At 09:50 AM 1/25/03 -0600, Shane Sanford wrote: >> Increasing the difficulty for a poacher to _find_ a tempting >> target would mean other participants could be less concerned >> about making themselves into such a target, and just >> concentrate on doing the work they considered most suitable >> within the rules. > >If the rules you are referring to include the possible new >guidelines George proposes (which in a nut shell goes >something like this -- snips taken from a couple of posts >on the forum by George) > > >"Consensus seems to be building around a sliding scale. It's >2 to 3 months for the smallest double-checks and first-time >tests (to avoid holding up milestones), 6 months for recycled >exponents, 12 months for an exponent at the leading edge. 2+ >years for a 33M exponent. > >Give or take." > > >"A leading edge first time test today is unlikely to hold up a >milestone for maybe 2 years. I'm not advocating yanking a >reservation just because you've had it one year. > >I think we are proposing reassignment if you take more than >a year and some other criteria is met such as: >a) You aren't making significant progress. >b) You are holding up a milestone. >c) Require the user to fill out a web form saying "I'm still >working on it"
Even these guidelines though... are NOT going to stop any poacher intent on doing such, to complete a small exponent so a milestone can be reached... OR for any other reason... >I whole heartily believe the best way to eliminate poaching is >to minimize the reasons there are poachers to begin with rather >than trying to make it more difficult to do. Even masking the >exponents has a big loop hole in that it would take years to >become effective even if implemented today. All that has to >be done is to save a copy of status.txt today and you know a >very very big chunk of the exponents that will fall in the >trailing edge of the assignment list of many many years. >After that it's a trivial matter of elimination to deduce >which is which when masked. IMHO, NO system whatsoever, will be able to prevent a poacher intent on doing such. ANY system that is used, is going to have a flaw or loophole of some kind. We could eliminate the status reports completely, and only assign exponents blindly, but even that won't work. The only thing it would do is make a whole lot more work for some individual, which would most likely be George. Even this possible new system for the server assignments is flawed. Let's say a maximum time limit is set and reached. The exponent is expired and is re-assigned. How do we know that exponent won't be expired time and time again??? The answer is, that we don't, and any poacher intent on doing such, knows that too, and is going to poach the exponent... NO IFS, ANDS or BUTS... ANY system... and I mean ANY system is not going to prevent poaching from happening. Did prohibition stop the sell and consumption of alcohol??? It reminds me of the saying "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns!" Any person determined to poach, is going to find a way to do such, no matter what system is used to prevent it! The best solution is probably strong discouragement of the practice of poaching. eminding EVERYBODY that not only is poaching NOT sanctioned, but that the time spent poaching is wasted, and could have been used to further the project otherwise. Also note that the poacher themselves are risking being poached themselves, and that even more time is wasted as the exponent is tested for the 5th time, when just a 2nd test would have been sufficient. Using the example from my previous post, 2 exponents taking 5 days to test, and being tested 5 times instead of 2, is wasting 15 days worth of times that could have been used to complete 6 additional trailing-edge tests, or maybe 2 additional leading-edge tests. Maybe not so significant is the grand scheme of the project overall, but maybe as far as reaching certain milestones, it is. Sort of makes you wonder, just what milestone the project would be on, if NO POACHING was occurring. Maybe all exponents under 8 million could have been tested by now, instead of just under 7 million. OK... I'll shut up again... and go back to my own work... (some of which I might add is FAR OUTSIDE of Primenet ranges, but HAS STILL BEEN POACHED on occassion!)... Eric _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
