I think we settled on the term "poached" long ago. There's really nothing stopping anyone from working on any exponent they want. If they communicate with Primenet and it reports that an exponent is assigned to someone else, the software will remove that exponent from your worktodo list.
The only exception is if that exponent has already begun work, in which case it will still report the error, but it remains in the worktodo file and when done, it will show up in your cleared exponent list. I broached the 'taboo' topic of poaching exponents quite some years ago when I mentioned that sometimes, exponents are checked out and no work is ever done on them, so I was "helping out" by snagging those and just finishing them off. However, at the time, there was no expiration period of 60 days, so sometimes exponents were many months or even over a year old, had never had any check-ins, and were only cleared when Scott or whoever would manually go through and clear those out. Nowadays, exponents must be checked in every 60 days with some sort of status update, otherwise it's automatically released back into the pool. I can only imagine that our poaching thread from back when is what prompted that change in the procedure, and it's a good change. I don't recall the subject of deliberate exponent poaching coming up at all recently, except musings about what if two people work on the same exponent unknowingly, and it happens to be prime. :) But that was more of an 'accidental' poaching, when a client hasn't checked in for a very long time but is actually still working on a number, and meanwhile some other machine gets the same one and finishes it as well. It's also worth noting that GIMPS/Primenet has no claim on the exponents being handed out. They are simply prime numbers which anyone can run an LL test on. GIMPS/Primenet is great because it coordinates the efforts of thousands. Way back when, George kept the master list... you'd download a file that had untested #'s (George would update that every so often), then email George telling him what number you were working on, then email him back the results when it was done. Man... primenet is SO much better! So much better that it landed me in a bit of trouble, but oh well, still a vast improvement. :) Aaron > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:mersenne-invalid- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Mary Conner > Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:02 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Mersenne: Moving an assignment > > On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, John R Pierce wrote: > > AFAIK, take it out of your worktodo.ini file, and hand it off to teh > other > > user, along with any Q or P files if they exist. > > > > when they check back into the server, it should be happy to let them > > continue. I could be wrong here, but I don't think it cares. > > I surely hope not, or that would allow someone to steal an exponent from > someone else. I had assumed that the exponents that were changing hands > on the assignment report were a bunch of guys helping a buddy out with > some low exponent double checks, but if the server just lets someone start > reporting an exponent they weren't assigned, they could be stolen. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
