Folding Forum

Hi!
I have a couple of machines that aren't doing anything during the day while I am at work. wondering about setting them up on FAH. My question is this: if I have confidential data stored on them, is this at risk while running your app?

Thanks!

Welcome to the folding support forum.

The FAQ page for the folding project of Pande Group includes a statement about security - https://folding.stanford.edu/home/faq/#ntoc45. The client only downloads and uploads digitally signed files as using defined servers, this makes it very difficult for a third party to inject any malware.

In addition, in nearly 15 years of this project, there have been no reports of this software violating system security and accessing files outside the defined work files. The client is designed to run with minimal privileges to further limit access to other files on a system.

What about users' IP, MAC address, OS & driver version? Is this data being somehow collected/processed?

Diagnosing your hardware and operating system are performed with standard API provided by the operating system(s). Doing so does not involve elevated (admin/root) privileges. Any software is able to access the characteristics of your system --- information which is essential to being able to run on that system. That information describes the OS itself, and is distinct from any private information stored by you.

FAH does not attempt to read any files except those which it creates nor does it violate any standard File Security measures (which are enforced by the Operating System).

FAH does not modify any files outside of it's own Data and Program folder.

And as noted above, FAH only communicates with specific servers, files are hashed so cannot be modified in route, and the FAH client is only available from one source so no one can hack the client.

FAH is basically a web browser that uses port 80 for communications, like Internet Explorer, and then uses the CPU to process a work unit, and send the results back the same way. If your systems are approved and safe to browse the internet, then it is safe to run FAH.

Encrypt your confidential data, and there should be no real concern.

Thanks, all!!