Why was I in team FTL?

[cdb]

I checked my stats a couple of days ago and it showed me in 3 teams. The one I'm in now, default from when I first started folding with no team and FTL.

I checked again today and my default and FTL entries have gone? Have they been deleted or am I looking in the wrong place?

Was the FTL person me? Or just someone else with the same user name? I have never joined that team.

From what I've seen on here FTL is some sort of bot team that keeps getting zero'd out. If it was me, how have they got on my PC? I don't do any illegal downloading or pirated games? If it wasn't me have my default points been caught in the cross fire as they were from a couple of years ago before passkeys.

I'm running a bigadv and 4 gpus so can't see any unauthorised clients on my machine. If I hadn't been using a passkey would I have lost all my points because of this team? That would have stopped me folding instantly if I had. Like many on here I've built a folding rig at a cost of well over £1000 and am investing in a substantial amount of electric .

Have you deleted the FTL team? I can't find it any more. Do you have any safe guards to avoid innocent people getting caught in the crossfire when you zero team FTL out?

[toTOW]

This team illegally distributed copies of FAH bundled in cracks ... so they have been deleted.

But someone else might also picked the same user name as yours ... it can happen if it is fairly common.

I don't think they'll zero user total scores, only their illegal contributions.

[Macaholic]

Main thread on Team FTL. Sum and substance, Team FTL and all related entities have been zeroed out. Use your issued passkey to prevent future problems;

What's the purpose?
Previously we have not had unique identifiers in Folding@Home (usernames for example can be shared by many people). One main benefit of passkeys is that if someone cheats, we will not need to zero out the points of everyone with that username -- only the offending party and those without passkeys. Perhaps more interestingly, we plan to shortly institute credit bonuses, which will be tied to passkeys. Finally, the existence of passkeys opens up future possibility of displaying to you your individual credit and other information, rather than just by username.

[Pette Broad]

Or just someone else with the same user name?

Yes, there are a lot of users and anyone can chose any name they want. I'm guessing here, but when FAH started up it only had a small number of users so they decided not to introduce passwords and unique user names which in time proved a poor decision. The passkey came several years too late really.

Pete

[Pette Broad]

I don't think they'll zero user total scores, only their illegal contributions.

How can you tell which contributions are illegal? Just curious, but if a passkey signifies a legal contribution then is it possible for a hacker to integrate a passkey into one of these files that go to crack sites and fool the system.

Pete

[patonb]

FTL set up fah on unsuspecting computers via game cracks and pirated copies, not hacking anything... The passkey comes directly to your email and is like 30 characters... and is connected to your email address.

Sure a hacker could put their passkey on your name, but your user and passkey related points stay safe from deletion.

The security is for you and yhour points, not to the illegal activity points collection via rogue installs.

[Pette Broad]

FTL set up fah on unsuspecting computers via game cracks and pirated copies, not hacking anything... The passkey comes directly to your email and is like 30 characters... and is connected to your email address.

Sure a hacker could put their passkey on your name, but your user and passkey related points stay safe from deletion.

The security is for you and yhour points, not to the illegal activity points collection via rogue installs.

Hmm, I wasn't talking about my account really. Let's imagine that MR X, gets hold of a passkey, with a legal email, maybe one he doesn't use often or a freebie email. He then integrates this into a crack and uploads it....Anyway, I've been around a while and what FLT did is nothing new, although its the first time an entire team has been caught out. . 5 or 6 years ago a couple of individuals were caught out but only when they were reported by non folders who discovered FAH on their computers and reported it here, one of them, DJ?????? had like 1500 CPU's.

Pete.

[MichaelB]

Was the FTL person me? Or just someone else with the same user name? I have never joined that team.

You down loaded the gaming crack that contained the set-up...........If you don't want STD's keep your pants zipped up.

[toTOW]

I don't think they'll zero user total scores, only their illegal contributions.

How can you tell which contributions are illegal? Just curious, but if a passkey signifies a legal contribution then is it possible for a hacker to integrate a passkey into one of these files that go to crack sites and fool the system.

Pete

In this case, if we don't consider any additional safeties (ie passkey) :

- points contributed to FTL = illegal, and then zeroed
- all other contribution = legal, untouched.

[cdb]

Was the FTL person me? Or just someone else with the same user name? I have never joined that team.

You down loaded the gaming crack that contained the set-up...........If you don't want STD's keep your pants zipped up.

Which bit of

I don't do any illegal downloading or pirated games

Did you misunderstand?

I don't have a single game on my PC and the last one I bought was about 8 years ago. I just don't play them anymore, well very very very etc etc rarely.

[7im]

Adding a passkey to a trojan copy of the fah client makes it all that much easier to delete the points, delete the user accounts, and delete the entire team if needed. And if they are so dumb as to use a real email address, it makes potential prosecution that much easier too.

Adding a passkey to your account protects you, and for them it shoots them in the foot.

[MichaelB]

OK I was wrong forgive me . I really don't know how you became a member of the FTL team then but it was set up as a trojen for those looking for a game hack.

[codysluder]

The moral of this story: Use your passkey, and don't reveal it to others.

If someone distributes a trojan and they happen to use your name, they will not be using your passkey because you didn't reveal it. The points that were contributed either without a passkey or with another passkey could be separated from the legitimate points that you earned with your passkey.

[cdb]

I am using a passkey, but the legitimate points I've lost are form about 2-3years ago before passkeys were invented.

I still think it's abit dodgy if people who are legitimately folding could lose all their points because FTL have duped them or there just happens to be someone on FTL with the same name but no connection.

[codysluder]

I'm going to assume that you did not intentionally join FTL, because that would have been a mistake. If you did that, why and how did someone induce you to do that?

If someone on FTL used the same name, then those points were not processed on your computer so they're not legitimately your points.

If you were duped into doing some processing by installing a trojan, you have only yourself to blame. I doubt that you would have even known the work was being done. The EULA says very clearly that you must download the software from Stanford, and any points that you did earn using legitimate software are legitimate points and they did not get zeroed out. The ones that were zeroed out were illegitimate and were not your points.