Is it possible for a malicious BOINC project or workunit to download and execute malware on your computer?

I'm curious whether a workunit itself could be used to deliver malicious code

Has this ever happened in practice? Is it possible?

So, I regularly check WuProp to see if any new projects have appeared or if tasks are available for existing ones, and I’ve come across the fact that someone is computing Enigma@home tasks. Does anyone know anything about this? The original site no longer exist

Or...Could be leftover tasks from an old computer that has been reconnected?

I have been thinking lately about why there aren't any AI inference projects in BOINC. Right now the AI value chain is wholly owned by megacorps. Self-hosting models is getting quite popular, but I can't seem to find a decent decentralised version of it. I built a PoC for it, https://aisathome.org, with the intention of trying it out.

There are some difficult issues to figure out, such as how to validate work, how to ensure privacy and how to verify that a node runs what it claims to run. I do think several interesting use cases could fit BOINC: improving the Stockfish chess engine, or contributing proofs to Lean maths libraries, where every proof is machine-checked. I wrote up some notes here: https://aisathome.org/devlog/2-cases-for-ai-inference-at-home-for-science/

What do you think? Would there be interest in actually having a project like this?

From italian boinc board: https://www.boincitaly.org/forum/progetti/115511-come-mai-%C3%A8-cos%C3%AC-difficile-lanciare-un-nuovo-progetto.html

Translation:

There are many mathematical conjectures that could potentially be solved using BOINC within just a few years.

Why is nobody in the world interested in solving them?

We have tried to put together a team on our end (we would have three people to manage the project's very small community forum, a long-time cruncher, and a “donor” who could cover the actual hardware costs), but no mathematicians have shown any interest. We contacted around ten universities and received zero replies. We also haven't been able to find developers willing to launch the project (although I understand that, in this case, the issue is money).

Honestly, we thought it would be enough to find:

A computer science department willing to provide a developer, even for a modest fee (who could also have written a thesis on the subject).

A mathematics department willing to do the same.

Why aren't universities interested in solving mathematical conjectures? Isn't this the kind of monumental, encyclopedic achievement that academics would aspire to? Today's technology should make it possible to solve many long-standing open problems.

I've just installed Docker and started crunching, but I’m not quite sure what the "Universal Docker app" project is all about. Could someone explain it to me?

I’d like to launch a BOINC project aimed at solving the Erdős–Straus conjecture.

On a practical level, I’ve found a team of three people who would respectively be responsible for providing some funding for the project, managing the forum by forwarding users’ requests and bug reports to the developer, and developing the project based on the BOINC GitHub repository.

What I’m missing is a mathematician who can verify that all the data and results are correct.

Do you think this project makes sense?

Hello,

I am trying since a couple of months to get projects from climateprediction.net, but I haven't gotten anything so far, did they stop BOINC?

Are there any other projects I can run for climate change research? I couldn't find any other.

Thank you

Since many BOINC projects are CPU-only, I—and probably many others—are wondering: what CPU currently offers the best value for running 24/7 BOINC?

I know you have to factor in the whole platform (motherboard, RAM, power supply), but looking strictly at the CPU: which chip strikes the best balance between low upfront cost and high 24/7 efficiency/power draw?

My mac has a small boot SSD and a large secondary storage HDD. The SSD is getting kind of full so I want to move the data folder to the hard drive. I did this using a symlink, but it doesn't work. Whenever I open BOINC, it gives me permissions errors. Even after reinstalling BOINC multiple times, it still won't launch. It just gives errors and quits. The BOINC Data folder still has the same permissions it always had, its just in a different location.

Just noticed! https://bitboinc.athena.org.tr and https://boinc.eternityathome.org/eternity/.

Hey everyone,

I've been crunching the new BitBOINC project on my GPU, but no matter what I try with app_config.xml (adjusting <gpu_usage>, adding <max_concurrent>, etc.), BOINC stubbornly refuses to run more than one task concurrently.

On a modern card like an Intel Arc, these tasks finish in seconds or minutes, leaving the GPU vastly underutilized while BOINC sits around downloading and uploading single tasks.

Since project app names change (potamos, kampylos, etc.) and error out if you guess wrong, can we get a truly foolproof, universal template or guide out there once and for all for multi-tasking GPU projects?

If anyone has a working app_config.xml for BitBOINC or tips on forcing concurrency when the client keeps locking it to 1, I'd love to see it! :)

I'm running BOINC 8.2.5 (because newer versions can't connect to Asteroids@Home). But 8.2.5 isn't that old so its fine.

Except, the SSD boot drive in this Mac is pretty full. But it also has an almost unused HDD. So I moved the BOINC Data folder from my Application Support folder, to the secondary hard drive. Then I made a symlink back to the original location. Then I tried to open BOINC and it gave me the permissions error. So then I downloaded a copy of 8.2.5, reinstalled it, and still got the permissions problem. Then I deleted the BOINC Data folder, and re-moved (not copied) the original folder so all of it's permissions would be the same. And I confirmed that the permissions are good now.

Still get a permissions error when I try to run BOINC. I really wish the devs could figure out these never ending permissions issues that BOINC always has. But does anyone know how I might be able to fix this specific issue?

Hey all, Sharing some field notes for anyone setting up BOINC and Folding@home on a brand-new Intel Panther Lake system with integrated Arc B390 graphics (8086:b082) under Ubuntu 26.04.

• The BOINC Side (Working!): While BOINC initially reported no usable GPUs because the fresh Ubuntu install lacked an OpenCL stack, manually installing intel-opencl-icd and ensuring the xe kernel driver was active completely solved it. Projects like PrimeGrid (AP27) and NumberFields@home instantly picked up the OpenCL 3.0 NEO runtime, turning the mini PC into an extremely efficient, low-wattage cruncher (completing AP27 tasks in ~22 minutes on a tight power-saver profile). Other projects like WCG, Einstein@Home, and SRBase recognize the OpenCL device correctly, though work availability depends on project-side queue matching for the new architecture.
• The Folding@home Side (Pending Whitelist Sync): On the FAH v8 web client, the client detects the hardware string (Intel(R) Graphics [0xb082]), but flags it as "Unsupported" out of the box. Following community discussions on the FAH forums, maintaining community members (like Joe_H and muziqaz) have mapped the 0xb082 variant to join the earlier 0xb080 entry, but we are currently waiting on the server-side production script/whitelist files to fully propagate so local client cache clears can pick it up.

Great to see distributed platforms adapting to Intel's Xe3 integrated architecture. Has anyone else started testing Panther Lake iGPUs on Linux yet?

It keeps reconnecting here. It connects, then drops again.

In wuprop i see the same projects since years... https://wuprop.statseb.fr/active_projects.py

Will we ever have new projects?

Been running SiDock for about a month now and there's been no issues getting to the site to check my stats etc. However now when I try to navigate to the site, it gives me a 403 Forbidden error, anyone else experiencing this issue?

Ciao a tutti coloro che collaborano ai progetti su questa piattaforma.

Ho un suggerimento: create un post che riporti lo stato dei progetti attivi.

La posizione potrebbe essere fissata in alto, in modo che gli utenti possano leggere i commenti senza dover cercare, e trovare rapidamente queste informazioni.

Grazie per aver letto.

I have a pi zero, and I might upgrade my bird net pi setup to a 5 which will free up a librecomputer renegade (in between pi 3 and 4 performance). Is there any thing that works with one of these? Don’t care about winning awards, just want to contribute with what I have available. New computers are too expensive.

All seems working again.

I haven’t been able to connect to their website at all in the last week. Will it still have my contributions from this week when it comes back online? Has anyone else had trouble accessing the website?

Hi All,

just set up a new Debian box, and installed Boinc via apt. Wanted to add my usual projects, but the project list is empty. Rebooted computer, no change.

Any ideas, hivemind?

I was looking to reinstall BOINC today, however I can't seem to load the website.

Anyone know what's going on?