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This sounds similar to what some people (such as Entropia) are attempting on "The Grid" (see The Globus Project for more wiffly utopian detail on that).

Of course, it also leads to problems. Like security - how much can you trust an autonomous node to return correct data?

To what extent is there scope for malicious nodes deliberately returning incorrect results? And given the autonomous nature of the nodes, they can turn on and off (crash, be turned off) at any time and their performance will fluctuate depending on what other load (that you can't control) is placed on them, so you may want checkpointing and/or redundancy going on.

Which leads to the question of how to co-ordinate it all to maintain consistancy should you wish to roll back. All very app-specific, to be sure, but it's the detail that prevents stuff like this from being used by more people.

Blah!

:Some very smart people have suggested this before, but this seems like the first real implementation.

One dont need to be smart to proclaim the benefits of using idle PC time for the distributed computing. Quite a few companies are already doing just that.

It's now purely the issue of effective marketing and sales, not the technology. And grabbing CPU cycles to compensate musicians is just another business plan, certainly neat in idea, but not exactly novel.

Guys, instead of trying to do something whose only purpose is to allow people to rip off games, why not do something noble that will help humanity. Here are some suggestions:

1.) Seti@Home
2.) Cure Cancer
3.) Evolution@Home
4.) Entropia
5.) eOn
6.) Climate Prediction
7.) Particle Accelerator Design
8.) Analytical Spectroscopy Research Group

See a complete list here: http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/distrib-proje cts.html

And no, I don't consider cracking encryption "noble". Especially when people don't seem to get the point that if it takes tens of thousands of computers months and months to crack some encryption, it is GOOD ENCRYPTION.

Maybe you should do a little research before spouting off about how there are no useful distributed computing projects out there.

Oh, you mean RC5's not frivolous? There are people dying in the world due to our continued lack of scientific knowledge regarding various diseases and our own gene structures.

Try one of these instead, please...

Genome@Home: gene structure
Folding@Home: protein folding
United Devices: cancer and anthrax
Parabon Pioneer: cancer
Entropia's FightAIDS@Home: AIDS

I am absolutely amazed that employers do not use the power of their idle PCs THEMSELVES!

There are so many applications out there already - SETI@home being one, others include a few at distributed.net, FightAids@Home.org, and there are others cropping up, supporting cancer research, some commercial projects, code-cracking. Many many popular (in a geeky or tear-jerky way) projects that interest us enough to donate our unused cycles.

Now, a company such as TVA - that would rather its employees does NOT use their cycles for such tasks - would do well to provide some other diversion to occupy the screens of its employees. Hey, they could even license the software from SETI, Entropia, or some other vendor of distributed computing solutions, tart it up to look nice with their logo, and plug in some of their own research models. I'm sure their scientists have some energy calculations that could benefit from massively parallel computing.

And what of the rest of the world's processors? In a large customer service department in any medium-large sized company - even one with no real scientific research needs - there will be many PCs available for many hours. It would be a simple matter for such a company to rent out its spare cycles, again using the same software, with suitable logos. Except this time it would be managed internally, with no risk of external network corruption. The information server could be housed safely with the rest of the company's servers, making a quiet buck in the background, with everyone happy.

Ah, but that would be too sensible, wouldn't it?

/prak
--
We may be human, but we're still animals.

Entropia is a for-profit corporation. From time to time Entropia 2000 will run commercial applications for our customers on your computer, then resume work on the non-profit projects of your choice. How much time goes to non-profit research is reflected by our project statistics.

Note that their "project statistics" reflect work to date and there's no hint of the fact that the stats could change drastically once the paying customers line up.

I got nothing against a little Benevolent Self-Interest, but being disingenuous about the set-up strikes me as slimy.

More and more companies are starting these distributed computation projects that feed off newbies' altruistic intentions, but why? Are the companies' motives altruistic as well? Hardly. Whatever drug molecule you calculate will be instantly patented by the corporation without so much as a by-your-leave. At least with those key-cracking contests, the winner got a prize. Here, you just get the shaft, and Entropia Incorporated gets a cut.

I'm sick of corporations and I'm sick of patents. It's getting to the point where I feel like sabbotaging all patent-seeking enterprises, even if it means we'll never find an AIDS drug. You can't do good by doing evil first, no matter what Macchiaveli tells you.

The FightAIDSatHome project seems like a good candidate, inasmuch as there are millions of lives at stake. Yes, it is one of the Entropia projects, but I think it deserves its own recognition.

There are several players in this space now that have some serious VC backing and it will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that an Open Source / Free Software play here could really be interesting about now.

--Seen

There are several players in this space now that have some serious VC backing and it will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that an Open Source / Free Software play here could really be interesting about now.

--Seen

Entropia 2000 is designed to support multiple P2P projects for charities. Currently FightAIDS@HOME, a P2P to search for new AIDS drugs, is up and running for users with a non-dial-up connection to the Internet.

Golem@Home is my favorite. Use spare cycles to design/evolve new robotic 'lifeforms'.

Entropia has several science and medical oriented research projects underway.

Popular Power is working on new influenza vaccines.

Folderol is doing Human Genome stuff.

There are dozens of others out there, but if nothing turns you on, the folks at the Cosm Project have an open source platform for building your own distributed computing project.

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.

(half tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theory follows)

I wouldn't be surprised if SETI@home was actually a US government project to build their own massively-distributed general purpose supercomputer. Can you think of a project that's more likely to attract geeks and non-geeks?

Personally, I'm running MPRIME , which helps find large prime numbers. Source code is available and they're responsible for finding the world's 4 largest primes. Since the algorithm is simple and well-documented (proven, even) and the results are verifiable by other programs, conspiracy theories are a little harder here.

-motardo

First of all, I think that Distributed.net is valuable and don't want people to jump ship. But if you're searching for another project, then check out the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. The project has already succeeded in finding many primes and is counting at about 1000 gigaflops. There is software for Linux, Freebsd, OS/2, Mac and Windows. And as a nice carrot, there's also a $100,000.00 contest for the next research discovery of a 10 million digit prime.

OTOH, I really think that Seti@Home is a waste of time and energy. It sure sounds sexy to search for E.T. but the probability of finding something is really next to nothing.

First of all, I think that Distributed.net is valuable and don't want people to jump ship. But if you're searching for another project, then check out the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. The project has already succeeded in finding many primes and is counting at about 1000 gigaflops. There is software for Linux, Freebsd, OS/2, Mac and Windows. And as a nice carrot, there's also a $100,000.00 contest for the next research discovery of a 10 million digit prime.

OTOH, I really think that Seti@Home is a waste of time and energy. It sure sounds sexy to search for E.T. but the probability of finding something is really next to nothing.

First of all, I think that Distributed.net is valuable and don't want people to jump ship. But if you're searching for another project, then check out the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. The project has already succeeded in finding many primes and is counting at about 1000 gigaflops. There is software for Linux, Freebsd, OS/2, Mac and Windows. And as a nice carrot, there's also a $100,000.00 contest for the next research discovery of a 10 million digit prime.

OTOH, I really think that Seti@Home is a waste of time and energy. It sure sounds sexy to search for E.T. but the probability of finding something is really next to nothing.

Some do.

GIMPS, "The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search", is currently pullling more than half a teraflop using idle cycles to find large prime numbers, and the source for its clients is at http://www.mersenne.org/source.htm .

--Joe