Team Verificaion

[wuffy68]

In promoting our team, we were recently asked if there's any way to get a verification from the consortium that they are indeed speaking to representatives from our team, and not just some rando scammers.

Is there a way for Folding@home to verify our team officially (not looking for an endorsement, just a proof-of-existence/history).

I have contacted Dr. Bowman via private message, but if there is a simpler way without taking up his time, that would also work.

Thank you ...

[Joe_H]

About the only verification that I know of is the email address and name of the person who founded a team. They would also have set a team password as part of registering a team. There was someone associated with the F@H consortium who would do resets if that was not available, but the last time I was in contact was at least a couple years ago. Not sure how they would handle verification if the founder info and password was not available. In some cases teams are associated with other forums or social media groups such as on Facebook. Connections to those can be verified sometimes.

[wuffy68]

Not sure how they would handle verification if the founder info and password was not available. In some cases teams are associated with other forums or social media groups such as on Facebook. Connections to those can be verified sometimes.

Thanks - that information is certainly available on the Folding@home site - but they are insistent we get confirmation from U of Penn or some other part of the consortium. somehow before dealing with us further

[BobWilliams757]

I'm not sure who you are dealing with that would want this information, but they must not know a great deal about F@H. I mean.... why would you go to the trouble to fold and give the points to a team you have no association with?

[wuffy68]

I'm not sure who you are dealing with that would want this information, but they must not know a great deal about F@H. I mean.... why would you go to the trouble to fold and give the points to a team you have no association with?

Exactly - but yah ... that's the state of digital communications. We've gone forward, only to go backwards in a lot of areas - since there are so many people taking advantage of any scrap they can latch onto. We ourselves are constantly being approached by fake accounts on Discord for this or the other thing.

We've had questionable business entities name themselves after our team, and ride our coat-tails to an international conference, or using a similar name to create a charitable "legacy" they didn't have - since they could reference 9+ years of social media postings as proof of their contributions. My advice to any serious folding team would be to get your team name trademarked so at least you have some legal footing when this happens.

But anyway, that's my rant. Having some way to verify contributions outside of the printable certificate system would be great. Maybe in the future, having a team-specific priv-key to generate folding certificates would make things better? IDK Unfortunately my request via PM to Dr. Bowman is sitting in the in-box (unread). Understandably so. We'll get the team founder to file a request via FAH project management.

Thank you ...