Passkey ? is it used at all

[dschief]

was just about to get bent out of shape thinking someone was stealing a close variation of my user name.

{deshief } as it turned out it was operator error I mis-spelled my own user name in the config file. now there is going to be an oddball
team member with only 1 wu forever.

In checking I noted the long data string for the Passkey was correct. Should'nt that have prevented the up loading the wu

I thought that was it's sole purpose, to prevent hijacking

[bruce]

I thought that was it's sole purpose, to prevent hijacking

That's not it's sole purpose but that's one that has been discussed most frequently. You still can upload to any name that you want to. If I decide to upload some completed WUs under the name dschief I can do that but they'll have a different passkey. At some point I expect that the stats system will allow you to see a stats report for your passkey alone, which will exclude anything that I contributed to your account. In fact, you'll probably be able to get the total that has been uploaded with your passkey, which will then show both dschief and deshief.

I'm only guessing, though. The database transactions that use passkeys have not been written yet so they'll eventually do whatever the Pande Group decides they should do, not necessarily what I think might seem logical.

[dschief]

I'd be willing to bet that there's a lot of other folks out there who thought that they were protecting the integrity of their accounts by going thru the dog & poney show of obtaining a passkey not knowing it was a meaningless exercise

[bruce]

It's not GOING TO BE a meaningless exercise once the code to use it is completed. That's just farther down on the priority list than getting reliable clients released on all platforms.

[road-runner]

And I thought that number I had to hunt down every time I done a format was doing something...

[7im]

And I thought that number I had to hunt down every time I done a format was doing something...

Yes, it is. It's protecting you right now if you use it. Look at that guy who just got caught putting a fah installer on bittorrent to fold under his name and team #. Pande Group is probably going to zero that account.

Now what if someone got pissed off at you, and did the same thing. Put a fah installer on bit torrent with your name and team. When it eventually gets found, do you want all of your points zeroed out too? If you use a passkey, you can prove which points are yours, and which points are not yours. Not yours gets zeroed out. What can you prove or disprove if you DON'T use a passkey?

Again, that's just one example that is easy to explain without knowing the full details of what the passkey is going to be used for in the future. It'll probably tie in to Storage@home in some way also (guess). And of course, it will still be used for that distant bonus points system adjustment announced many moons ago.

[dschief]

I guess it's a case of not being used for what I needed at the time.
To protect me from myself; trying to set up SMP client under Vista at 1 AM after just fighting to get Vista running at all
having to re-partition & reformat coming off a Linux install. I was just too tired to notice I mis-spelled my own user name.
If the expected link had been in place. It would have flagged the error, and I could have fixed on the spot.

[7im]

Currently, the passkeys are completely untied to any user account info, but I could see that changing in the future. It would be helpful in cases like that.

How about we consider that a feature request?

[bruce]

How about we consider that a feature request?

It's not clear to me what feature is being requested. Dschief, what change are you proposing?

The current intent of the passkey is to identify me, not my account. We have many cases where a donor chooses to fold under a variety of different UserName or TeamNumber settings and that's possible with a single passkey (e.g.- using UserName as a sub-account). A separate person (with a different passkey) can also contribute to those accounts but as I said earlier, someday I expect we will be able to sort out who contributed to those accounts ahd how much.

[Leoslocks]

We have many cases where a donor chooses to fold under a variety of different UserName or TeamNumber settings and that's possible with a single passkey

That clears up an issue I had with the pass key. I thought I needed a different pass key for another user name.

[dschief]

How about we consider that a feature request?

It's not clear to me what feature is being requested. Dschief, what change are you proposing?

The current intent of the passkey is to identify me, not my account. We have many cases where a donor chooses to fold under a variety of different UserName or TeamNumber settings and that's possible with a single passkey (e.g.- using UserName as a sub-account). A separate person (with a different passkey) can also contribute to those accounts but as I said earlier, someday I expect we will be able to sort out who contributed to those accounts ahd how much.

As you noted in an previous post, "you can upload to any name you choose'

which is exactly what I want to prevent; What good is my user name/account if 100 people, or even one for that matter can decide on a whim to start using it.
Some kind of system security/integrity is of much greater value/need than seeing how many new Beta clients can be thrown out before they are stable .

[road-runner]

And I thought that number I had to hunt down every time I done a format was doing something...

Yes, it is. It's protecting you right now if you use it. Look at that guy who just got caught putting a fah installer on bittorrent to fold under his name and team #. Pande Group is probably going to zero that account.

Now what if someone got pissed off at you, and did the same thing. Put a fah installer on bit torrent with your name and team. When it eventually gets found, do you want all of your points zeroed out too? If you use a passkey, you can prove which points are yours, and which points are not yours. Not yours gets zeroed out. What can you prove or disprove if you DON'T use a passkey?

Again, that's just one example that is easy to explain without knowing the full details of what the passkey is going to be used for in the future. It'll probably tie in to Storage@home in some way also (guess). And of course, it will still be used for that distant bonus points system adjustment announced many moons ago.

Wouldn't all a person have to do is like I do every time I cant find it, go enter my username and let it email me a passkey then they would have the passkey?

[ChelseaOilman]

Wouldn't all a person have to do is like I do every time I cant find it, go enter my username and let it email me a passkey then they would have the passkey?

Only if they have access to your email account. How else would they receive it?

[road-runner]

Wouldn't all a person have to do is like I do every time I cant find it, go enter my username and let it email me a passkey then they would have the passkey?

Only if they have access to your email account. How else would they receive it?

I have had my passkey sent to different emails and it comes through on anything I enter so...

[ChelseaOilman]

I have had my passkey sent to different emails and it comes through on anything I enter so...

Are you getting the same passkey with different email addresses? You shouldn't be.

I have 3 email addresses. I requested a passkey using each one and all 3 passkeys are different. When I request a passkey be resent to any of those email addresses I always get the one associated with that particular address. At least that's the way it was last time I tried it.