THE DIRECTOR OF the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has responded to allegations that some users were "cheating" to up their scores on workload. David P. Anderson, director of SETI@home, said on the forum part of the SETI Web site that some users "have found ways to cheat to get credit for work they didn"t do".
He said that individual and team statistics were a matter of pride for many users and so SETI would like to keep accurate stats.
But manpower at SETI is limited, he said, and what there is is devoted to searching for extraterrestrial life by completing its back end analysis and also developing BOINC, a future piece of software which will be "cheat resistant".
He admitted there was a recent increase in cheating and said that if users emailed him with solid evidence, credit would be removed from the account and team(s) concerned.
He added: "The effects of this crackdown will soon be visible, and it will hopefully minimize the impact of the cheating problem. Please bear with us until BOINC is released."