The Phantom Flusher stats thread.

[downhiller80]

Well nuggets trojan get's what, 200k blocks a day.

I think there's now about 10 of us recieving over 20000 blocks a day gratis. Have you got any idea how many computers the generous peerson would have to have! I know it'd take 1000 of my computers (K6-2's to compute this much RC5).

Sure you say, some guy at a large corporation could get his hands on the computing power for a day. But what gets me is the similarity of who gets how many blocks. I mean we ALL got 23k today, right?

If it is a generous benefactor he's VERY VERY organised and really I can't see that someone would put in the time to get this so neat.

Then again I don't think its a trojan either. Personally i think it's a bug inside dnet, but I'm not completely happy with that solution either.

Now I'm going to bed (UK) and I'll rack my brains. I wonder what the morning will bring . . .

Seb

 

[bfour]

If we have to check IP's I'm screwed, I have 9 assimilations that are now spread across 5 states and who know's how mnay ISP's!

 

[Dutchman2000]

Hmz, is this correct ?

I mean we ALL got 23k today, right?

If you all get the same amount (differs because of own submission) then there may be an intirely different kind of problem: somebody hacked dnet and/or the stats box.

 

[ViRGE]

What sebfrost says it what really worries me. It's not that I'm doing 23K blocks, it's that there's serveral other people also doing it. And, as sebfrost has show, that adds up to a "worrysome" amount of phantom blocks. I'm afiad it is a trojan, just one that randomly picks a "victim". Hopefully, it's just a very nice person, but for the time being, I'm uneasy to say the least.

 

[bfour]

As I said in an earlier post, it's nice but makes me uneasy, been using nothing BUT legit clients, could of hacked the client to make a trojan, but am trying to do everyting on the straight and narrow.... I can't risk a trojan now, been clean for almost 3 years!

 

[ViRGE]

Looks like the blocks are leveling out a bit. I only did a hair less than 24K today, which means it went up by less than 2K.

 

[ZapZilla]

Are the people who are getting extra blocks using the latest version of the client?

Anyone getting extra blocks using only older versions of the client?

I was just wondering if there could be a link between the client versions used and the extra blocks. Perhaps it is a wierd bug found in the newer(newest) client?

If DPC are getting getting extra blocks, then how widespread is this phenominon? Are other teams experiencing this too?

I'm not using a new client and have no extra or unaccounted for blocks.

>>>Also: if extra block output has stabilized, is there a common ratio of expected to reported blocks that can be found?

 

[ViRGE]

I seriously doubt its a client issue Zap, too many people are using the newest client as it is, so it would be a little more widespread than this.

 

[Wolfie]

I don't get it. Why us? Why are those certin individuals affected? Does it have to do with those individual rankings on D-net?

Maybe some other team is using a trojan and using our E-mail's to try to get us into trouble?

I just don't get it. I hope D-net finds out what is going on. This is starting to worry me.

Wolf

 

[ViRGE]

We're one of the biggest teams, if someone knew a lot about the DC forum, they would know pretty easily who to target.

 

[Wolfie]

true true......

Wolf

 

[Lord Demios]

I wanted to put some of your worries to rest. First, I agree, it's NOT a Trojan. This sort of organization is really pretty easy to do with the right tools.

If this person works on a linux, (or even NT/2000) based network, making this many blocks is very easy. Controlling the email address is really simple, (Copy a new INI file over) and making in an exact number is just setting a limit on how many blocks a machine cracks each night.

If some one is setting us up, first they did a very good job at maintaining the rate, the emails, and everything else.

As for the few individuals. There is a common tie between you. Figure that out, and you will know how this PF knows you.

LD


PS, I'm not the PF, but I tried this sort of control on my linux lab, and found it really easy to setup, do, and admin. I would be happy for the gift, and think that maybe just maybe, whoever is donating this can't put it under his/her name or a company name. (Due to others on that company being mad about not being on the company team?) So they are finding the next best thing.

 

[Qythyx]

My theory, given with no evidence whatsoever, is that it is mycroft@anticlockwise.com. If you look at his history we know he can pump out that many blocks. If you look back through this forum's logs (if they go back that far) you will also see that he considered joing AnandTech when he ended up joing /.

Maybe he wants to maintain his /. affiliation but also want to help us.

Again, this is a guess completely without evidence of any kind.

 

[strates]

I the link hoovers some where around the fact that all the lucky members have been on the team for a long time. I haven't checked this out, so its just a hunch.

strates

 

[downhiller80]

Has anyone asked crimson. Although I doubt he has this kinda herd. In fact I doubt anyone has this kinda herd . . .

I also got 24k blocks yesterday

Seb

 

[JHutch]

Decibel, sorry about the misnomer! I even wondered about it at the time I was writing that, but I was thinking I had seen other e-mails from you before where you spelled out Decibel. Oh, well, that's what I get for trying to rely on my faulty memory... Ray, pass the ginko, buddy!

Jhutch

 

[bphantom]

I kind of wanted to stay out of this thread just because I wasn't receiving PF blocks (no one likes me... ), but I just want to give my opinion. As Decibel has already pointed out, the way your daily key rates are leveling out, this does NOT look like a trojan. If it were a trojan, your key rates would be continuing to increase. I doubt the handful of Phantom Flusher receivers would all level out at the ~20K area if this weren't deliberate.

Whoever is the Phantom Flusher either has setup a cluster of machines per recipient (most likely) or as LD pointed out, this is EASY to setup and control under a UNIX/Linux environment. Create a file with all the email address, setup a shell script to do a for loop which does ./dnetc -e $emailaddress -n 20000 and just have it loop through everyone. Simple, eh?

Brad..

 

[JHutch]

Well, I do hope it isn't a trojan, but I do see a fairly simple way one could be created to do what this one SEEMS to be doing. If the trojan was programmed to connect to some location on the net and get an e-mail address before installing the DNETC client, it would fairly simple to have a script running that rotated the e-mail address so that after about 20k worth of clients, the trojan switched to another e-mail address ...

I'm not saying this is likely, only that it is possible, and hence worrisome to those of us getting the blocks...

That said, we should have a definite answer once the DNet gurus/gods look at the logs and see if we have the blocks coming from one IP address (which means we just have an anonymous nice guy) or hundreds of IP addresses (which means we have a new trojan on our hands).

JHutch

 

[ZapZilla]

If/when the PF's identity is slouthed and discovered, an effort should be made to contact them first before their identity is publicly posted, so as to not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (blocks)

 

[JHutch]

Actually, the plan is only to determine that he/she is legit. We won't ferret out actual identity, since this person obviously wants to be anonymous...

Besides, ferreting out identity could be a bit of work ...

JHutch

 

[BoberFett]

JHutch

Tracking down an identity precisely could be difficult, but with this kind of computing power I'd think we're dealing with corporate networks here. It shouldn't be a difficult matter to track to at least one easily recognizable static IP and work from there.

 

[JHutch]

BoberFett, you are correct. Also anything can be done. I just don't think we'll go to the effort if it turns out for absolute that the Phantom Flusher is legit and not using trojans ...

JHutch

PS You know, I'm fairly positive that our mystery man is reading all this and laughing his @ss off, whether he's good OR evil!

 

[ViRGE]

Ya, if we ever find out who the PF is, they won't be revealed as long as its legit. Once we find out if it's legit or not, we'll give it a rest.

 

[Clueless]

May I suggest that we refer to the Phantom Flusher as PhF and not to be confused with PF which is Possessed Freak?

 

[Chakotay]

I haven't been online a lot the last 1,5 week, but I've noticed that my stats http://stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/phistory.php3?id=269388 kinda look like the Phantom Flusher, and I have no idea where my blocks come from (thats also what that line in my motto means) But I'm not from TA. Just a conincidence or is the guy also flushing for other teams?

BTW I can imagine that person is really laughing out loud reading all those threads