School tech official fired for installing SETI@home, Boinc on school computers

[Sporkman]

According to the Arizona Republic, Niesluchowski was asked to resign after allegedly using his position at the Higley Unified School District to exercise his own (and our) need for an alien encounter.

This was not a case of uploading pictures of potential lady friends from Eastern Europe. No, this was a rather more imaginative downloading of software that searches for extra-terrestrial life.

The Republic's sleuths got their hands on documents that suggest Niesluchowski was encouraged to resign after he downloaded free University of California (the terribly forward-thinking Berkeley branch) software that uses idle computers to examine information collected by radio telescopes...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10406588-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

[Diluted]

Technicians are responsible for managing the school's computers, not to treat them as their own.

I don't see the problem here.

[earthpigg]

did he follow the established procedures for installing software on these computers?

[Grenage]

He had it coming, really!

[forrestcupp]

He was acting as a school representative implying the school's support for finding alien lifeforms. I'd fire him, too.

[cascade9]

He was acting as a school representative implying the school's support for finding alien lifeforms. I'd fire him, too.

I can see why they fired him as well, but its got nothing to do with what project he was doing (I dont have a problem with SETI LOL). Its not like his username was "Higley Unified School District" witch would imply support from the school.

Its more the amount of money for extra power. CPU power isnt free, and neither is the aircon power to keep the rooms they are in cool, etc. Besides the fact that some idiot DC fans set 'max CPU use' @ 100% which can really reduce lifespan.

I just wonder what bionic @ home project he was doing, if it wasnt SETI bionic.

[forrestcupp]

Its more the amount of money for extra power. CPU power isnt free, and neither is the aircon power to keep the rooms they are in cool, etc. Besides the fact that some idiot DC fans set 'max CPU use' @ 100% which can really reduce lifespan.


I was actually going to bring that point up, too.

But I was talking more about word getting out that the school is running SETI. I know geeks like us don't understand this, but there are a lot of people who think disrespectfully of people who are obsessed with finding alien life forms, and it could cast a negative light on the school. But your point is very valid, too.

[Psumi]

I used ubuntu livecd once during one of my classes, because the teacher used one of those fancy programs that tracks what you are doing on the computer, AND the teacher could see all of it, AND project it onto a projector for all to see, AND freeze all of our computers at a single click.

Needless to say, he was mad that my computer had a black screen (on his tracking program) when it was on.

[cascade9]

I was actually going to bring that point up, too.

But I was talking more about word getting out that the school is running SETI. I know geeks like us don't understand this, but there are a lot of people who think disrespectfully of people who are obsessed with finding alien life forms, and it could cast a negative light on the school. But your point is very valid, too.

OK, I see what you mean.

I've had a lot of...er...disagreements with some of the folding @ home people I've known over the years, I think I just guessed at what you were thinking.

I actually know of one guy who got fired for folding@home on every server and workstation in his workpalce, and when he got fired ended up screaming at his boss all about how he was a "inhumane nazi who hates people, cause folding is saving lives" etc. I know/know of several others who have been warned, told off and/or got a different job from a folding problem and they have all taken this "folding is saving lives" line, and mostly kick it in with "at least its not useless like SETI" LOL.

BTW, I dont run folding, SETI, or any other DC project.

[steveneddy]

Technicians are responsible for managing the school's computers, not to treat them as their own.

I don't see the problem here.

Agreed

[Pasdar]

You can't install whatever@home on anyones computer without their explicit permission... its not his network.. period. There are people that are against seti@home, folding@home, etc, etc.. because they don't believe the processing power is actually being used for what is being said its being used for... other than that he had no right period.

[alphaniner]

I was going to say being fired seemed excessive (though also just), but according to the article he installed the stuff on "every computer in the school district." Wow.

[forrestcupp]

I've had a lot of...er...disagreements with some of the folding @ home people I've known over the years

Yeah, me too. I think it's funny that some of the same people who are all about saving the world from global warming are also the ones wasting energy and ultimately causing pollution with things like folding@home. I don't care either way, but it's funny how wishy washy people are. ;)

[Sporkman]

I suspect that in the olden days when SETI@home & other DC projects came out (mid-late 90's?), power-saving features in processors weren't as prevalent, so that a processor used the same amount of energy whether it was crunching or idling (please correct me if this is inaccurate).

If that was indeed the case, then DC projects were a much better proposition then rather than now...

[Grenage]

when he got fired ended up screaming at his boss all about how he was a "inhumane nazi who hates people, cause folding is saving lives"

It's not unfair to say that a lot of people are unbalanced idealists. It's easy to forget the little things when you're only looking at the big picture. Unfortunately for them, the little things are a big part of life.

[ZankerH]

Serves him right for wasting school resources on personal projects without any kind of approval.

I wouldn't even trust abstractpseudoscienceproject@home to run on my toaster. If you're a real scientist with a real project, you have the money to buy your own computing power.

You know who else walks around begging for things they didn't do anything to earn? Hobos.

[Giant Speck]

If it had been Linux he had installed on all the computers, I bet most of you would be praising him.

/sarcasm

[rudihawk]

If you're a real scientist with a real project, you have the money to buy your own computing power.



Because all "real" scientists have large bank accounts and large corporate sponsorships to fund their computing needs, right?

Do you get "fake" scientists too?

[Pasdar]

Its not about just installing another program (or OS in your example). Its about installing a program that will use YOUR energy to calculate ONLY GOD knows what... because YOU and I don't know what its being used for except for what it says on their sales pages, lol. you have to fire untrustwrothy admins asap.

[Dougie187]

Serves him right for wasting school resources on personal projects without any kind of approval.

I wouldn't even trust abstractpseudoscienceproject@home to run on my toaster. If you're a real scientist with a real project, you have the money to buy your own computing power.

You know who else walks around begging for things they didn't do anything to earn? Hobos.

You're point is completely invalid. The first point makes sense, and I agree with you, that he shouldn't have been wasting school resources without approval, but the second and third paragraphs/sentences here are useless.

Just because you are a real scientists does not mean:
1. You get funding for your project; or,
2. The funding you get is enough to do the types of computations you are looking at.

I mean protein folding research takes a lot of computing power to do. MD simulations are really heavy on computations and it's not feasible for someone to write a proposal to get funding to purchase a large cluster just for MD simulations, and even if they could the funding is probably not going to support the scope of the project they intended. Also, the funding will get cut off at some point and they won't have any more room to grow the project.

The idea behind the @home projects was just that people at home have computers that they don't use all the time. They sit there and do nothing. So someone wrote a program that uses a screensaver front end, and lets them use the computing power for their own research. That way they don't need funding, and the growth of the project is only limited by the public interest in the project.

Either way, just because a scientist decided to use an @home program does not make them "not a real scientist" or even a "hobo".

[sydbat]

I suspect that in the olden days when SETI@home & other DC projects came out (mid-late 90's?), power-saving features in processors weren't as prevalent, so that a processor used the same amount of energy whether it was crunching or idling (please correct me if this is inaccurate).

If that was indeed the case, then DC projects were a much better proposition then rather than now...That sounds about right. It wasn't until about 7 or 8 years ago that motherboards had processor power-saving settings as a standard feature.


Serves him right for wasting school resources on personal projects without any kind of approval.

I wouldn't even trust abstractpseudoscienceproject@home to run on my toaster. If you're a real scientist with a real project, you have the money to buy your own computing power.

You know who else walks around begging for things they didn't do anything to earn? Hobos.LOL

[Grenage]

You know who else walks around begging for things they didn't do anything to earn? Hobos.

As much as I disagree with most of your post, that did make me laugh.

[gn2]

Do you get "fake" scientists too?

Sure, there are legions of them and the thing they like to bang on about most is a whacky idea they dreamed up called "Global Warming".

[Sporkman]

Sure, there are legions of them and the thing they like to bang on about most is a whacky idea they dreamed up called "Global Warming".

CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.

[gn2]

CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.

Scissors cut paper.

[Grenage]

Sure, there are legions of them and the thing they like to bang on about most is a whacky idea they dreamed up called "Global Warming".

Mainly the environmentalists, it's their bread and butter. Not that I don't agree with the plan on reducing emissions, just that the excuse is a load of unproven tosh.

Uh oh, thread derailment imminent...

[LinuxFanBoi]

I doubt he was fired because of what it was he installed. He was probably fired because he installed something without his department's approval, and likely went outside his department's SOP for doing so. I would fathom a guess and say this was probably not the first time he was involved in such an indecent and this was likely the last straw.

There is a lot of scrutiny over what schools do with their budgets, and what children are allowed to do on computers while they are supposed to be learning. That being said, I'm sure SETI@home is innocuous enough, but that's not the point of the matter either.

[Firestem4]

I doubt he was fired because of what it was he installed. He was probably fired because he installed something without his department's approval, and likely went outside his department's SOP for doing so. I would fathom a guess and say this was probably not the first time he was involved in such an indecent and this was likely the last straw.

There is a lot of scrutiny over what schools do with their budgets, and what children are allowed to do on computers while they are supposed to be learning. That being said, I'm sure SETI@home is innocuous enough, but that's not the point of the matter either.


Agreed. My biggest issue is where the school pulls out this 1.2-1.6 million dollars in losses they've incurred due to this 'activity'. Even if the School District had over 1000 computers, it would take a decade for them to rack up that kind of energy bill if they were running at full cycles the entire time.... (not factual, pulled this outta my butt to. Though it seems much more realistic, don't you think?)

[Alex Libman]

People who don't respect their employer's property rights deserve not only to be fired, but to be blacklisted - like via a mesh of decentralized "reputation wikis" (an Anarcho-Capitalist concept). I wouldn't want to be the next company to hire that guy!

[Skripka]

Agreed. My biggest issue is where the school pulls out this 1.2-1.6 million dollars in losses they've incurred due to this 'activity'. Even if the School District had over 1000 computers, it would take a decade for them to rack up that kind of energy bill if they were running at full cycles the entire time.... (not factual, pulled this outta my butt to. Though it seems much more realistic, don't you think?)

In my neck of the woods, 1 kWhr costs about $0.10USD after taxes and fees-from the states power utility.

$1.2-1.6 million is a figure cooked up by an overly dramatic lawyer.

[alphaniner]

...Anarcho-Capitalist...

Gah! I knew I recognized your name from somewhere but I couldn't place it. That cleared it up.

[Ylon]

Time of economic slump. People get fired for paltry reason.


You can order to the employee to unistall the "faulty" software...but when money lack: no "good" excuse shouldn't missed.


Cust my two cent.

[ZankerH]

The idea behind the @home projects was just that people at home have computers that they don't use all the time. They sit there and do nothing. So someone wrote a program that uses a screensaver front end, and lets them use the computing power for their own research. That way they don't need funding, and the growth of the project is only limited by the public interest in the project.

Either way, just because a scientist decided to use an @home program does not make them "not a real scientist" or even a "hobo".

You do realise that even once you have your computer running, computer power isn't free, right? The power consumption difference between an idle and a fully-loaded computer is tremendous, as are the heating/cooling costs. Anyone who runs pseudoscience@home* on his hardware and pays his own power bill should be aware of this, you're throwing away money.

*I'm aware protein folding is real science. I'm talking about SETI@home and the "global warming" research distributed computing project, whatever it's called.

Ecomaniacs, look at it this way: loading your computer like that probably wastes more energy and produces more excess heat (or whatever environmental hazard is supposed to be killing us at the moment) than research accomplished with that "project" will ever offset.

[LinuxFanBoi]

The bottom line is this, he did something without permission, and it probably wasn't the first time. Whatever damages could have been incurred no matter how cooked up they where, are irrelevant.

[Sporkman]

*I'm aware protein folding is real science. I'm talking about SETI@home and the "global warming" research distributed computing project, whatever it's called.

Ecomaniacs, look at it this way: loading your computer like that probably wastes more energy and produces more excess heat (or whatever environmental hazard is supposed to be killing us at the moment) than research accomplished with that "project" will ever offset.

Your "post" appears to "use" double-quotes to make some sort of "point".

[spoons]

This could have been shortening the life of the computers too. If the computers are anything like the ones in my school, they're tiny boxes in a cramped environment with hot CPUs and low airflow. The computers aren't meant to run at 100% all of the time because it's never going to happen in normal use. He could have been shortening the life of the components as they would have been running hotter than their rated maximum.

[ZankerH]

Your "post" appears to "use" double-quotes to make some sort of "point".

My point is that gullible people are being tricked into basically giving their money for pseudo-scientific research - and, more importantly, are mostly not even aware of the fact that their participation is costing them money.

And this is without even addressing the issue that we have no control or oversight whatsoever over what kind of computation is being carried out once those distributed computing projects are ran. For all we know, they could be compiling and sending out spam, or bruteforcing random servers.

But feel free to nitpick on syntax instead of actually addressing the point.

[Sporkman]

But feel free to nitpick on syntax instead of actually addressing the point.

You mean the "point". ;)

[Dougie187]

My point is that gullible people are being tricked into basically giving their money for pseudo-scientific research - and, more importantly, are mostly not even aware of the fact that their participation is costing them money.

And this is without even addressing the issue that we have no control or oversight whatsoever over what kind of computation is being carried out once those distributed computing projects are ran. For all we know, they could be compiling and sending out spam, or bruteforcing random servers.

But feel free to nitpick on syntax instead of actually addressing the point.

I understand that you use more energy, but the term waste is all relative. Someone who installs SETI@home probably had some reason for doing it, or some genuine interest in the project.

Just because you think it's not real science doesn't mean it's not. Also, before you weren't attacking the science from the point of view of the user installing the software on their computer, you were saying that any scientist who creates something like SETI@home is not a real scientist, and I was saying you were full of crap.

You were assuming that someone can get and maintain funding for their project, and that this funding encompasses the full scope of their project, which is a very hard thing to do.

This guy didn't get fired because he had an interest in SETI@home, it's because he installed software on public school resources without approval, which in turn could cost the schools more money.

[pricetech]

You know who else walks around begging for things they didn't do anything to earn? Hobos.

I think you're insulting the hobos here. What you're describing sounds more like a deadbeat to me, which hobos are not.

[Dougie187]

Ecomaniacs, look at it this way: loading your computer like that probably wastes more energy and produces more excess heat (or whatever environmental hazard is supposed to be killing us at the moment) than research accomplished with that "project" will ever offset.

Also, please show us your algebra.

[pricetech]

Scissors cut paper.

Flowers bloom in the spring.

(tra la)

[Chronon]

Yeah, me too. I think it's funny that some of the same people who are all about saving the world from global warming are also the ones wasting energy and ultimately causing pollution with things like folding@home. I don't care either way, but it's funny how wishy washy people are. ;)

You make it sound like someone who contributes CPU cycles to a distributed computing project must be a hypocrite if they have some concerns about rising carbon dioxide levels.

Also, not all power companies generate their power in the same way. Most of my power comes from hydroelectric.

[Chronon]

My point is that gullible people are being tricked into basically giving their money for pseudo-scientific research - and, more importantly, are mostly not even aware of the fact that their participation is costing them money.

And this is without even addressing the issue that we have no control or oversight whatsoever over what kind of computation is being carried out once those distributed computing projects are ran. For all we know, they could be compiling and sending out spam, or bruteforcing random servers.

But feel free to nitpick on syntax instead of actually addressing the point.

1) It is voluntary.
2) There are a number of solid simulations being run on this. It's disingenuous to pick a couple of projects that you view as useless and characterize all of them in the same way.
3) With any complicated calculation it is unknown what the result will be. People donate computing time/power because they think a given problem is interesting. The potential payoff can be big, in some cases.
4) Each project can be contacted. Many appear to be research projects based at some university or another. Many of them have published results (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Publications_by_BOINC_projects). You can track down the PIs involved this way. You could also, in many cases, find the grants being used to fund the research and find PIs for projects that haven't produced publications yet.

[CharlesA]

Technicians are responsible for managing the school's computers, not to treat them as their own.

I don't see the problem here.

That would probably be the reason.


You can't install whatever@home on anyones computer without their explicit permission... its not his network.. period. There are people that are against seti@home, folding@home, etc, etc.. because they don't believe the processing power is actually being used for what is being said its being used for... other than that he had no right period.

Doesn't it say that when you install something like SETI@home or other DC projects? He didn't own the machines, he shouldn't have installed anything on them.



*I'm aware protein folding is real science. I'm talking about SETI@home and the "global warming" research distributed computing project, whatever it's called.

I suppose different people have different opinions. Does believing in something "out there" and running SETI@home make you less of a "scientist" then someone who runs folding@home?