J.R. Willett Distributed Computing Project. Good or Bad??????

I found this on craigslist...hmm
Is this real or is this person trying to gain access to sensitive information on peoples computers with their consent?

There is the craigslist post:

"Looking to Trade: $240 video card in trade for use of the card

For this barter, you will get: a new Radeon HD 5870 high-end video card (worth $240 retail value).
In exchange, I will get use of your electricity running on the graphics card to perform computations in my distributed parallel processing project.

Also, along with paying to use the 5870, I pay a monthly rate to perform my computations on many other video cards, including the following ATI Radeon graphics cards: 6990, 6870, 6850, 6950, 6970, 5870, 5750, 5770, 5830, 5850, 5970, 4890, 4850, 4870, and newer NVIDIA GTX video cards, although NVIDIA cards run my software more slowly for some reason

Email for specifics."

Found on an external flier from the software dev. directly:
"...If you would like to learn more, please contact me (J.R. Willett) via my Seattle Pacific University email: JWILLETT@SPU.EDU."

Link for Download:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/eey6bh
(sorry, couldn't attach; file-size too large.)

 

A lot of us here use our video cards for distributed computing with Stanford university http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=136266 but this sounds a bit too good to be true (he will give you a powerfull card if you will do distributed computing for him)

I would be very wary about it.

 

I forgot to add the method of payment and payout for the yielded energy consumption.

Here is a spreadsheet with details:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc...hnWVA1U05DeWdyVkE&hl=en&authkey=CP2koEA#gid=0

 

Strange to say the least and he won't say what he's doing except that it's cryptography here in the middle of a 17 page thread where a lot of it is just the members sniping at each other. The comments range from card stealing to a botnet. I would personally stay away and stick with folding@home and Rosetta.

 

After looking over the post:

I found that there are a lot of people who are trying it, only issue is that I do pay for electricity, therefore it is not that helpful for me. I will try it out for a while and see how it goes.

I typically keep my computer on anyways due to varied use from my wife and myself through the day, so I am willing to make this happen.

 

He wants to use your PC to mine for BitCoins, then sell them off at mtgox.

He's gonna get rich from your electricity.

 

Wait a second.. This mining is like folding.. only you get paid?

Whats the catch?

 

So after some researching, It appears that you download the bitmining client to mine for bitcoins.

1 bitcoin = roughly $6USD

Bitcoins can be exchanged at various exchanges like Mt. Gox, or Liberty Reserve. You lose roughly 25% by exchanging them for cash, plus a further 15% for a withdrawl fee when you try to withdraw your cash.

It appears to be legitamate, but unless you have acess to free electricity, it is not financially feasible IMO.

I might set my old P4 up mining with a Radeon and nothing else on the HD just to see what its all about.


I'm just a little cautious about what type of personal information may be required to make a withdrawl in actual USD.

When something seems to good to be true, it usually is


whats everyone else's opinions of this?