Creating an account with MacOS and Windows uses the users' computer username.

[drshawnkwang]

https://einsteinathome.org/content/how-can-i-delete-my-account

Users report that when creating their account, BOINC client uses their computer's username. Account name should be a field the user fills in.

~~PS- I have not experienced this behavior with the Linux client.~~

Update: This does happen in the Linux client as well.

[ChristianBeer]

This is intentional and the user is redirected to the project website (at least when adding an account via Manager) to change the name. This does not happen when using the client to add an account.

The easiest way is to remove this but how should we generate usernames then? The next possibilitiy is to add a notice in the Client output that tells the user which website to visit in order to change the username. The best and more complex solution would be to ask the user for a name when signing up.

[Ageless93]

I wonder when the next person comes complaining that his BOINC client shows his operating system's user name in the event log messages and how that's an infringement of their privacy.

[drshawnkwang]

Since no one has worked on this in a year: an alternative approach is to modify create_account RPC such that it ignores the username parameter, and sets every user to have the general username 'User' or 'BOINC Volunteer'. This is not ideal: but perhaps better than the status quo?

[RichardHaselgrove]

BoincView handles the problem by including the username to be used in the account creation dialog, pre-populated with the computer logon account name, but editable.

[JuhaSointusalo]

Adding an extra text field for the user name is easy enough but what to do with the web page you go to after the account is created? It would be a bit silly to ask for a user name on the web page just after asking for a user name in the Manager.