Re: SETI@Home - Safe or Exploitable?

[<counterpol () shaw ca>]

In-Reply-To: 
<!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAAt/2qR/Xdb06rl3cHeaFPJsKAAAAQAAAA8MAsuxLIM0Wec26NJ8lGagEAAAAA () 
gwstephens com>


> Never gave this too strong a consideration until I read a TechRepublic
> article pondering the safety of running distributed computing programs
> on corporate computers.  While I discourage our employees from
> installing personal software on company computers and I monitor our
> workstations for unapproved installations, I do not want to be
> completely dictatorial and allow some seemingly innocuous software to be
> installed once I satisfy my own security/licensing/stability issues.
> Seti@Home is one such program.  While it is understandable that there
> could be some concern caused by the use of this program because it
> remotely sends and retrieves data for processing, I have never heard of
> SETI being exploited.  Any thoughts, opinions, or facts the community
> would like to share would be appreciated.

I don't run SETI@home but recall a couple of years ago that there was once 
reports of a vulnerability and exploit using SETI based on user 
information in SETI files stored on the user's PC, I believe. See
http://www.arstechnica.com/archive/2001/0501-1.html. Another reference, 
http://seti.sentry.net/archive/public/1999/6-99/0195.html, asks a similar 
question but you will note no one answered it in the seti mail list.

Regards
counterpol