RE: SETI@Home - Safe or Exploitable? - How About UD?

["Doc Farmer" <Doc.Farmer () qatarbank com>]

Greetings!

Speaking of distributed computing, has anyone ever heard of vulnerabilities
regarding United Devices (UD) software?  I'm hoping to run their cancer
research program (LIGANDFIT) at my office, and to date I've not heard of any
potential security problems.  If you have, please let me know.  Many thanks.

Doc Farmer
Doha, Qatar

-----Original Message-----
From: James Shaw [mailto:jshaw () gwstephens com]
Sent: Monday, 21 October 2002 01:45
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: SETI@Home - Safe or Exploitable?




Never gave this too strong a consideration until I read a TechRepublic
article pondering the safety of running distributed computing programs
on corporate computers.  While I discourage our employees from
installing personal software on company computers and I monitor our
workstations for unapproved installations, I do not want to be
completely dictatorial and allow some seemingly innocuous software to be
installed once I satisfy my own security/licensing/stability issues.
Seti@Home is one such program.  While it is understandable that there
could be some concern caused by the use of this program because it
remotely sends and retrieves data for processing, I have never heard of
SETI being exploited.  Any thoughts, opinions, or facts the community
would like to share would be appreciated.