The Chocolate Dog

In my endless and often mindless searching I came across this news item on the skeptico blog (A pro science/logic blog dedicated to debunking BullDoug [I've been waiting to apply that term for about two weeks..bleh Doug...whoever says I am not mature is a poop head]). Which posted a story originaly found on the James Randi Educational Foundation web site. I have not verified the sources beyond checking out the feed on the JREF site just yet but I will do so in the morning. I am simply to tired and lazy to do so right now however considering that it made it onto the James Randis website I feel pretty secure in that it will check out.

Any way for those of you who have your doubts about the SETI@Home prodject and prehapes even doubt that the prodject will ever find anything well here’s a reason to run http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ on your laptop at least (Though now that I give it a brief second thought I do not see why this should not apply to your desktop as well any way. According to JREF it is reported that someone was able to retrieve their stolen laptop because of the SETI software running on it. When the stolen laptop called into SETI, the IP address of the thief was recorded on SETI’s servers:

"Melin monitored the SETI(at)home database to see if the stolen laptop would "talk" to the Berkeley servers. Indeed, the laptop checked in three times within a week, and Melin sent the IP addresses to the Minneapolis Police Department.
After a subpoena to a local Internet provider, police determined the real-world address where the stolen laptop was logging on. Within days, officers seized the computer and returned it."
Kudos to Skeptico @ http://skeptico.blogs.com/