This column is about TANSTAAFL, which is a term from a book by Robert A. Heinlein (one of the best Science Fiction authors that ever lived) called "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". The term means "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". This concept is the basis of the plot of the book, which is about a Lunar penal colony and it's attempt to free itself from Earth domination.
An excellent example of TANSTAAFL is the recent change of terms by Juno. In case you don't know, Juno is an online service, in many ways similar to America Online. They offer dialup service in a free, advertiser supported mode as well as a paid service.
Juno, like many other internet companies, is looking for ways to make money in these days of declining advertising revenues. This company has come up with a very creative way to generate income.
You remember the old SETI project? This project has been attempting to find life in the universe by listening to the radio signals from all over the skies. Well, some genius at the place realized that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to build a big enough computer to analyze the incredible amount of data that they have been gathering.
To solve the problem, those geniuses came up with a new and very interesting idea: why not use personal computers? Tens of thousands of them would be needed, so the computations were packaged in a cool screensaver which was given away for free. You got a screensaver, SETI got their computations done. The project was a huge success and easily met or exceeded all of it's goals to date.
Juno now wants to do a similar thing, only this time they are apparently trying to crunch medical information. Here is a line from their press release on the matter:
"NEW YORK, NY (February 1, 2001) -- Juno Online Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: JWEB) today announced the establishment of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project, a distributed computing effort of unprecedented scope that aims to harness unused processing power associated with the free portion of its subscriber base in order to execute computationally intensive biomedical and other applications on behalf of commercial clients and research institutions."
Juno has also modified it's terms and conditions to allow them to use your computer in any way they see fit. A paragraph from the TOC is extracted below.
"2.5. You expressly permit and authorize Juno to (i) download to your computer one or more pieces of software (the "Computational Software") designed to perform computations, which may be unrelated to the operation of the Service, on behalf of Juno (or on behalf of such third parties as may be authorized by Juno, subject to the Privacy Statement), (ii) run the Computational Software on your computer to perform and store the results of such computations, and (iii) upload such results to Juno’s central computers during a subsequent connection, whether initiated by you in the course of using the Service or by the Computational Software as further described below. In connection with downloading and running the Computational Software, Juno may require you to leave your computer turned on at all times, and may replace the "screen saver" software that runs on your computer while the computer is turned on but you are not using it."
Fred Langa, author of a newsletter called "The LangaList" notes the following about this "service".
"You see, Juno wants to lash up its subscribers' computers into an ad-hoc distributed computing network and sell the aggregate computing power to others. Someone with a large computational problem will contract with Juno, which will divvy up the large problem into smaller chunks and force-feed it into its subscribers' PCs. Those Juno-laden PCs, which must be left on and running, will execute this external code and send the results of the computations back to Juno. The process then repeats."
In summary, Juno wants to use it's subscriber's computers to perform vast calculations which would otherwise require massive supercomputers. What's so alarming about this?
You're letting someone else whom you don't know install software on your computer without your knowledge.
So what happens if Juno crashes your system while performing these calculations? Fred Langa explains below:
"That's spelled out in the rest of the amended terms of service: The subscribers must perform these forced services at their own risk and expense: You pay for the power consumed to run Juno's calculations; you pay for the call (if needed) to send in the results; and if Juno's software crashes your PC and eats your data, well, tough luck."
So what's the difference between SETI and Juno? SETI was a voluntary effort to aid a noble cause, Juno is taking your computer over to further it's own corporate agenda (and presumably make some money) without your explicit agreement. Oh yes, it is in their terms and conditions, but when was the last time you read these legal documents from top to bottom and understood what you just glanced at?
The ethical way for Juno to achieve this result would be for them to explicitly ask your permission. They could ask and you could answer (a) don't want it, (b) fine with me all the time, or (c) fine, but ask me at the start of each project. If I wanted to stay with Juno, I could choose option (c) because, hey, I might not agree with the project. Of course, I doubt that Juno will even ask their subscribers (I hope I am wrong).
Which ties right back to the subject at hand: TANSTAAFL. Juno has to pay the bills, so a "free" service is once again proven to be not so free. Word to the wise: read your terms and conditions (and all amendments), then make a rational decision as to whether or not what they are asking is acceptable to you.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.