[atlas] Private Probes: What's the Point

> On Oct 20, 2015, at 12:36 PM, Wilfried Woeber <woeber at cc.univie.ac.at> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jon!
> 
> On 2015-10-19 05:00, Jonathan Brewer wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> I've run into a few probes marked private, and when I've found & asked the owners,
>> they didn't realise they'd done anything restrictive or harmful to researchers by
>> marking their probes private.
>> 
>> Intrigued at this phenomena, I had a look at the probe metadata. Right now I think
>> there are 1,534 Atlas probes that are active and connected to the network, but
>> marked private.
>> 
>> What's the point of having private probes in the network? Do their hosts still"
>> earn credits they can use on public probes? Should they be? Are private probe
>> hosts helping the project?
> 
> IIRC, we did have quite a bit on the topic of labelling probes as "private", but
> I would have to do some digging to find the references to that discussion..
> 
> But before chiming in ith my personal point of view, may I ask the Atlas Team
> to summarize what the effects of "private" are. I seem to remember that private
> probes *do* participate in the built-in measurements. I may be wron, though.
> 
>> The FAQ says nothing about private probes, so I thought I would ask here.
> 
> I think it is pretty useful to have another look at that setting.
> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Jon
> 
> Cheers,
> Wilfried
> 
My understanding is that my private probe participates in built-in measurements but is not open to the world.  My small network is not designed to serve as a target for the world.

James R. Cutler
James.cutler at consultant.com
PGP keys at http://pgp.mit.edu

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