I know that this might be earth shattering news for you, but there is no such thing as "poaching".
Neither GIMPS or Primenet have any license to these numbers, nor are they the only entities testing large numbers for primality. If my sister reads from her math book a method of testing large primes, knows nothing of Primenet or GIMPS, tests the numbers on her home computer, and finds a large prime, she is gonna publish it. She might choose to send any results to GIMPS, or not. She might double check it using GIMPS provided software, or not. But for sure nobody has any reason to prevent her from doing any of this. There simply is no real problem here that is begging for solution. Anyone is entitled to test any number they want for primality. GIMPS isn't the prime number police, nor would they have any right to be. Paul Missman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary K. Conner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 6:38 PM Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: Mersenne Digest V1 #1038 > At 10:01 PM 1/26/03 +0000, Gordon Spence wrote: > >4. Get it into perspective. The number of times this actually happens is > >miniscule. Out of the millions we have checked what are the "poached" > >items? Dozens, a few hundred?? > > Given that nobody poaches factoring assignments and the vast majority of > those were weeded out before entering public testing, I will exclude > factoring assignments. There have been 214,935 first time LL's and 184,754 > doublechecks completed. That's nowhere near "millions". I don't know the > history of every exponent, but there are patterns that definitely indicate > poaching (i.e when you look at exponents just below a milestone and observe > an exponent returned six times). There have been at least several thousand > exponents poached. One poacher I looked at had between half and two-thirds > of exponents he completed as triple checks. This was a "blind do the > leading edge without checking" poacher. Even when no milestone is looming, > I estimate there is an average of at least one poach every day, and these > are not "inadvertent poaches" where a previous assignee ends up completing > an exponent. These are known poaches by known poachers. The only time > poaching activity drops to "miniscule" is when the spotlight is thrown on > poaching by this list. > > >5. It has correctly been pointed out that life doesn't end if a milestone > >slips. Well guess what? That is a double-edged sword - life doesn't end if > >an exponent gets poached either. > > The fact that life doesn't end is not an excuse to poach. Poaching hurts > the project because it drives away participants. It is not harmless. I > don't know why people keep defending it. > > _________________________________________________________________________ > Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm > Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers > > _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
