4 ms·

Wow, this is sad. I remember when this project was released in 1999 - we installed it on all the workstations in our office in an effort to be the first to find

Wow, this is sad. I remember when this project was released in 1999 - we installed it on all the workstations in our office in an effort to be the first to find ET. Loved bragging about the cool graph, saying it could be an alien signal. Sad to see the project come to an end, even if it was the distant precursor to things like BitTorrent and Bitcoin

dylan604 4y ago
I too tried to use all of our workstations to run this trying to break into the top charts. Oh how young and naive I was thinking the 8-10 computers I had were effective enough for that.
LinuxBender 4y ago
We did that as well on a bunch of spare Sun SPARC servers that were considered powerful back in their day. A part of me always wondered if I had been tricked into cracking encryption for the assorted agencies and that this had nothing to do with monitoring the quietest frequency in the galaxy.
- peterleiser 4y ago
  Lol! I worked for SETI@home as an undergrad. If something nefarious was going on then my coworkers were extremely good actors, right down to faking an entire codebase and a database filled with processed work units. Hey, I'd probably be suspicious of SETI too if I hadn't worked for SETI. Cheers!
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    I believe you. I think the missing pieces that triggered those little voices in my head were the lack of the project being open source code at the time and the inability to listen to the signals. I spent my childhood talking on the radio so it just felt like something I should have been able to do.
    - peterleiser 4y ago
      The open source aspect is a good point. I'm guessing the team thought making the source open would increase the risk of cheating; misguided I know, but cheaters were a pain in the neck at first. Many of the folks there were into music (in bands, wrote music related software, etc), so I'm guessing the signals were boring to listen to.
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    That's exactly what an NSA agent would say!
tablespoon 4y ago
This is even sadder: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85870&postid=2096776#2096776 https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85870&po...
- tokai 4y ago
  >those tapes will probably also be discarded as well. Maybe the Berkeley Library would take them.
  - raziel2701 4y ago
    The UC Berkeley library is getting its funding cut. The physics library and some other have been closed.
    - tokai 4y ago
      it doesn't cost much to put some shelf meters of tapes in the closed stacks.
      - fknorangesite 4y ago
        Do you know how I know you're not a librarian?
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Not everything that's old is worth saving.
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    This is a piece of shared history of computing. It's worth saving. That's different from having funding to do it.
- aftbit 4y ago
  Surely they could auction them on eBay for good money.

dylan604 4y ago

I too tried to use all of our workstations to run this trying to break into the top charts. Oh how young and naive I was thinking the 8-10 computers I had were effective enough for that.

LinuxBender 4y ago

We did that as well on a bunch of spare Sun SPARC servers that were considered powerful back in their day. A part of me always wondered if I had been tricked into cracking encryption for the assorted agencies and that this had nothing to do with monitoring the quietest frequency in the galaxy.

peterleiser 4y ago
Lol! I worked for SETI@home as an undergrad. If something nefarious was going on then my coworkers were extremely good actors, right down to faking an entire codebase and a database filled with processed work units. Hey, I'd probably be suspicious of SETI too if I hadn't worked for SETI. Cheers!
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  I believe you. I think the missing pieces that triggered those little voices in my head were the lack of the project being open source code at the time and the inability to listen to the signals. I spent my childhood talking on the radio so it just felt like something I should have been able to do.
  - peterleiser 4y ago
    The open source aspect is a good point. I'm guessing the team thought making the source open would increase the risk of cheating; misguided I know, but cheaters were a pain in the neck at first. Many of the folks there were into music (in bands, wrote music related software, etc), so I'm guessing the signals were boring to listen to.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  That's exactly what an NSA agent would say!

tablespoon 4y ago

This is even sadder: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85870&postid=2096776#2096776 https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85870&po...

tokai 4y ago
>those tapes will probably also be discarded as well. Maybe the Berkeley Library would take them.
- raziel2701 4y ago
  The UC Berkeley library is getting its funding cut. The physics library and some other have been closed.
  - tokai 4y ago
    it doesn't cost much to put some shelf meters of tapes in the closed stacks.
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      Do you know how I know you're not a librarian?
IshKebab 4y ago
Not everything that's old is worth saving.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  This is a piece of shared history of computing. It's worth saving. That's different from having funding to do it.
aftbit 4y ago
Surely they could auction them on eBay for good money.