On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:25:45 -0400, Vincent Mooney wrote:
>Someone on this list earlier warned about Juno using subscriber's
>computers. Here is a portion of the current Juno Virtual Supercomputer
>Project data.
(BIG snip)
>No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since the
>day you first subscribed.
Only a truly professional ISP would discuss - in an official webpage -
their techniques for "downloading to" a computer.
>From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to
>bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific
>software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project.
NO mention of security, NO mention of encryption, targeted to Windows
9x users - truly impressive.
>"Do I have to leave my computer on all day?"
>
(snip)
>At some point in the
>future, we may begin requiring people who participate in the project to
>leave their computers turned on for some minimum amount of time (or
>possibly all the time)
I wonder how the costs connected with doing so (electricity, air
conditioning in the summer, possible damage to extremely overclocked
systems) compare with the cost for a minimal dialup account - or for
that matter with switching to excite, bluelight, ifree, netzero, or
one of the other adware ISPs.
>The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a
>computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish one
>connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a long
>time.
Fourth mention of "downloading to" client computers. I doubt this is
just confusion - 'downloading' is usually something web users do
voluntarily.
>Even in that case, your computer would only dial one of the access
>numbers you've previously selected, connect to Juno's own central computers
>(not to the open Internet), and stay connected long enough to deliver the
>results of its computations (and any e-mail you may have received since
>your last connection, etc.). We don't expect this sort of "automatic
>connection" to occur frequently, if ever, but it is possible that we might
>at some point use this feature under certain circumstances (for example, if
>we believed the results of an important computation might otherwise be
>likely to go unreported indefinitely).
Or, more accurately, when we feel that it will cost us less to dial in
than to wait on payments from those we are selling computer time to.
Nathan
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