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ECCp-109 Solved
Daerk writes "ECCp-109 has been solved. A week ago. Now wonder my stats haven't updated. Now what am I going to do till climateprediction.net goes live..."
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Folding!
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
Guess what
/. got beat by Ars Technica. (in more ways than one)
You guys here at
We ought to get the people here behind some distributed computing project. I bet we could beat any other team.
Now what am I going to do till climateprediction.net goes live...
Figure out what the hell an ECCp-109 is?
Now I can go to sleep.
You don't know how much this has been keeping me up.
None of you know.
check distributed.net for example!
perl -e 'printf("%x!\n",49153)'
Counter said 237,655 at 12:43 eastern time.
Post your value and we'll measure the slashdot effect.
I will admit there's some irony in my being a member of the alt.smokers.pipes team for this though :)
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
*What* has been solved? EP-what?...
NOOO!!!!
Why have I never heard of this? I must be getting dumber!
Now I'm sure all these uber-geeks are laughing at me.
Must sit still. Must...find...something...cogent...to...say...
My other sig is also a
Having all these different crypto challenges, protien folding challenges, SETI searches etc, just dilutes the pool of available computers for each task
Not necessarily. Each potential user is likely to be interested in only a few of these projects. I an runnning SETI, and if (when) that ends, I will probably go over to protein folding or the cancer drug search instead, as long as they have command-line clients. I'm not interested in crypto busting; it doesn't actually discover anything!
The number of projects is optimal where the average number of projects of interest to each user is a bit above 1. That probably means one crypto, one SETI, one biology, etc.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
From the site, they haven't even confirmed if this is true or not..
"The announcement is being made now, a week later because we had to wait for comfirmation from Certicom that this is the solution. (Which we still haven't gotten, by the way)."
The more I see worthwhile DC projects out there like ECCp-109, Folding at home, and now ClimatePredition.net, the more I think I should participate in these rather than SETI@home (which I've been doing for 3+ year)
Maybe it just comes down to what can aid humanity vs. what is simply a shot in the dark.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Cancer is one of the medical institutions major source of income, if it were cured, what would we do with all the stupid research centers? Many people think that cancer can be cured by using good food, lots of greens, no meat, etc. But really nobody considers this because it doesn't make money.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
The more projects there are, the more interest in the projects that there will be, and the larger the available pool of people willing to donate cycles.
A little story to illustrate:
There was once a lawyer in a town. That lawyer didn't have any business, and he nearly starved to death. Then one day, another lawyer moved to town and there was more than enough business for both of them.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
I agree. This news is something that should be in a very specific ezine. Might as well start posting prices of Pokemon cards.
Can anyone here prove the theory first suggested by Beavis that "the angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the beat"?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
No client to download. Just write "God, if you can see this, please show yourself!" in a large font on your screen using the blink-tag. If enough people do it, God will see it.
Note that once we make contact with God, He can cure cancer for us, factor larger integers, or tell us where the aliens are, so this distributed computing project subsumes every other one.
they can join my distributed project. Just download my program and it runs in the backround. It will be busy computing the number of Distributed Projects in the world. We currently have 30,000 users. We expect to know the exact number in 100 years.
FAQ:
Why will it take so long to figure out:
Short Answer: The number of Distributed Projects out there grows exponentially.
Why would anyone want to do this:
Short Answer: Nobody does
...mmmmmm curvey...
An MD5 attack can be accomplished in O(2^64) or roughtly 2.5 d.net years.
RC5-64 was a O(2^63).
ECC-109 was a O(2^54).
JLC
I hear that they are in huge financial trouble and barely have enough money in the bank to last them a couple of months. The last thing they probably want to waste it on is paying for this
Pointless, right? Well, does this cryptography cracking have a point? We know that the algorithm will be cracked when the right key is hit. It's just as much electrowanking as jumping up and down when your
computer counts to a million, with a bit of cryptography politics thrown in.
I don't get why people are drwan to these projects over more significant problems like OGM or protein folding.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Even characteristic curves are generally not used for cryptographic purposes anymore as there are some fairly advanced attacks against them
How about a distributed project where millions of people around the world can correct spelling mistakes in Slashdot articles. Or cancel previously posted stories.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
Let's find a cure for islamic nutcases. Oh wait. Einstien already solved that one when he split the atom... good ol' Albert. Always thinking ahead.
a = a
a^2 = a^2
a^2 - a^2 = a^2 - a^2
Factor both sides, one by binomial, the other by a
(a + a)(a - a) = a(a - a)
Divide by the common (a - a) factor...
(a + a) = a
2a = a
2 = 1
Therefore 1 + 1 = 2 + 1 = 3.
QED
blarg.
I think you would have done better with a goatse link.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Oh, you're right. We should only run one at a time. Which one? RC-128 cracking? Go for it. Not interested. SETI@Home? Ok, but seeing as how I knew about it for years and never bothered downloading the client I suspect that would've continued for, oh say, eternity.
The UD Cancer project is what finally got me into the distributed computing bit. Is it useful? Dunno. I hope so. But it's far more interesting to me than trying to brute force encryption (which is a known solution, and for which the time estimate can be accurately determined ahead of time), or search for signals in space (which, while I believe in extraterestial life and intelligence, I also believe in the laws of physics and seriously doubt the likelihood of any other race wasting the time and energy in broadcasting when listening is far easier, not to mention light speed constraints, diminuation and attenuation of signals on stellar scales, etc.), or finding prime numbers (useful for crypto, but current crypto is either way secure or hopelessly insecure based on quantum computing).
My wife is running the UD agent on her computers now too. At some point I'll mention it to the rest of my family and they'll probably run it - curing cancer takes on a much higher priority after your father dies from it and your mother is diagnosed with it.
I'm not going to try and force anyone run UD though. To each their own. Which, of course, is the little thing you seem to have forgotten here.
Sigh. Insert obligatory sulky comment about tired Slashdot editors who were again too lazy to do any homework and include a description or background on ECCp-109. Instead, "What is it!?" screaming readers all over the place. Well, thanks. You want that Slashdot effect to happen to them, don't you?
So now we know distributed efforts can solve great big math problems. Don't get me wrong, that's good to know and all, but.. aren't there any math problems that would be of more use than giving people with 210 IQs something else to bicker over during Star Trek conventions? Really, I'm an engineer, and sometimes I actually have to use math to do things like MAKE A FRIGGIN CAR OR SOMETHING.
There are plenty of nontrivial engineering problems out there, especially when you take a trip into thermodynamics and fluid flow. Let's solve those. Or sequence the human genome to grow an extra arm or something. Or better yet, let's put the computing power of mankind to work to randomly generate a script for Episode 3 that won't make us want to beat Lucas senseless with our plastic lightsabers. Why can people scrape together all these prizes for pointless pseudo-intellectual drivel but nobody can get some money behind something worthwhile, or at least interesting?
Here's an idea: Instead of using distributed computing for all this junk science, let's start a central distributed network. This network would have a basic interface element for all the major OS configurations, and would be able to update from the web with whatever mathematic formula and trial space it was supposed to run at a given time. Everyone everywhere could download the client, and set it up to run with whatever processor load they wanted, update on a schedule, maybe vary processor load on a schedule so it works extra hard when you're not using the system. Not much of an interface really. Then some organization, say the NSF or better yet an international science conglomerate, could alot portions of the system load to projects they deemed worthy, depending on complexity and value. The cost is basically nothing, in fact since you could get somebody on the planet to write the code for free one weekend, and the bandwidth would likely be rather low, you would most likely not be talking about the cost of funding a minor research project. Users could still run other distributed clients if they wanted, and the system would be completely voluntary. But it would attract a lot of attention and users, do some good for mankind, and direct our computing power in positive directions.
Bad math! BAD! You divided by zero! no donut for you.
(a-a)=0 for all values of a
Lots of technical and environmental problems are solved by the application of vast amounts of nuclear power
The answer is.
k=281183840311601949668207954530684
Great movie, really hard to understand ending.
Don't you realize that once we contact the aliens they can cure all earth diseases with a flick of a tentacle?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Oh, and want to see what is "state of the art computation"? See here.
... or does anyone else picture some guy at the distributed computing sorta places going, "Their cycles ... all their cycles ... ARE MINE ... ALL MINE! BWHAHAHAH!" while these programs are going on?
now we can finally start working on ECCp-110. Excitement abound.
I Heart Sorting Networks
I propose solving the ID10T problem.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I'm searching for the "-1 Too fucking stupid to get the joke," but it's just not there. Neither is "-1 Irrelevant nitpick." It's just sad.
Actually right now he is in custody, explaining the ballistics of a fully laden .223 round.
Later on he goes to tryouts for the goatse.cx cover model, sponsored by the Federal Bad Guy Rehab Prison.
Yea, I'm going to hell for that one.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
"Now" and "No" are not the same word. They vaguely sound the same and have much the same spelling, but CANNOT be used interchangeably. In fact, such interchange could be disastrous given the worst-case context. Imagine the questions "Should I shoot?" or "Is the building clear for demolition?" or "Is Windows ready for mission critical applications?". Clearly "now" and "no" are not the same word, and I trust slashdot editors will check for this in the future.
For those who are looking for worthy projects to donate to, here's a good list of what is happening in the field of distributed projects, sorted by subject.
or better yet, slashdot should start a feature dedicated to worthwhile distributed computing projects.
Why not lobby for distributed and P2P features right in the Linux kernel itself?
Scenario:
You install the now-getting-more-user-friendly Linux distro of the month on Grandma's PC. During installation, you are prompted to "use this PC's free time for GNU distributed/p2p assistance?". After answering affirmatively, you can then select a worthy cause such as protein folding or even delegate access to a centralized Linux group who could then use it for open-source fundraising / what not.
The P2P thing is a whole 'nother mess but I suppose that if someone implemented P2P sharing/mirroring on an open source level and then created an approval procedure required to (legally) have a file submission mass-mirrored to millons of PCs world-wide.
There is money in there somewhere...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
"no we can finally start..." ;-)
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Instead of an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, have a DC project randomly generate text, and see how long it takes to write Shakespeare..... Pointless ... Yes
But why not?
That said: this spurious proof is the reason why division by 0 is "not allowed". Every kid hears this rule in primary school, and most assume it has something to do with infinite values and whatever else, but that's just not true. Division by zero is undefined because tolerating it makes for uncomfortable number systems where every number is equal to every other. As demonstrated by derf #4 in this thread.
blarg.
So calculate the result yourself. Decide what constitutes a Shakespeare work, which characters need to match (say, [A-Z]), and calculate the number of permutations of your character set are needed to create something that matches (26 * 26 * 26 * ...). If you care about the answer to questions like this, get a good mathematician to spend an hour to give you the result. Don't waste billions of hours of CPU time proving something we already know.
Josh Woodward
Yeah... it's a definite drawback to the geek crowd, which is also the crowd most likely to run distributed computing projects.
I dunno why either, since UD has some d.net developers working for them and some kind of technology cross-licensing going on. Go figure.
I'll run Folding@Home on Unix boxes and UD on Windows boxes.
Divide by the common (a - a) factor...
Duh... you're supposed to make 0 more complicated than that before dividing by it. Otherwise the hole is just too obvious.
If you're gonna do screwed up proofs, do them right.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I have unused cycles for sale to the highest bidder! I am impressed by this article, but how soon until one could make a few pennies off this?
/. could make a buck instead of having advertisments. If you choose to load a /. distributed client then you get better membership in some way. Slashdot gets the $ for your unused cycles. Of course they would make 8 different versions for *nix, bsd, osx and such before they ever get around to the windoze version.
And when that is possible, maybe this is the way
Or check out Google Zeitgeist. Linux is standing at 1%. Although there will be a higher percentage of Linux users here, there won't be that many more. A lot of the people who go on about Linux (including me!) use Windows on the desktop, often at work where there's no choice, or at home because it's easy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
but seriously, what if Pixar did a distributed thing to get its movies rendered faster, wveryone gets like a fraction of a few frames at a time, which are then rendered and sent back to be composited to form an image? id be down.
I want 2D games back.
This is my favorite part of the whole ECCp-109 site.
Hmm, I wonder what day the story was posted....
Jouster
he divided by a donut hole...
not a zero...
nbfn
I don't specifically know what Certicom did, but generally for challenges like this (for example, the EFF's primes prizes), money is set aside ahead of time. As for Certicom itself, after laying off 70-80% of the company and closing down most US operations, it has a reasonable burn rate- it could go for a couple of years with its current revenue.
So where's the discrepancy? Did we get really lucky and hit the answer 5% of the way through the search? Do the "10308 members" really represent 10 machines each? Did the initial estimate assume 500MHz machines and by 547 days later, most people were running 1.5GHz machines? Or did the implementers do some good programming hacks to make a much faster search program? Or was one of the implementors using Pixar's rendering cluster at night in between movies?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So Oxford University is planning to study changes in climate - by feeding large quantities of electricity (mostly generated by burning fossil fuels) to large numbers of heat-generating CPU chips, contributing to global warming. Sounds like a Heisenbug to me....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks