LHC@home

I am a moderator at the Test4Theory project aka T4T, some of you already know me. We all know and accept the fact that every new project has problems in the beginning and we all know that good projects do what they can to fix those problems. One of the cardinal rules in the BOINC community is that a project absolutely must not steal CPU cycles you have allocated to other projects. T4T has broken that rule. The admins know they are stealing and have refused to do anything about it for over 6 months. Why? Because they like the extra CPU cycles and because they don't know how to get more CPU cycles through honest means.

Recently they proposed testing a new application that would alleviate the problem but they will not install the new server code their new application requires. Without the new server code the application will not function properly which will allow them to say "sorry, the new application failed the test so we must continue with the current application". Yes, they have sabotaged the test application.

At one time I thought they were making an honest effort to fix the problem and be a "good project". Now I see I was wrong. They have no intention of changing their ways and their lies, lame excuses and theft of CPU cycles from other projects will continue. I am ashamed to have been part of their project. I don't want my name associated with T4T any longer and I present this information to the BOINC community so that you can avoid being another one of their victims.

Exactly how do they steal CPU cycles? Their application is actually a wrapper that starts/stops/suspends a virtual machine that does the actual crunching. The wrapper starts the virtual machine but does not suspend it in spite of the fact BOINC manager indicates it has been suspended. Everything appears normal and you don't even know the virtual machine is still running unless you look very carefully. Most volunteers assume the project is honest so they don't check and look carefully. The virtual machine runs at normal priority which means it does not relinquish the CPU for your other BOINC projects or for most of your personal computing needs the way a normal BOINC task does. So do the math... the task doesn't suspend and it runs at normal priority... that adds up to a lot of CPU cycles stolen from your other projects.

A fix for this problem has been available for many months but they have steadfastly refused to implement the fix citing one lame excuse and lie after another. Avoid T4T like the plague.

I've placed this information on many project forums and will place it on many more. Some of you might call that spamming but I think what T4T is doing is atrocious and I am convinced it is necessary to spread the word as quickly as possible which means as many forums as I can. I am not a spam bot, I post manually. Obviously I can't return to all the forums to discuss the issue so if you want more info/discussion please drop in to the T4T forums. This is NOT a ploy to get you to join T4T in fact I am advising that you NOT join T4T.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will moderate the moderators? I think it is not fair to use the message board of a project to attack another project, since the volunteers of the attacking project know nothing of the other project's problems. Tet4Theory@home is the only BOINC project using a Virtual Machine (BOINC_VM) and presents problems the other projects don't have. I have been an Alpha tester of T4T since November 2010. I had started a Virtual Machine (Solaris) running a BOINC client and a SETI@home application by a developer called Dotsch and, having mentioned this in a message board of previous LHC@home I was invited by dr. Ben Segal of CERN to join the effort. I have received a letter of thanks from CERN for doing this and I never complained about anything. I do not want to start a flame war but I think people should know how thing really are at T4T.
Tullio

I think it is not fair to use the message board of a project to attack another project, since the volunteers of the attacking project know nothing of the other project's problems.

If they read my post then they will know something of the other project's problems. Do you have something against sharing facts? Would you prefer that everybody remain ignorant?

I have received a letter of thanks from CERN for doing this and I never complained about anything.

Ah, I see, they bought your silence with a letter of thanks. There were rumors that your fee for silence was 40 pieces of silver.

I do not want to start a flame war but I think people should know how thing really are at T4T.
Tullio

I agree! And that is why I posted here... to let people know how things really are at T4T.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will moderate the moderators? I think it is not fair to use the message board of a project to attack another project, since the volunteers of the attacking project know nothing of the other project's problems. Tet4Theory@home is the only BOINC project using a Virtual Machine (BOINC_VM) and presents problems the other projects don't have. I have been an Alpha tester of T4T since November 2010. I had started a Virtual Machine (Solaris) running a BOINC client and a SETI@home application by a developer called Dotsch and, having mentioned this in a message board of previous LHC@home I was invited by dr. Ben Segal of CERN to join the effort. I have received a letter of thanks from CERN for doing this and I never complained about anything. I do not want to start a flame war but I think people should know how thing really are at T4T.
Tullio

Tullio,
I agree 100%. jujube should be working to resolve this within the Project and not air the issue across other forums who may or may not be interested in what T4T is doing, the approach it is taking or if the issue creates a problem that is major or just a speed bump in the road.

Thanks Tom. I think that a project's problems should be resolved within that project and not outside of it. This is a basic BOINC rule and everybody violating it should be banned from all BOINC projects. To answer here jujube's insinuation that my silence was bought, I can demonstrate that the letter of thanks from dr.Segal was sent to me before this guy made his appearance. It is true that jujube did not call me a moron. This was done by a guy called Dagorath who used the same tactics of attacking a project from the message boards of another project. The project he attacked was LHC@home and he thread he planted everywhere was "LHC@home is giving BOINC a bad name". I leave everybody draw his own conclusions.
Tullio

Ah, yes. Good ole' Dagorath. He once called me a fool, so I now have him completely blocked.

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Ah, yes. Good ole' Dagorath. He once called me a fool, so I now have him completely blocked.

I don't think he had a kind word about, or to, anyone!

Wow. THis is a lively, aye, heated board. I just dropped in to LHC@home this evening to see if there was a reason I'm not getting any more work units. However, I would like to say that, as a complete newcomer to postings on LHC (I have posted to a couple other BOINC projects), I can appreciate what jujube is saying. I think that he is probably justified in warning BOINC users via other project boards.

While reviewing some additional BOINC projects to possibly add to my initial ones (SETI@home, climateprediction, cosmology and now LHC@home), I noticed this LHC "Test4theory" project. It looked promising: performing calculations that contributed directly to "live" physics going on at the LHC. Great. However, upon reading the finer print on its requirements, I decided it did not look quite right, and appeared to be making some heavy duty, indeed unacceptable demands: a strange virtual machine allowed to run on an individual's pc with no limits on CPU usage - how could this be, I thought? A user could not limit the project's CPU time, it had to be at 100% available all the time. Whoa! Run this project and you lose all control over your own computer! It certainly appeared way out of line with any other BOINC type project that I had seen, where you can control things with the BOINC Manager. So I ceased further consideration of it. Now, to see this post, I see my concerns were pretty much justified. I cannot confirm everything jujube says, but it sure appears in line with what I became alarmed about, ie, the T4T total control demands made on pc's, in the T4T requirements for install description. (and if true, then the T4T outfit are truly out-of-line with BOINC standards, BIG TIME). Thus, I appreciate jujube's posting here.

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Dagorath - Jujube (I know you are one and the same person)

we provide here a place for free discussion related to our projects.
Especially on "Cafe", it is rather open for all possible subjects.

It is not permissible to question personal integrity of people involved.

Your personal feelings about the way projects on the internet are going do not justify in any way the comments you make and the tone in which you make them.
In fact, these obsessive attacks make any sensible discussion impossible.

This has to stop now, with immediate effect.

Igor Zacharov.

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skype id: igor-zacharov