Slashdot Mirror

meisenst writes "distributed.net is reporting that there was a problem earlier on in the CSC project (a few weeks ago) and that about 25% of the blocks will have to be re-done. Their announcement is here." We've gotten more than a few submissions about distributed.net showing more than 100% of all packets processed, but held off posting it until we had the official word. And here it is.

singularity writes "According to Nugget's plan at Distributed.net, some users have lost their team affiliation. I checked mine, and sure enough I needed to join team Slashdot again. As always, you can join Slashdot.org's team after you have contributed your first blocks and have your password. "

singularity writes "According to Nugget's plan at Distributed.net, some users have lost their team affiliation. I checked mine, and sure enough I needed to join team Slashdot again. As always, you can join Slashdot.org's team after you have contributed your first blocks and have your password. "

singularity writes "According to Nugget's plan at Distributed.net, some users have lost their team affiliation. I checked mine, and sure enough I needed to join team Slashdot again. As always, you can join Slashdot.org's team after you have contributed your first blocks and have your password. "

The fine folks over at Distributed.net have appraised me of the fact that the long awaited CSC clients have been rolled out, as of a few hours ago. The full details went out on the mailing list recently regarding CSC and the new clients. Upgrade your clients, because they'll start serving keys in just a couple hours, and we can keep Team Slashdot in first place.

The fine folks over at Distributed.net have appraised me of the fact that the long awaited CSC clients have been rolled out, as of a few hours ago. The full details went out on the mailing list recently regarding CSC and the new clients. Upgrade your clients, because they'll start serving keys in just a couple hours, and we can keep Team Slashdot in first place.

NIVRAM writes "After six months of waiting, Distributed Net has finally released beta clients for CSC and OGR cracking. They can be found here. (Looks like 'a few weeks' took a bit longer, eh?). For those of you who don't know, distributed.net is a non-profit group which uses the power of many computers to crack large encryption algorythms such as RC5 and the U.S. Government's DES. "

NIVRAM writes "After six months of waiting, Distributed Net has finally released beta clients for CSC and OGR cracking. They can be found here. (Looks like 'a few weeks' took a bit longer, eh?). For those of you who don't know, distributed.net is a non-profit group which uses the power of many computers to crack large encryption algorythms such as RC5 and the U.S. Government's DES. "

gampid writes "The BBC has a story about the Casino-21 project which is running a SETI@home type program for climate prediction. " I'm a booster of Distributed.net, but this looks pretty cool as well. I dunno global warming just gives me the creeps anyway and I'd like to know if my house will be underwater.

Matthew Priestley has taken a break from slaving for the man to write us a piece where he takes on the convential wisdom that Security through Obscurity isn't secure at all, and tries to argue that sometimes it is. Click the link below to read it. Lots of interesting stuff and some good examples. Its worth a read. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Matthew Priestley Obscurity as Security Disclaimer: The author of this paper works for Microsoft, but his opinions may not be those of Microsoft. In fact, they aren't. The author hereby declares that nobody important is even aware of his existence and that the closest he has ever come to plotting with Bill Gates on the Master Plan was when they used adjacent urinals this one time. The author did not peek.

0 Introduction With the popularity of the open-source mindset, a general contempt has drizzled upon all forms of obscurity. The concept of security through obscurity (STO) in particu lar has been decimated. Security through obscurity, which relies on the ignorance of attackers rather than the strength of defenders, is dead in all but practic e. The victory of the opposing full disclosure approach is so complete that proposed ta ctics die at the mere hint they are a form of STO.

This paper suggests security through obscurity can and does work in certain strictly limited ways, and should not be eliminated unthinkingly from the admin's arsenal. It further implies that the boundaries between STO and 'real' security are blurry and deserve evaluation. However, this paper in no way proposes obscurity as a method for keeping secrets in the long term.

1 Full disclosure does not apply to instantiated data Instantiated data - the data used by specific instances of an algorithm - do not fall within the scope of full disclosure. Were this not so, then even the simplest password would violate the ban on security through obscurity. Passwords are secrets known only to their creators, and password entry is commonly obscured, as in the case of the 'shadow' login of UNIX. While the login protocol may be open, passwords themselves are a form of STO, with obscurity localized in the password string.

Instantiated data are exempt from full disclosure because the risk from their failure is limited. When a script cracks a password, the damage done to the secure system extends only as far as that password's scope. The cracker cannot use the compromised string to gain power directly in another system, even if that system runs the same password protocol. Nor can anything be inferred about the value of one password merely from the value of another with equal or lower permissions.

A similar example of instantiated data obscurity is the private key that forms the basis of asymmetric cryptography. So obscure is this information that it is rare for even the owner to be familiar with its precise value. But such obscurity is a necessary element of modern security schemes. Strong security does not eliminate obscurity - rather, it localizes obscurity to instantiated data. The phrase in cryptology, 'carry all security in the key' might be better phrased 'carry all obscurity in the key'.

2 Full disclosure does not apply to time-limited secrets Secrets that expire after a short lifetime can be protected by a wider array of techniques than long-standing secrets. The defense of information that will be irrelevant in a matter of hours or days may not warrant fully peer-reviewed security. Consider the famous Navajo code-talkers of World War II. Among the Americans coordinating the at tack against Japanese-held islands in the Pacific were a number of Navajo Indians, who spoke a slangy version of the complex Navajo tongue. Commands from HQ were issued through these code-talkers, who encrypted and decrypted with an alacrity that belittled the automated methods of the day. This is an excellent example of time-limited security through obscurity. Secret languages are excellent security in the short-term, but however cryptic Navajo may be, it is a code subject to human betrayal. Use of Navajo against the Japanese much beyond the 3-year window of the war would have been unwise. But because the secrets of American strategy in the Pacific were irrelevant after the conclusion of the fighting, the long-term weakness of obscure Navajo as a security measure was unimportant.

3 Obscurity serves as a tripwire Perhaps the classic example of wrongheaded STO is the administrator who modifies his web server to listen on a nonstandard port - thereby confusing attackers, as the theory goes. Considering the degree to which tasks such as port scanning can be automated, the naivete of this defense seems plain. The cracker might be forced to check all 64512 unreserved ports, but eventually the concealed web server will be found. This appears to be a weakness of STO, but if manipulated correctly, it is in fact a great strength. Imagine that our same admin had also invoked a tripwire script and set it to listen on one or more unused ports. When the tripwire is probed with a SYN packet from a cracker trying to locate the web server, instantly the system goes to full alert. The packet is logged and the admin's pager sounds like an alarm.

Such tripwire approaches work because they do not expect obscurity to keep information hidden. Rather, they obscure information as a ploy to force invaders into showing their hand. Because the obscured implementation differs on each system, crackers must resort to guess-check scanning before attacks can commence. But tripwires are deployed throughout the system, anticipating this very move. Running an automated kit suddenly becomes a risky proposition, and even talented crackers must gamble on, for example, whether 'root' is really the name of the primary account or merely a hotline to the authorities.

Lighthearted implementations of this approach are a staple in the popular "Indiana Jones" films. In one scene, Jones is confronted with a hallway of lettered tiles, all seemingly alike. To cross safely he must step only on those tiles with letters corresponding to the secret word 'Jehovah'. The penalty for a misstep is to crash through the floor and plummet into a gaping pit. Attackers not privy to the password would find an exhaustive search less than optimal in this case. When traps are mingled with genuine data, STO can be a powerful disincentive. Such measures do not make a given machine resistant to breach in the long term, any more than medieval moats could ultimately protect their castles. But like moats, tripwire obscurity provides a critical buffer against attackers, allowing defenders room to breathe.

4 Asymmetric cryptography exhibits traits of STO Despite the notion that asymmetric cryptography such as RSA is 'real' security, in some aspects these methods resemble STO. Indeed, this entire class of cryptography is founded on the hopeful guess that a certain mathematical problem is intractable. The back door into cryptographic methods that rely on multiplying primes is, quite simply, to develop a swift means of factoring those multiples. This NP-time problem must be solved before a private key can b e derived from its corresponding public key, and the notorious difficulty of NP problems leads some supporters to characterize asymmetric cryptography as 'prova bly secure'. This is far from the case - there is uncertainty among mathematicia ns as to whether this problem will even prove non-trivial once approached from t he right angle. Startling progress has been made in solving similar 'impossible' problems using innovative ploys - for example, DNA computers can now solve the Traveling Salesman problem in linear time. Given that asymmetric encryption is used widely in the world's e-commerce infrastructure, the repercussions when this piece of obscurity is cracked are disturbing to contemplate.

One telling argument against STO is that it promotes a false sense of security, leading admins into complacency. But the complexity of asymmetric cryptography, combined with reports of its infallibility, can produce much the same effect. Co nsider this social-engineering exploit of digital signing. Using a tool such as m akecert, the cracker generates a root certificate with the name 'Verisign Class 1 Primary CA' and uses it to sign an end-entity certificate with the subject 'CN=Rob Malda, E=malda@slashdot.org' (CT:Please don't. I'm used to posers pretending to be me in Quake, but not on email ;) The cracker then sends the email to an enemy, using a client that does not validate e-mail addresses and spoofing the return address friendly name. The inexpert recipient, thinking all is in order and knowing that digital signatures never lie, trusts the root certificate and hence forth carries on a conversation with a false CmdrTaco. Only scrutiny of the headers will reveal the mail is actually going to a different address. The widely made claim that public-key cryptography is 'real' security and completely unrelated to 'false' STO delivers a more powerful illusion of security than anything an XOR'd password file can provide.

Even brute-force cryptanalysis has parallels in STO. Suppose we wish to conceal the passwords for a number of Swedish bank accounts. We resolve to write them to a secret location on our hard drive, perhaps a few unused bytes in a file sector. Only we, who know the lucky offset, can read the data. This form of concealment is a typical case of secruity through obscurity. The integrity of our secret depends on the ignorance of the cracker, and a trial of all 2^n possible locatio ns compromises the system. But in what way is this fundamentally different from the 'genuine' security of n-bit encryption? To break this form of security, 2^n keys are generated and tried agains t the cipher text until the result is a plain body. Is the difference between this 'true' security and the 'false' STO merely than n is considerably larger in encryption than in the case of hard drives? But this implies that our real error lay, not in reliance upon obscurity, but in having a hard drive of insufficient size!

5 Conclusions Security in the absence of obscurity is not strictly possible, but good systems both localize and advertise their points of obscurity. When the admin is fully a ware of the obscurity in a system, tripwires and instantiated data can provide a useful complement to more rigorous security techniques. Obscurity cannot keep information safe or concealed for long, but it can make attacks risky and destroy the effectiveness of automatic kits. These benefits should not be dismissed as an article of faith.

Yep, it's that time again! Nghia gave us a link to some "Jedi Academy" trailers. Several folks wrote in to say that the guys at Themes.org have a new look. forehead graciously provided an "interesting" bit, based on this "Richard Stallman-as-Marx" posting. "I decided to rework the whole song". Orbitz pointed us at a web-controlled RC car with camera. Next is my favorite, as submitted by Electric Keet, Stick Figure Porn. Thyla pointed us in the general direction of Carbonated Borscht for the Evil Geek's Soul, with a thanks to Illiad. Crazy Man on Fire gave us a link to upcoming distributed.net projects coming out soon. poink threw us a link to The Cereal Page (Ok, someone has waaaay too much time on his hands...) J. Pierpont gave us a link to more info on Episode II and III. Now, from Armin Lenz submitted a link to a CPU Gurus, a new CPU site discussing various current and future processors. Finally, Mike Healy, one of The Bazaar dudes, sent us a status report. Read more for the skinny.

Mike Healy writes "Since Steve Blood, our event chairman, is out of the country - he is actually checking out a solar eclipse in Austria - i've taken it upon myself to give you all an update on the Bazaar. I'd wait for steve to get back, all bleary eyed, by i must squelch the rumors being promulgated by certain sales guys for other events, that we folded. This couldn't be further from the truth. Fact of the matter is we are scheduled, locked and loaded and PUMPED for December 14-16 at the javits NYC.

The Bazaar will be the first large scale conference on opensource software to hit the east coast and will stress program, program and program. Our Theory is that if you build it, they will .com

Not only does EarthWeb, by nature of being an IT content HUB have access to the freshest most imperative material, but we have also brought in an indstry expert, lydia Bennett of Dialogos fame, to aggregate and work closely with conference chairs and advisory board to make sure all tracks and tutorials are epic.

Check out the website for more on the program. The exhibit floor will be refreshingly unlike any you have seen in this space being made up of customed designed, turn key demo stations. This not only makes it a breeze for vendors , but also adds integity to the exhibit floor. No huge booths with revolving marquis, No loud PA systems. No freak shows. This is the wrong event to come to if you want to see Trumps daughter in a g string handing out T shirts... This is the right event if you want to meet some of the biggest brains out there and get no nonsense answers regarding opensource free software... Anyway, thats it for now.. More from Steve when he gets back"

Colin Guillas writes "As we know, a single user posing as using a Russian supercomputer has been cracking distributed.net keys in the gigakeys range... but it turns out to be a hoax, as stated by nugget himself. Also, there are clues to the identity of this cracker, as written by Maxxim Kochegarov at this site . "

Tuna Phish writes "Apparently the new Russian E2K computer is being used to crack distributed.net's RC5 contest! The user has come out on top the past few days with 2.7GK/s, more than 6 times the keyrate of second place. His message states "Russian Elbrus E2K is REAL POWER!" " Great-now we just need to get them to join Team Slashdot, and he can get all the pr0n he needs. *grin* So, I've been doing some looking around, and am doubting the veracity of this: bogus client? First prototype? Anyone have more info? Post it in the comments.

Tuna Phish writes "Apparently the new Russian E2K computer is being used to crack distributed.net's RC5 contest! The user has come out on top the past few days with 2.7GK/s, more than 6 times the keyrate of second place. His message states "Russian Elbrus E2K is REAL POWER!" " Great-now we just need to get them to join Team Slashdot, and he can get all the pr0n he needs. *grin* So, I've been doing some looking around, and am doubting the veracity of this: bogus client? First prototype? Anyone have more info? Post it in the comments.

abh writes "The SETI@home project is now sending new (fresh) work units, after having spent a few weeks in a rut sending the same 2 days worth of observations repeatedly. Read the announcement " As well, we were sent word from a reader that we've lost the #1 position at RC5. Head over and sign up!

Everyone, their brother, mother and dog wrote to point us over to SETI@Home v1.0. Taking a note from the distributed playback, they are giving clients to use the spare cycles on your machine - check out more information, if you like.

BigJim.fr writes "Adam Beberg announced on the Distributed.net list that divergence of views on the further goals of Distributed Computing Technologies Inc (DCTI) have led him to go on developing independently Cosm, the distributed computing engine that was known as V3 to members of Distributed.net."

Benny_Eggs writes "It's not the pretty screensaver version, but a SETI@HOME client for Linux is now available." For those of you unfamiliar with the project, Seti@Home is like Distributed.net, except instead of brute force encryption cracking, it searches radio signal noise looking for signs of intelligence.

David "Nugget94M" McNett writes "DES-III is a wrap, we barely snuck in under the 24-hour mark and won the full US$10,000 prize. Details at distributed.net Congratulations to Team Slashdot for an outstanding showing! " Deep Crack got the winning key. That sucker chewed through an amazing number of keys.

David "Nugget94M" McNett writes "DES-III is a wrap, we barely snuck in under the 24-hour mark and won the full US$10,000 prize. Details at distributed.net Congratulations to Team Slashdot for an outstanding showing! " Deep Crack got the winning key. That sucker chewed through an amazing number of keys.

David Hallowell writes "As you probably know the EFF's Deep Crack machine which won the last DES challenge is working with distributed.net for this contest. There's a graph which shows the performance of deep crack (labelled DC) and the rest of the distributed.net effort (labelled DCTI) which is composed of everyone running the rc5des clients. The keyrate from the combined rc5des clients is double that of Deep Crack compared to that of last time when it was less than Deep Crack (which has a constant keyrate). The combined rc5des + deep crack keyrate is also shown." Also, Team Slashdot is #2 in the top 100 if you're curious.

David Hallowell writes "As you probably know the EFF's Deep Crack machine which won the last DES challenge is working with distributed.net for this contest. There's a graph which shows the performance of deep crack (labelled DC) and the rest of the distributed.net effort (labelled DCTI) which is composed of everyone running the rc5des clients. The keyrate from the combined rc5des clients is double that of Deep Crack compared to that of last time when it was less than Deep Crack (which has a constant keyrate). The combined rc5des + deep crack keyrate is also shown." Also, Team Slashdot is #2 in the top 100 if you're curious.

David Hallowell writes " The DES III Contest is starting today at 5pm (GMT). Members of the distributed.net RC5 teams should make sure they download the latest client as they contain optimised code and a faster switchover to the DES contest. The DES contest will last for a maximum of 56 hours and the $10,000 prize will only be available if it is cracked within 24 hours. After that the prizes are on a sliding scale until it reaches 56 hours after which there's no prize."

David Hallowell writes " The DES III Contest is starting today at 5pm (GMT). Members of the distributed.net RC5 teams should make sure they download the latest client as they contain optimised code and a faster switchover to the DES contest. The DES contest will last for a maximum of 56 hours and the $10,000 prize will only be available if it is cracked within 24 hours. After that the prizes are on a sliding scale until it reaches 56 hours after which there's no prize."

David McGrath writes "The new distributed.net clients are out. If you want to participate in the DES-III contest, you should download them. I've also noticed a marked improvement for MMX processors under RC5 -- blocks take two-thirds the time to complete, at least on my computer. " It's also worth nothing that Slashdot is Neck and Neck with the Evangelista's on rc5. Keep up the good work, and remember that The odds are 1 in 4987 that we'll wrap this thing up tomorrow (grin). Anyway, upgrade and let's crush DESIII.

David McGrath writes "The new distributed.net clients are out. If you want to participate in the DES-III contest, you should download them. I've also noticed a marked improvement for MMX processors under RC5 -- blocks take two-thirds the time to complete, at least on my computer. " It's also worth nothing that Slashdot is Neck and Neck with the Evangelista's on rc5. Keep up the good work, and remember that The odds are 1 in 4987 that we'll wrap this thing up tomorrow (grin). Anyway, upgrade and let's crush DESIII.

Slashdot gets a lot of mentions out there, and I'm sick of devoting whole stories to them, so I'm lumping them together. First, I mentioned Cool Site of the Year before, but I just found out that one of the prizes is a New Guitar- so Go vote for us. You can vote once a day, and this is one poll I have no problem Slashdotting *grin*. Cheekyboy wrote in to tell us that we're the #5 site at at 100 Hot's Developer Site List. hatredonalog wrote in to say that the new issue of Linux Journal has Slashdot listed as the #1 Linux Web Page, beating out linux.org. Anonymous Harrison noted that a recent Jerk City cartoon mentions Slashdot. And lastly, the RC5 Team has been doing pretty well these days. In fact, we and the Evangelista's have been swapping the #1 daily keys spot. So go run clients on anything that boots and lets dust 'em.

Well, almost everyone on the planet wrote to let us know that Slashdot has passed Team EvangeLista in daily key processing rates. With the latest stats, it shows it's only a matter of time before we crush and destro-er, pass the competition overall. If you haven't joined, grab a client and join up.

Well, almost everyone on the planet wrote to tell us that we are now #2 in the RC5 rankings. And with last week's news that Distributed was going Linux, things seem to be cruising along. Except for the sheer size of those blocks. *sigh*

Been meaning to write this one for a while, but you know how time is. The following is an account of a...misadventure had by myself, OctobrX and Rob Walker of VA Research while at the Atlanta Linux Showcase (which was great, BTW). None of the names have been changed, because, well, no one's an innocent these days. Click below for the story. So, it's the end of the Atlanta Linux Showcase. OctobrX, Rob Walker from VA Research and I are sent on a mission. VA has come along with enough computers to crack the RC5 challenge in a few seconds. Add in a bunch of big monitors, letting lots of people (like us) use their machines in their booth, and one kick-butt looking booth, and they have a shipping nightmare.

I came back from visiting around, and found Rob and OctobrX talking about going to Office Max to pick up shipping plastic. This stuff is like the Samsonite of saran wrap. If you've been to one of the mega-stores and seen their pallets wrapped in this plastic wrap, that's the stuff. You could wrap bodies in this and ship them all over the world--or 21" monitor boxes. Whichever. VA had a distinct lack of this wrap-that is, zero. Rob had been sent on a mission to get it, and since OctobrX was a local, he was co-opted for geographical knowledge. I was just along for the ride.

First stop was the area Office Max. Despite what appeared to be an abundance of office supply products, we met with along zeros when asking about the location of this particular type of shipping material. Rob went so far as to ask the store personnel, who responded with the ever witty "Well, if's not out there, then we don't have it. I don't know who has it. Try Office Depot, or Home Depot."

Never to be stopped in our valiant quest for massive amounts of what is essentially really big saran wrap, OctobrX hurtled up this through rush hour Atlanta traffic, until we pulled around the hill to Avalo....er...Home Depot. Draped across the front of the store was a massive sign stating in exciting letters "Open 24 hours a day". Up in the front, Rob began to drool excitedly at the thought of a 24/7 Home Depot, and verbally fell over himself trying to describe the elation and ecstasy that he felt in his heart. If only he knew the toils and troubles this store would bring down on us.

We entered the store and began excitedly looking at all of the wrapping plastic--ladders, paint, people...er, no. Every pallet in the place had this wrapping plastic around it. We began searching the store for the locale of this fabled substance. One issue-this Home Depot was approximately the size of the greater Chicago land area-I figure it had to be at least two or three thousand acres large. We wandered up and down, admiring the high quality designer plumbing supplies, and finding rolls of the plastic wrapping sitting on top of different products.

Rob, being the ever-resourceful individual that he is, took one as a, ah, "prop". We asked where we could find more and were directed down the main aisle. Here we met Jerome. Jerome would be our contact for the reminder of our Home Depot adventure. Upon encountering him, Rob asked excitedly where we could buy some of this amazing stuff.

The word from on was that we couldn't.

No, apparently this material which was used extensively throughout the store for exactly what we wanted it for--wrapping products, was reserved solely for use within the store. More and more employees gathered around as we began to hold a heated "discussion" about whether or not we could obtain said product.

Even with offers of bribery in the air, Jerome stood firm. After more begging, pleading, and wheedling, we managed to get the manager on the phone. Jerome, OctobrX, and myself stood by while watching Rob on the phone.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of watching Rob in action, imagine the most persuasive phone voice you've ever heard, combined with someone who will never let you get a word in edgewise, and has that know-it-all voice developed from years of tech support.

It doesn't even come close to Mr. Rob Walker. The phone is putty in his hands.

After literally fifteen minutes of watching Rob, talking about the convention, /. and themes and Linux with the assorted employees gathered to watch the spectacle, the manager was finished with Rob, and wanted to speak with Jerome. Jerome talked, looked at us a few times, and then hung up the phone.

To get a clear picture of this, you should understand Jerome is not a small man. Jerome is stout, well-muscled guy. So's Trae, but hey, it's Jerome's store. Jerome turns to and says in a somewhat gravelly voice: "I'm supposed to escort you out of the store."

Rob looks a little surprised and responded with "No, you don't mean it, right?"

Jerome shook his head, smiles, and told us to follow him-Rob had managed to convince the manager of the value the Home Depot was supplying to us, faithful customers, and what a service they were doing for the community. Well, probably some of that, but also just trying to get Rob off the phone probably had a good deal to do with it as well.

Smiling like me after three or four shots Bushmills, we walked through the store. Rob and Jerome vanish for a few moments, we get our plastic priced, and leave the store. We walked back in a few minutes later to give to Jerome the VA, themes, /., and freshmeat shirt on my back.

So, only a good ninety minutes afterwards, we returned to the convention center, victories warriors. Bottom line is that Jerome of the Atlanta Home Depot went above and beyond, Home Depot should start carrying this plastic wrap for sale for easily, and Tim, the manager of said Home Depot, recognizes customer gold mines when he see's it.

That, and Rob knows how to wheedle people. Congrats to him...

David McNett, the man with the .plan over at Distributed has brought great news unto the Linux world. Having become convinced some time ago that the NT box that handled stats wasn't making the grade, they will be moving to Linux based solution. That's great-and for all of those you haven't signed up for the Slashdot team for Distributed.net, consider this a written invitation. Click below for instructions on how to join, and read our stats for today. For those that want to get on board the Slashdot DES-II team but can't seem to figure out how (it was a bit strange) do the following:

• Go to: http://www.distributed.net/rc5/rc5v2-clients.html and download the client for your OS (Even Win95ers are allowed :)
• Uncompress and setup the client (under Linux just run it and the setup menus will appear)
• Execute the client (use nohup to make it continue to run after you logout under Unix)
• Wait until the next evening for the statistics to be re-calculated
• Go to http://rc5stats.distributed.net/ and anter the email address you configured into the input box that says "Search for Email"
• Then, if your statistics appear, you can request that your password be sent to your email address
• Once you get your password in the mail, re-enter it in the password box on that same web page (refresh, if necessary)
• After entering your password, you can choose your team number. Slashdot is #1365
• The next day, check in with the list of team members to be sure you are listed!

David McNett, the man with the .plan over at Distributed has brought great news unto the Linux world. Having become convinced some time ago that the NT box that handled stats wasn't making the grade, they will be moving to Linux based solution. That's great-and for all of those you haven't signed up for the Slashdot team for Distributed.net, consider this a written invitation. Click below for instructions on how to join, and read our stats for today. For those that want to get on board the Slashdot DES-II team but can't seem to figure out how (it was a bit strange) do the following:

• Go to: http://www.distributed.net/rc5/rc5v2-clients.html and download the client for your OS (Even Win95ers are allowed :)
• Uncompress and setup the client (under Linux just run it and the setup menus will appear)
• Execute the client (use nohup to make it continue to run after you logout under Unix)
• Wait until the next evening for the statistics to be re-calculated
• Go to http://rc5stats.distributed.net/ and anter the email address you configured into the input box that says "Search for Email"
• Then, if your statistics appear, you can request that your password be sent to your email address
• Once you get your password in the mail, re-enter it in the password box on that same web page (refresh, if necessary)
• After entering your password, you can choose your team number. Slashdot is #1365
• The next day, check in with the list of team members to be sure you are listed!

David McNett, the man with the .plan over at Distributed has brought great news unto the Linux world. Having become convinced some time ago that the NT box that handled stats wasn't making the grade, they will be moving to Linux based solution. That's great-and for all of those you haven't signed up for the Slashdot team for Distributed.net, consider this a written invitation. Click below for instructions on how to join, and read our stats for today. For those that want to get on board the Slashdot DES-II team but can't seem to figure out how (it was a bit strange) do the following:

• Go to: http://www.distributed.net/rc5/rc5v2-clients.html and download the client for your OS (Even Win95ers are allowed :)
• Uncompress and setup the client (under Linux just run it and the setup menus will appear)
• Execute the client (use nohup to make it continue to run after you logout under Unix)
• Wait until the next evening for the statistics to be re-calculated
• Go to http://rc5stats.distributed.net/ and anter the email address you configured into the input box that says "Search for Email"
• Then, if your statistics appear, you can request that your password be sent to your email address
• Once you get your password in the mail, re-enter it in the password box on that same web page (refresh, if necessary)
• After entering your password, you can choose your team number. Slashdot is #1365
• The next day, check in with the list of team members to be sure you are listed!

David McNett, the man with the .plan over at Distributed has brought great news unto the Linux world. Having become convinced some time ago that the NT box that handled stats wasn't making the grade, they will be moving to Linux based solution. That's great-and for all of those you haven't signed up for the Slashdot team for Distributed.net, consider this a written invitation. Click below for instructions on how to join, and read our stats for today. For those that want to get on board the Slashdot DES-II team but can't seem to figure out how (it was a bit strange) do the following:

• Go to: http://www.distributed.net/rc5/rc5v2-clients.html and download the client for your OS (Even Win95ers are allowed :)
• Uncompress and setup the client (under Linux just run it and the setup menus will appear)
• Execute the client (use nohup to make it continue to run after you logout under Unix)
• Wait until the next evening for the statistics to be re-calculated
• Go to http://rc5stats.distributed.net/ and anter the email address you configured into the input box that says "Search for Email"
• Then, if your statistics appear, you can request that your password be sent to your email address
• Once you get your password in the mail, re-enter it in the password box on that same web page (refresh, if necessary)
• After entering your password, you can choose your team number. Slashdot is #1365
• The next day, check in with the list of team members to be sure you are listed!

Several folks sent this in, but the first one was anonymous. Seems that IBM is working on a New Supercomputer that they are selling to the dept. of energy. 3.9 trillion ops per second. Has anyone ported an RC5 Client to this thing yet? Hello, Dept of Energy? We'd just like a few days please...

Frédéric writes "distributed.net will introduce in some weeks the Optimal Golomb Rulers effort, for info distributed.net are people who are doing the RC5-64 and DESII (desii-3 in about 100 days) contest. it can have a lot of applications, you can have more info at distributed.net and here (original ogr) " FWIW the Slashdot RC5 team has been doing pretty well, 5th overall, 2nd yesterday. We'll need a lot of muscle to take number one though.

Matt writes "Sun has plotted out the roadmap for the UltraSPARC." The best teaser is the plans for a 1.5 Ghz processor. Mmmm...cut through RC5 blocks like butter.

Garrett Goebel wrote in to tell us that Slashdot is right behind Evangelista in distributed.net's RC5 competition. "Team Slashdot.org is pulling up in a challenge for first place in the daily rankings. If just a few more people would download the client and join up, then first place is ours! Not to mention that we're poised to jump to 6th place in the overall rankings. Daily rankings can be found at: link Get the Client at link Slashdot is team 1365. ". The "invicible" Evangelista (due to how good PowerPCs are at cracking RC5) may be overtaken yet. You can find out how to join here.

Garrett Goebel wrote in to tell us that Slashdot is right behind Evangelista in distributed.net's RC5 competition. "Team Slashdot.org is pulling up in a challenge for first place in the daily rankings. If just a few more people would download the client and join up, then first place is ours! Not to mention that we're poised to jump to 6th place in the overall rankings. Daily rankings can be found at: link Get the Client at link Slashdot is team 1365. ". The "invicible" Evangelista (due to how good PowerPCs are at cracking RC5) may be overtaken yet. You can find out how to join here.

In a not-so-surprising move, Slashdot has taken a commanding lead in distributed.net's DES-II-2 distributed computing effort. With the help of some large UltraSPARC machines, we managed to top Team HP by a lot. This doesn't mean we can sit back though. If we wanna crack this thing in time, we need to raise our keyrate a lot. So, everyone get cracking, and tell your friends! People with UltraSPARCs take note: UltraSPARCs chew through blocks like a knife through butter, but we encourage everyone to help! Instructions on how to join can be found here and stats can be seen here. Thanks everyone! Update!: Slashdot has strengthened its lead after another day! Keep those boxes cracking!

In a not-so-surprising move, Slashdot has taken a commanding lead in distributed.net's DES-II-2 distributed computing effort. With the help of some large UltraSPARC machines, we managed to top Team HP by a lot. This doesn't mean we can sit back though. If we wanna crack this thing in time, we need to raise our keyrate a lot. So, everyone get cracking, and tell your friends! People with UltraSPARCs take note: UltraSPARCs chew through blocks like a knife through butter, but we encourage everyone to help! Instructions on how to join can be found here and stats can be seen here. Thanks everyone! Update!: Slashdot has strengthened its lead after another day! Keep those boxes cracking!

The DES-II-2 contest has started, and Slashdot is there! And making it just in time, new clients have been released, including new MMX clients. The bitslicing technique used increases performance dramatically, from 40-100%! Based on our RC5 stats, from which the teams will carry over (and which won't update until we are done with DES), Slashdot should be in the top 3 if everyone upgrades their client! Stats for DES will be available here. And you can find instructions how to join the Slashdot team are here. I really think we can win this! Update: Stats are up! Slashdot #3 and going for the gold! UltraSPARCs dominating the contest! Donate your spare CPU time today!

The DES-II-2 contest has started, and Slashdot is there! And making it just in time, new clients have been released, including new MMX clients. The bitslicing technique used increases performance dramatically, from 40-100%! Based on our RC5 stats, from which the teams will carry over (and which won't update until we are done with DES), Slashdot should be in the top 3 if everyone upgrades their client! Stats for DES will be available here. And you can find instructions how to join the Slashdot team are here. I really think we can win this! Update: Stats are up! Slashdot #3 and going for the gold! UltraSPARCs dominating the contest! Donate your spare CPU time today!

The DES-II-2 contest has started, and Slashdot is there! And making it just in time, new clients have been released, including new MMX clients. The bitslicing technique used increases performance dramatically, from 40-100%! Based on our RC5 stats, from which the teams will carry over (and which won't update until we are done with DES), Slashdot should be in the top 3 if everyone upgrades their client! Stats for DES will be available here. And you can find instructions how to join the Slashdot team are here. I really think we can win this! Update: Stats are up! Slashdot #3 and going for the gold! UltraSPARCs dominating the contest! Donate your spare CPU time today!

The DES-II-2 contest has started, and Slashdot is there! And making it just in time, new clients have been released, including new MMX clients. The bitslicing technique used increases performance dramatically, from 40-100%! Based on our RC5 stats, from which the teams will carry over (and which won't update until we are done with DES), Slashdot should be in the top 3 if everyone upgrades their client! Stats for DES will be available here. And you can find instructions how to join the Slashdot team are here. I really think we can win this! Update: Stats are up! Slashdot #3 and going for the gold! UltraSPARCs dominating the contest! Donate your spare CPU time today!

John Corey writes " Slashdot's Team is about ready to clobber the Czech RC5 Team in the next day or two for the coveted 8th place. Woohoo! But we'll need a LOT more help to take over the next rank (over 3 million blocks to get up there). " Been awhile since we plugged Distributed.net anyway. If you're interested, follow the link.

John Corey writes " Slashdot's Team is about ready to clobber the Czech RC5 Team in the next day or two for the coveted 8th place. Woohoo! But we'll need a LOT more help to take over the next rank (over 3 million blocks to get up there). " Been awhile since we plugged Distributed.net anyway. If you're interested, follow the link.

Brian Porter writes "In order to try to beat The RSA DES Challenge II, distributed.net is using computers' idle processing time all over the world. This will require testing at most 2^56 keys to determine the correct one. The DES-II-2 challenge will start July 13, 1998 at 9am PST. Download a client for your machine, and help out!" Assuming the teams are carried over from the RC5 contest, Slashdot will be team #1365. Anyone have a quad Xeon yet? =)

John Hartnup sent us a Perl Script for tracking stuff that happens at Distributed.net. Speaking of Which, Slashdot has broken into the top 10 overall! Keep it going folks! Next, Matthew Kirkwood sent us a link to link to another linux support site. Third, Jesse Off sent us a link to another one of those silly You know you're a nerd when. Mostly Unix jokes. Pretty good. Next, Jason Poll sent us a link to a collection of online books, the site includes programming and Linux books apparently. Continuing along, David Sinck sent us a link to one of those James Bond super cars with fancy video doo dads. This one has instructions to build your own if you have tons of cash to drop on all sorts of strange hardware. It's really pretty cool. Lastly, Harry McKee sent us a link to an article about a Telepathic Clapper. Hopefully they can come up with an ad campaign less obnoxious than 'Clap On/Clap Off'

Several people have written in lately to say that the Slashdot RC5 time is not doing well compared to a few other teams on the project. So if you know of more machines that can join the force, hit hit distributed.net and snag the latest client for your favorite platform, and start crackin'