mr. Braun IS NOT Predictor, imho.

Another participant banned (until the year 2030!!!).

Actually, it's 2038. Which as I learned is the Unix timestamps roll over date. It's the longest ban possible.

---

I say it again: I wouldnt blame a whole project for its admins behaviour. Sure, in the meantime I cancelled my last remaining wu's and set it to "No new work", but just because I'm really angry.

I will calm down, and I hope Mr. Braun will calm down also and everybody else as well.

It is certain that Mr. Brauns behaviour is harmful to the image of (t)his project and I truly hope that he will explain himself.

(And why should I remove Predictor from my signature? I'm proud of the work I've/my computer has done. It cost me a lot of time, energy and money - as said before)


PS: I hope you read this, Mr. Braun: I just bought another 1 GByte of RAM to be able to run those memory hungry wu's. I'm serious, Predictor@Home was the main reason! As one can see from my sig, I just started to support this project... Oh man...

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My NEW BOINC-Site

Why people joined BOINC Synergy...

Willy (the admin from BoincStats itself) has had his IP banned despite not taking part in the discussions:
http://www.boincstats.com/forum/forum_thread.php?id=1898&nowrap=true#18078

[BOINCstats] Willy
Forum moderator
Administrator
Developer
Tester
Translator

Joined: Jan 9, 2006
Posts: 2536
Message 18078 - Posted 23 Mar 2007 21:44:31 UTC

They have blocked my home IP as well (the servers can still access their pages) even though I have not taken part in the discussion nor did I express my opinion anywhere (well, maybe in a chat session with someone).

I'd like to think of BOINCstats (and thus myself) as neutral ground and like to be treated as such (so David, if you read this, please unblock my IP 85.147.23.157).

To let things cool down a bit maybe everybody should take a rest a few hours (stop posting in Predictor forum) and rethink your strategies.

Feel free though to use this thread to ventilate your feelings, but keep it nice please.

---

I wrote the original announcement that has been very kindly copied to so many other forums. I hope that David Braun will find time to read this thread over the weekend and also the discussion on the cpdn-boinc forum:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=5314

I should point out to both the administrators at Predictor and everyone else that

*my original post was composed with the permission of the cpdn admins in Oxford

*I know it has been read by at least one of them who was au fait with the affair as it unfolded; I was not asked to make any corrections

*I now know that the number of computers hijacked by Wate was higher than I stated in that post

*the Boinc Italy team members have since informed us that the trojan infection may have been carried via peer-to-peer downloads

*as far as I know, the content of my announcement has not been refuted on any of the forums where this matter has been discussed

*the people at boinc in Berkeley, the administrators of the projects that Wate forced computers to join, Jorden and Kathryn as moderators of this forum, and the cpdn moderators including myself are not hiding our identities or email addresses under multiple layers of encryption. We can be contacted by Wate, David Braun or anyone else.

*because I suspect I may be the 'some guy' Mr Braun enigmatically referred to on the Predictor forum, I will be emailing him some time on Saturday to introduce myself and provide him with my name, address and telephone number

Maureen Vilar

[maureenvilar (at) hotmail (dot) com]

---

Predictor is currently not on Berkeley's list of projects and I hope it stays that way. Predictor gives BOINC and the DC community a bad name by condoning the use of hijacked computers. We need to get Predictor shunned by the entire community. For a start, they should be stricken from the lists of all the stats sites so they aren't advertised via credit brag banners in forum sigs. Are there any other sites that promote Predictor that could be contacted with regarding dropping any and all mention of Predictor.

Thats over the top! And not helpful! Why banning a whole project just because their admin is acting "weird"?

I believe this project is helpful - ok, Mr. Brauns behaviour isnt - but Mr. Braun IS NOT Predictor, imho.

Braun is Predictor's spokesperson and he has informed us of Predictor's policy. Their policy is to use hijacked computers to crunch their WUs. That policy is worse than irresponsible, it is criminal. The entire Predictor team should be charged and put on trial because they are knowing accessories to a crime.

It is sad because Predictor is an interesting and worthwhile project but unfortunately it is being run by criminals who are no better than Wate. Scripps Institute should fire the Predictor team and turn the project over to decent people to put the project back on the right track. Now it is on the wrong track and it is a disgrace to the entire BOINC community. Nobody should be promoting Predictor. Anybody who promotes Predictor promotes criminals.

Braun is Predictor's spokesperson and he has informed us of Predictor's policy. Their policy is to use hijacked computers to crunch their WUs. That policy is worse than irresponsible, it is criminal. The entire Predictor team should be charged and put on trial because they are knowing accessories to a crime.

It is sad because Predictor is an interesting and worthwhile project but unfortunately it is being run by criminals who are no better than Wate. Scripps Institute should fire the Predictor team and turn the project over to decent people to put the project back on the right track. Now it is on the wrong track and it is a disgrace to the entire BOINC community. Nobody should be promoting Predictor. Anybody who promotes Predictor promotes criminals.

totally agree, it is a big shame for the boinc community :/

As the originator of the announcement, I've now posted my lengthy email to Mr Braun.

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