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DCTI releases the source to its client apps' computing cores; hotshot assembly coders can get their names in lights by submitting a patch against the public-source core-only clients. The official client binaries, OTOH, are considered "trusted binaries" and may in the near future be digitally signed.

A slightly different spin on what you have descibed could be spreading these programs as virii. There have already been distributed.net trojans.

Doesn't running the client waste a lot of electricity?

Many modern computers can enter low power-usage states when they detect they are idle. This mostly involves powering down the monitor, stopping the hard drive, and allowing the CPU to enter a slower idle state that does not produce as much heat. Running the client on a normally idle should not affect its ability to power down the monitor, which is a significant part of the power usage.

However, the hard drives of a power-saving machine may be prevented from spinning down if the client continues to periodically save or load blocks to disk. If you have multiple hard drives in your machine, you may want to consider ensuring that your client buffers and logs are on the hard drive that is most likely to have other activity as well (such as your OS swap file, or OS System directory), allowing the other less frequently accessed drives to spin-down unaffected. You might also want to consider enabling the Client's "nodisk" mode so that it only uses RAM for its operations, but be aware that your work may be lost if your computer crashes or loses power (wasting the power and idle cycles that the client could have used for productive work if it wasn't lost). You might also want to be aware of the fact that spinning up/down your hard drives can actually reduce its lifetime.

Additionally it is true that the Client will also probably prevent your CPU idle from entering its reduced power consumption idle cycle mode (sometimes called "HLT" mode in x86 processors). However, the actual power consumption by the CPU processor alone is actually a minor portion of the total usage by the computer (much less than 20% usually), and entering the lower usage idle mode only reduces that amount slightly. Note that this idle mode is unrelated to the CPU frequency-lowering that is sometimes done automatically by APM services when no user interactivity is detected (the client will not interfere with this reduction). You should also be aware that sometimes computer fans run only when excessive heat is detected (such as from a continuously operating CPU or hard drive). These cooling fans are an additional source of power usage.

Overall, the actual difference in power consumption by computers that are running the client during periods of time when they are normally left on (for unrelated purposes) is very minor....

Use any spare cycles to read Slashdot

Read Slashdot? Why not something useful like Seti@home or RC5?

Entropia looks interesting, but i'm not a member and don't know any of the specific projects off hand. There's also distributed.net, which does code cracking. again, not sure it's more useful...

do a search on most search engines for distributed projects, there's a whole list.

I've got to disagree with this. d.net is now working on the Optimal Golomb Ruler (OGR) project. This is a project which has actual uses beyond just proving that it can be done. I'll leave the site above and it's links to explain it further.

This sounds like a nice effort for distributed.net :) The disc-id is an 8-digit hex number, making for ca 2.6 billion combinations.

Although not every judge has a functional logic module in his/her brain.

Implying that they have a brain in the first place...
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Its the nostalgia of the legendary games I grew up with. Doom was the first game that really showed us the potential of an AT type (now they just call it Windows compatible) personal computer. The classic sound effects and vision in the gameplay from that game is what still excites me.

Thanks for mentioning RSA. I was searching for new CPU's to increase my rate. :)

All processor upgrades seem to give you very little performance gain compared to what you expect them to give you because the CPU is not the major performance bottleneck of the machine. The biggest offender is the hard disk drive which explains why things run so slow when you have to rely on virtual memory. The amount of idle time my distributed.net client gets on a 266MHz machine when in normal use is amazing, you may need faster machines to play games on but for normal use (at least in Linux) it still performs well. So should I buy one? Perhaps if I want better distributed.net stats but that's about it. We need something more than increased clock speed to make it worthh upgrading.

And the teachers thought they had it bad when they made us put electrical tape over our IR ports . . .

Slashdot is a good example. They make money (well at least a little), and yet their site can be set up on anyone's server that wants it.

With /., the copy would only be second best. But if I lifted a cool picture from your page and added it to mine, it would be impossible for the average Web user to tell which was first----or even that somebody had stolen it, given the number of sites out there. Napster still gives a certain amount of credit (except in cases of abuse, like the Cuckoo Egg Project), but what about my graphics? I don't really want to slap copyright notices all over the place, as that makes the image uglier on my site, then gets cropped by someone else, then that one is stolen, etc.

I think the paradigm will just be much different from what we are used to.

Many people say this, but not one of them have suggested how it might work (or I missed it when they did). You have to get around a few things first, especially the "there is no such thing as a secure system" idea. Anything client-side cannot be trusted (see also dnet's Opcode Authorization page), and servers can be hacked as well. There will always be a black market if someone can do it... but the workings of the white market will affect its size (see also DVD non-piracy).

Adam Beberg of distributed.net fame has been working hard on a distributed, encrypted system named Cosm.

Check it out here:

http://cosm.mithral.com/

IF so - how many keys/sec. can it crack?

Or can I use it to rip MP3's? store pr0n? Hide from LARS on Napster?

Hey, man, if your in the top 10% @ SETI, why dont you try distributed.net. Much more usefull than that alien garbage and you could win 2000 dollars.

Mark Duell

Hey!

SETI@Home cpu power has dropped off

I think it has, yes. Or at least, a high percentage of users aren't exactly tearing through units. Here are some extracts from my stats:

Results Received: 135
Total CPU Time: 2487 hr 18 min
Last result returned: Sat Mar 18 21:44:27 2000 UTC
Your rank out of 2180053 total users is: 218171st place.
The total number of users who have this rank: 1258
You have completed more work units than: 89.935% of our users.

I've come to prefer Distributed.net, which I changed to after the continual failures of my clients to retrieve new work units half the time, or work through my (correctly configured) HTTP proxy. Distributed.net seemed much cooler. Plus it is much more configurable.

That's me, though.

Michael Tandy


...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.

Actually the RC5 client is based solely on integer math...
here is a link to their FAQ:
RC5 FAQ

Later.

This is a better link for the FPU debate... Here...

Did S@H ever fix the problem with the fact they were going to run out of blocks and forced people to redo blocks that were already done? If not, why would anyone want to buy this card? Seems a little silly to me. That is, unless someone could find another purpose for this card. d.net

May I suggested the new Optimal Golomb Ruler project over at Distributed.net. Searching this space can only be done exhastively, and is actually useful (in, admittedly, rarified areas). The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search is another project where the work will actually have lasting use.

Not to take away from Seti@home -- interesting project. It just became TOO popular. Ditto RC5 -- the project probably helped force the restrictions to be lifted, but it's point has been made; why spend another two years or so on it?

No, actually, the most useful project that I have seen come out of either of them is distributed.net's Optimal Golomb Rulers Project. With the results from this project, someone could actually do something practical, like figure out the optimal spacing for radio transmitters, I believe.

Wouldn't such an effort be better directed towards running a distributed.net client on this? Codebreaking is far more important and relevant today than searching for extraterrestrial lifeforms (which we wouldn't understand anyway).

No one has mentioned Distributed.Net client for Linux. One wonders what type of keyrate he would generate!

No one has mentioned Distributed.Net client for Linux. One wonders what type of keyrate he would generate!

As cetan pointed out, the GUI was removed so win32 users would get their new clients faster. This was because the GUI version was a complete fork in the code and was unmaintainable in the end. By the way, what exactly changed? Only the config, the mainscreen was text-based all the time.

You can get the moo-ing back, with a 3rd party application. 3rd party meaning that it's not part of the official distribution. It is code by BovineOne tho, yes, the same guy who helps coding the client.

Almost all source is open, go to http://www.distributed.net/source and write your own wrapper. All code you need to interface is in there.

If you think you can solve our security problems, I invite you to take a look at our operational code authentication document and help us out!

Ivo Janssen
ivo@distributed.net
distributed.net staffmember

As cetan pointed out, the GUI was removed so win32 users would get their new clients faster. This was because the GUI version was a complete fork in the code and was unmaintainable in the end. By the way, what exactly changed? Only the config, the mainscreen was text-based all the time.

You can get the moo-ing back, with a 3rd party application. 3rd party meaning that it's not part of the official distribution. It is code by BovineOne tho, yes, the same guy who helps coding the client.

Almost all source is open, go to http://www.distributed.net/source and write your own wrapper. All code you need to interface is in there.

If you think you can solve our security problems, I invite you to take a look at our operational code authentication document and help us out!

Ivo Janssen
ivo@distributed.net
distributed.net staffmember

While the local effects of cities on area weather patterns is interesting, especiaaly to it's residents, we should all be thinking about the global weather and what are collective cities are doing to change the way the planet functions. On that note I would like to put a plug in for The Casino-21 experiment they are hoping to use spare cycles; like Seti@Home or distributed.net to do global climate simulations. They are still in the preliminary stages, however it is a very noble goal. Last I knew they were looking for help coding some of the tools and applications neccessary; and I know that many of the /. readers are well versed in writing code, and many are kind enough to donate their services to projects like this.

You could tear the ass off some RC5 cracking with this beast and the PPC client.

Also, SETI@Home offers a PPC client that would benefit from this.

I may have to get me a couple of these.

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You could tear the ass off some RC5 cracking with this beast and the PPC client.

Also, SETI@Home offers a PPC client that would benefit from this.

I may have to get me a couple of these.

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I have been runing RC5 clients for nearly two years, some of them run on oc'd computers.

I'm not going to directly say that overclocking is wrong, but I think that overclocking is a childish pursuit and for many people it is nothing more than a dick size contest. Why not just go out and buy a fast processor? Considering the cost of some of the cooling devices that are used (Peltier coolers etc), it would probably be cheaper to buy a fast processor in the first place.

--Lita (member of Team Slashdot)

I'd say that, yeah, 128 bit keys still suck.

Be sure to check how long dnet has been working on 64 bits. Granted, it's RC5, but still...

EFF's Deep Crack crypto supercomputer supplied 1/3 of the computing power in the latest distributed.net DES challenge. Now, if it could be rebuilt for RC5-64...

• Did this bloke read Dune? I'm fairly sure that stillsuits were described as being slick. That is anything but slick.
• There is no sign of anything that can tighten across the chest.
• Those boots are not desert boots that can be "fitted slip-fashion at the ankles".
• The thing is too loosely fitting. I don't remember exactly but it seems to me that something that collects and filters expended moisture should be like a second skin. It shouldn't be so loose, especially at the wrists and collar where moisture could escape.
• Shouldn't stillsuits have some kind of integrated hood? I seem to remember Liet-Kynes or Paul adjusting a strap across the forehead "tightly, so as to prevent chafing". http://www.scifi.com/dune/gallery/d46.jpg shows a pic of Stilgar but WTF is that thing on his head? It's not what Herbert describes. IIRC he describes stillsuits as having a flap that can be fastened across the mouth, and nose-plugs. Chani is described as having a callous alongside(?) her nose from the tube from the nose-plugs. Nothing is mentioned about that thing on his head that covers his mouth and nose. His clothing is wrong too. Wasn't fremen desert garb described as flowing robes?

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The nice thing about current mathematical cryptography is that many algorithms have strength that's exponentially proportional to key length - so a small increase in the amount of encryption and decryption work radically increases the work that's required to crack it without the keys. Linux clusters and distributed.net and DES cracker boxes are great for brute-forcing DES and RC4-40 and RC5-56, but the planet only has 2*170 atoms on it, 3DES, which has 168-bit keys, takes only about 3 times as much work as DES to encrypt/decrypt. (Ok, the real strength is only about 112 bits, because there's an attack using 2**64 bits of storage and 2**112 cycles, but there's always 5-DES and 7-DES, and algorithms like RC4 and RC5 don't even take extra work to use longer keys - you won't crack RC4-128 or 3DES by brute force in your lifetime unless the Great Nanotech Singularity changes your lifetime a lot - and probably not in the planet's lifetime.

It's MUCH easier to steal keys than crack good algorithms. Decompiled your keyboard ROMs lately? This is Slashdot, so many of you *have* checked out the device drivers for your keyboards :-)

What do you think about distributed computing? While the number of computers may vary, it has been shown (with distributed.net, among others) that this can be a very plentiful source of computing power. Could this be harnessed for real-time uses?
Ham on rye, hold the mayo please.

Isn't this usually true? People who code for a living usually don't like it that much as their hobby OSS project they work on until deep in the night, right after they get home. Both coding, but the free(beer)-software model can only hold if people are willing to do something because they just like it. (If only you could have a job that actually IS your hobby, which unfortunately is untrue for a lot of people).

In this way, yes, there will always be art, music and software like apache and linux, but you cannot compare boring softwareprojects here. And that's why you need copyrights, because people want/need to make money out of it!

Ivo Janssen

Are you using your Alpha box to make money? (Click here then scroll down to the tree.) Or are you just running the distributed.net client?

Fabulous, more dcti stats!

It won't really matter, it'll be a winmol that'll suck at cracking Rc5-64.

The RC5-64 performance breakdown by platform can be found here.

Quite correct! DeCSS was not truly reverse engineered. Some bright person merely found that the decryption key in Xing's player was stored in the clear, and worked from there to implement a decryption codec. However given the relatively weak strength of the DeCSS encryption it would not take very long to break the code using a brute force method such as that employed by Distributed.net

Interesting point...brute force computing just isn't practical in many situations, unless, as I said, you are the NSA and live 10 years ahead of the rest of the science/mathematics world.

Now I'm really curious to see if anyone figures this out, because if no one does, it would mean that (gasp!) criminals still have easy ways of communicating securely over the net without using government-restricted encryption techniques. On the other hand, I've made it tough enough that I'll be really surprised if anyone solves it.

I might even jack up the reward if this survives an attack by the slashdot crowd...

-JD

(LINK)

And, you just KNOW that as soon as it's released, three dozen geeks will start working on porting Linux to it, and two weeks later, distributed.net will have clients for it!

CSG_Surferdude

Soon we'll crack the code of this seti@home thing.

I've written them and asked them to open-source their core like d.net did, claiming that this would cut down on illegal [cr|h]acking to make the client faster.

Go to The Distributed.net download page and grab the client for your platform. Specific instructions on how to install it for your platform are in the client, but the win32 version has a nice installer. :)

Configuring it can be kind of a pain if your a dialup/offline user, but if you have a lan type connection just plunk in your email address and thats about that, your ready to go. It'll connect to the internet and download some "blocks" to work on. When its done them, it'll send them back.

The day after you send some blocks in, go to the Distributed.net Stats Server and do a search for your email address. From there you can get your password, and can join a team.

If you want to join team slashdot, after you have retrieved your password, do a team search for slashdot, go to the team info, and there should be an "I want to join this team" link. Click it.

After that, your blocks will also count towards the team.

If you need more help with it, you can post here, visit #distributed on efnet, or if your desperate, email me. :-)

Happy cracking!

Go to The Distributed.net download page and grab the client for your platform. Specific instructions on how to install it for your platform are in the client, but the win32 version has a nice installer. :)

Configuring it can be kind of a pain if your a dialup/offline user, but if you have a lan type connection just plunk in your email address and thats about that, your ready to go. It'll connect to the internet and download some "blocks" to work on. When its done them, it'll send them back.

The day after you send some blocks in, go to the Distributed.net Stats Server and do a search for your email address. From there you can get your password, and can join a team.

If you want to join team slashdot, after you have retrieved your password, do a team search for slashdot, go to the team info, and there should be an "I want to join this team" link. Click it.

After that, your blocks will also count towards the team.

If you need more help with it, you can post here, visit #distributed on efnet, or if your desperate, email me. :-)

Happy cracking!

Distributed.net also had good things to say about the G4 and it's altivec unit. Check out this link. Basically, it said that the G4 was much better than the PIII, but I don't remember the exact numbers. The link wasn't working when I tried to look at it just now, but it is still on their website. Or at least links to it still are.