Slashdot Mirror


RC5-72 Clients Available on distributed.net

Yoda2 writes "From the distributed.net site... 'The RC5-72 project is now officially up and running, as of 03-Dec-2002! You will need to download a new client in order to participate. Our FAQ-O-matic has been updated with the beginnings of a new RC5-72 section.' Also, there is a $10,000 prize for the winner, but as with the other RC5 projects, the owner of the computer that finds the key does not get all of the money."

174 comments

  1. I predict by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That it will take 3 years, 2 months, 12 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 10 seconds to crack it.

    1. Re:I predict by Tribbin · · Score: 1, Funny

      Subtract 40 seconds; I just compiled my kernel specificly for my Athlon.

      --
      If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
    2. Re:I predict by Darmox · · Score: 1

      It might be kind of fun to setup a pool of some kind on these, maybe if there weren't *quite* as long running, though.

      --
      If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
  2. No, wait, I'm wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    11 seconds.

  3. on distributed.net? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would hate to have THIS RC5-72 on MY server!

  4. Maybe its all a scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe its run by some other country and what they are really trying to do is break a US army communication code and in the end one of them will "solve the code" and "win the money" anyway.

    1. Re:Maybe its all a scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually it's a front for those Nigerian scam spammers. Your computer will be sending out email from Dr. Magomago, a friend of the late ..

  5. Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's an outdated, unused cipher with a completely unused keysize. Do something useful, like protein folding or golomb rulers. (Not SETI@Home, I said useful ;-)

    1. Re:Why bother? by GizmoDuck · · Score: 1

      WTF is a golomb ruler?

    2. Re:Why bother? by the+unbeliever · · Score: 0, Redundant
      A Golomb ruler is a set of integers (marks) a(1) j) are distinct. Clearly we may assume a(1)=0. Then a(n) is the length of the Golomb ruler. For a given number of marks, n, we are interested in finding the shortest Golomb rulers. Such rulers are called optimal.

      Found at research.ibm.com

    3. Re:Why bother? by the+unbeliever · · Score: 5, Informative
      Grr, damn HTML

      A Golomb ruler is a set of integers (marks) a(1) < ... < a(n) such that all the differences a(i)-a(j) (i > j) are distinct. Clearly we may assume a(1)=0. Then a(n) is the length of the Golomb ruler. For a given number of marks, n, we are interested in finding the shortest Golomb rulers. Such rulers are called optimal.

    4. Re:Why bother? by Richard+Frost · · Score: 1

      I find dnet's _=OGR info disclosure FAQ answer=_ to be far too ambiguous to even think of doing OGR processing for them. I get the feeling they're using the public for free research, so they can have a piece of information to sell to some government defense contractor...

    5. Re:Why bother? by CowbertPrime · · Score: 3, Informative

      ambiguous? in what way? They are merely covering their backs because there are cetain technical difficulties in verification, hence, why OGR-24 is not "completed" even though little work is handed out. Because of the branch search method they are using for the calculations, 2 stubs can be scored with different results! Thus, someone has to mathematically verify that one of them is correct. In this case, d.net is claiming they cannot insure that the current OGR is indeed the most optimized if nothing is being returned saying otherwise.

    6. Re:Why bother? by Surye · · Score: 1

      I must ask again for this, Why Bother? What is the significance? I'm not saying there isn't, but for my CPU time, I want to know the reason. And I also strongly agree with the Folding project

    7. Re:Why bother? by the+unbeliever · · Score: 1

      Not sure why people would want to, I just answered the man's question. =p

    8. Re:Why bother? by NeoSkandranon · · Score: 2

      And....what are those actually used for? (serious question)

      --
      If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
    9. Re:Why bother? by the+unbeliever · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Golomb rulers refer to a spacing technique that is used in a variety of areas such as astronomy (placement of antennas), xray sensing devices (placement of sensors), and myriad other fields such as data encryption.
      Found at : Golomb Rulers - The Search for 20 and 21!
    10. Re:Why bother? by Markus+Landgren · · Score: 1
      In this case, d.net is claiming they cannot insure that the current OGR is indeed the most optimized if nothing is being returned saying otherwise.


      Translation: Work done by participants in d.net's OGR effort is useless.

      With d.net's processing power, OGR-25 is a ~3 month project. Why don't they tell everyone upfront how many times they have recycled it now, after two years?

      Btw, your analysis of why they don't have a result is dead wrong. The algorithm is deterministic. Two bugfree clients running on good hardware will produce the same correct result, and the method used in distributing stubs will cover all possible combinations. But, since both hardware problems can spoil the results, they need to compare redundant pairs of blocks and see if they get the same result. They have no mechanism for that, it's not done. Because of this, throwing CPU time at d.net's OGR effort does not help. If you want to help OGR-25, donate some brain time instead of CPU time, and help them rewrite server and client software.
    11. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, it doesn't matter that a(1) < ... < a(n). It's just a set of integers such that for all abs( a(i)-a(j) ), there are no repeated differences.

      Otherwise, following your rules, I assume you meant that i < j.

      Go flamebait! ;-)

    12. Re:Why bother? by beej · · Score: 2
      (Not SETI@Home, I said useful ;-)

      Hey, don't knock SETI@Home--this is the first time it actually has a better chance of succeeding than the crypto challenge does!

      What would be bad-ass is if aliens came down from outer space with superpowerful quantum computers and totally schooled us in RC5-72 and SETI@Home at the same time!

    13. Re:Why bother? by plover · · Score: 2
      I was more interested in the cost to the environment, so I did some research. What I found disturbed me enough to send a letter to the distributed.net people asking them to cease this pointless consumption of energy. What follows is a portion of that letter.

      -------

      Here's the executive summary: CPUs consume more electricity when actively computing than they do when idle. To solve the RC5-72 challenge may require an additional 2 million tons of coal be burned in order to produce the additional electricity required. That's over 200 full coal trains. 9.2 billion pounds of additional carbon dioxide will be produced and released. The details follow.

      I sent a letter to my buddies during a discussion of relaunching our team to attack the RC5-72 challenge. It showed a simplistic estimation of the energy costs required for me to participate in the challenge. I know that my CPU uses more energy to perform math calculations than it does to sit idle. It has since occurred to me that not only would I be burning an extra megawatt or two of electricity during the contest to participate, but so would all the other participants.

      I've researched things a bit more since then. The distributed.net speed page shows an Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird averaging 3,540,087 keys/sec, or 12,744,313,200 keys/hour during the RC5-64 contest. A hardware vendor's page shows an active Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird CPU consumes an extra 10 watt-hours above its standby level. This is only the difference between an active CPU and an idle CPU, and does not account for any other standby power savings that may or may not take place. That means a 1GHz Athlon Thunderbird participating in the contest can either sit idle or test 1,275 million keys at a cost of one additional watt-hour. Since the RC5-64 contest tested 15,769,938,165,961,326,592 keys, at this rate that is 12,368,578,953 additional watt-hours used. That means about 12 gigawatt-hours (gWH) of additional electrical power were produced and consumed over the last four years just to solve the contest.

      This Los Alamos National Laboratory web page provided lots of data regarding coal and electrical generation. Referring to only the 1998 figures, I found that U.S. electric generators required 10,311 BTU to generate one kilowatt-hour. If the contest required 12 gWH of additional electricity, it must have taken about 123,732 million BTUs to generate it. Bituminous coal yields 24 million BTU per ton; sub-bituminous coal yields only 17 million BTU per ton. In 1998, the US was mining and burning about a 47%/53% mix, averaging out to about 20.5 million BTU/ton. Therefore 6,036 tons of coal had to be burned in order to generate that much eletricity. Over sixty railroad cars of coal. Looking at the CO2 problem, at the reported U.S. average of 208 lbs of CO2 produced per million BTU generated by burning coal, the contest was responsible for the production and emission of about 26 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

      When it comes to the RC5-72 contest the numbers get even worse, since according to the RC5-72 speed page the number of keys per second drops to about 72% of the RC5-64 cracking speed for the Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird. Assuming that this 72% ratio is similar across most architectures, extrapolating the contest to RC5-72 should require about 2^8 times as much of everything to solve at 72% efficiency, or about 356 times the RC5-64 figures. 12 gWH * 356 is 4.3 terawatt-hours. 6,036 tons * 356 is over 2 million tons of coal. More than 210 full trains. 26 * 356 is about 9.2 billion pounds of carbon dioxide that will be produced.

      Now, these numbers are pretty much long-range projections made from some small, narrow observations. Not every CPU will consume 10 additional watts when busy. And not every CPU would otherwise drop to an idle or standby state. But some computers will be left on and cracking keys rather than hibernating or being powered off, which could save 116 watts/hour or more. And some may consume more than 10 extra watt-hours when active; such as a Pentium III-667 MHz which consumes 34 watt-hours operating but only 5 watt-hours when it can drop to standby.

      Also, only about 56% of our electricity is generated by burning coal: the rest is produced by nuclear power, or burning natural gas, fuel oil or biomass; about 10% is produced by renewable resources. The key could be found tomorrow, or it could be found 15 years from now. So my estimates are still just that: estimates. I could be wrong by orders of magnitude, but even so, the fact is that the RC5-72 contest is going to increase electricity consumption. Over the course of its life, the RC5-72 contest might be responsible for burning only 100 tons of coal, or it might cause the burn of 4 billion tons of coal.

      -------

      And for those of you are still reading and haven't been bored by all the numbers, I think it would have cost me about $850.00 worth of electricity to personally participate. The prize is $10,000, $1,000 of which goes to distributed.net, $8,000 goes to a charitable organization of distributed.net's choosing (the EFF, I think) and $1,000 goes to the person whose machine found the winning key.

      That's an $850 investment for a 1/165,000,000,000 chance of winning $1,000 in the next 10 years. That's discounting

      • rising electric costs
      • devaluation of the dollar due to inflation
      • the chances that RSA will still be in business and able to pay the $10,000 reward in 10 years.
      • I think my money would be MUCH safer invested in lottery tickets, where I've heard that investments pay out about $0.11 on the dollar (average.)

      --
      John
  6. Wouldn't it be funny? by Yoda2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    if they randomly cracked it in a week?

    1. Re:Wouldn't it be funny? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'd be REALLY funny if they got it on the first try :-)

    2. Re:Wouldn't it be funny? by cyberlemoor · · Score: 1

      Yes, in the same way it would be funny if the same person won the lottery every day for a month--think along those lines in terms of the likeliness of that happening. :)

    3. Re:Wouldn't it be funny? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I'd shit my pants laughing so hard.

    4. Re:Wouldn't it be funny? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Phrase is: 'This is Cow 1 in Holland, Ommmmmmmm'

  7. This is a waste of time by TerryAtWork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We KNOW it'll take a lot of computers a long time to crack the code.

    These cycles would be a lot better spent on something constructive like the protean folding project.

    --
    It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
    1. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, then put your cycles to the task, others dont want to. thats their choice.

      i still have doubts about the protein folding etc etc.

      its a cddb situation in the making

    2. Re:This is a waste of time by Wiz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've got to agree with this. I think RC5-64 proved the point it was very difficult to crack. Unless we get a new method of attack then it is going to take a /very/ long time. Or we all get G4s as they seem rather quick as this sort of thing!

      Personally, I gave up at the end of RC5-64 and I'm using Folding at Home instead. Should be more useful than RC5, and Seti too....

    3. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's a protean? Or did you mean protein?

    4. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Protean folding? Is that like bacteria doing laundry?

    5. Re:This is a waste of time by grape_soda · · Score: 1

      im torn between whether to use my spare cpu cycles to look of life in space (SETI) or crack code blocks.... :)

    6. Re:This is a waste of time by GGardner · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd like to see the cost of electricity to power all those cycles, and compare it to the $10,000 prize.

    7. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      especially since most security analysts suggest a minimum of 2048...

      72? pssshaaa!

    8. Re:This is a waste of time by mosch · · Score: 2

      thank god people are starting to realize that cracking rc5 was interesting to do once, because it addressed some new issues in distributed computing, but now it's just beating a dead horse. the protein folding project and the ogr projects can actually advance science in some minor fashion, please people, do those instead.

    9. Re:This is a waste of time by MasterD · · Score: 5, Informative
      These cycles would be a lot better spent on something constructive like the protean folding project.

      No, no, use your cycles to crack something real like the TiVo password!

    10. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      exactly. the rc5 challenges are a conspiracy by the rand corporation in conjunction with the nsa and the kgb, bp, nabisco, and the mpaa to prevent cpu cycles from being used for valuable distributed computing projects which could undermine their profits and governments.

    11. Re:This is a waste of time by narzy · · Score: 1

      nifty.

    12. Re:This is a waste of time by gid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No doubt, idle computers use less power, and generate much less heat. I stopped running all of those programs once I found this out.

    13. Re:This is a waste of time by atlantis_tin · · Score: 1

      I don't turn my computer off and want to use the processor cycles for a purposeful task. Only, I can't find anything except for seti@home.

      I got excited about the protein folding project at stanford university, only to find that the goal of the project was to demostrate that distributed computing can be used for research. They were not planning to discover a new drug or anything.

      Does anyone know of good projects for distributed computing?

      --
      I copied this sig.
    14. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't kid yourself. Windows wastes processor time just sitting idle.

    15. Re:This is a waste of time by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      Heh. What if they salted the password with the unit's serial # or something like that?

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    16. Re:This is a waste of time by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Not WinDos, (don't know about NT) Win98 runs here hotter while idle then OS/2 does running dnetc.
      Dave

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    17. Re:This is a waste of time by Cramer · · Score: 1

      First, I cannot understand why people are expending the energy to crack the password when they can much more easily change it. These are the same people who seem to have forgotten TiVo can change that password everytime the unit calls in. In fact, they could set a different password per unit ... every time it calls in. The more people push on TiVo, the harder they will be forced to push back. At first, the password was just plain text -- and easy to find. Then they added SHA1 encryption but that was discovered and the password guessed within minutes. Now, it's not that simple.

      Second, (read this several times!) no one is even certain the password is something that can be entered via the remote.

    18. Re:This is a waste of time by gid · · Score: 1

      Good thing I run linux. :)

      I've never been happier since I switched to using linux as my primary desktop, gnome2 actually, (I used to run fluxbox, heh).

    19. Re:This is a waste of time by KingKurly · · Score: 1

      How about the search for Mersenne primes: prime numbers that take the form (2^n)-1. More information about them is available on that website, naturally.

      Perhaps you can help by searching for factors of some obscenely large numbers.

      --
      It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
    20. Re:This is a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Here is what they say about their computing power:

      > distributed.net's computing power has grown to
      > become equivalent to that of more than 160000 PII
      > 266MHz computers working 24 hours a day, 7 days a
      > week, 365 days a year

      Now let's guess/assume everybody has a machine twice as
      fast, makes only 80000 idle machines chugging on the
      problem. I measured that a busy processor uses
      about 25Watts more than an idle one. Thats an
      extra 2.4 MW of electric power needed. Now, there
      are still nutters who run their boxes at night
      BECAUSE of the dnet client. That is an extra let's
      say 12 hours of idle power we need to consider.
      My box uses 80W idle. If 20% of people do this
      crazy shit, that's an extra 2 MW! So, roughly we
      are talking about 4MW for dnetc. At European
      power prices of about 0.15/kWh, that is
      (96000kWh/day) = 14400$/day !!! Compare that with
      the puny prize. I'd say screw the useless RC5
      project.

      FYI, you need 1000kg of coal to generate 550kWh of
      electricity, generating 3667kg of CO2.... fsck.

    21. Re:This is a waste of time by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      The hash has been verified to be the same on multiple TiVo units.

      --
      ± 29 dB
  8. Stats Page... by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 5, Informative

    the current stats page doesn't seem to be linked from the main page anywhere... anyway, here's the link.

    --
    sig.
    1. Re:Stats Page... by Economist · · Score: 1
      From bovine's .plan:

      Updates to various portions of our website will be continuing
      throughout the coming days. Stats for RC5-72 are not yet available,
      but all RC5-72 results submitted with v2.9001.477 or above will be
      reflected once they do come online.


      I guess they still are in development or something
  9. Is this even worth it? by bnenning · · Score: 5, Informative

    RC5-64 took 4 years, and this has a keyspace that's 256 times larger. Even if we assume that computers are 4 times faster now than the average speed at which RC5-64 keys were processed, we're still looking at 256 years to completion. It doesn't seem like it makes any sense to start until computers are at least 20 times faster.

    --
    How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    1. Re:Is this even worth it? by Economist · · Score: 1

      At the keyrate of the last days of RC5-64 it would take even less than the predicted duration of RC5-64 when it started using RC5-56 keyrates as a measurement. This is inaccurate since the cores had to be rewritten to support RC5-72, but developers said they could get 99% of the speed of RC5-64 into RC5-72.

    2. Re:Is this even worth it? by frieked · · Score: 0

      This is the kind of stuff they said at the beginning of RC5-64. There's no telling what kind of advances will be made in the upcoming years.

      And hey, you gotta start somewhere.

      --

      I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
      -Xenocrates
    3. Re:Is this even worth it? by athakur999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Especially since one of the goals of the project (from this page) was to show that the US policy dictating the maximum keysize was out of date. That policy has since been changed and there is AFAIK, no restriction on keylength anymore (but you still can't export to "bad" countries).

      The "Because it's fun" one is bizarre too. I'm sure it was fun writing the client and developing all the server side stuff. But if you just run the client in the background and get any excitement of that then you need to get out more ;)

      But, as always, it's their computers and if they want to run this contest more power to them.

      --
      "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
    4. Re:Is this even worth it? by bnenning · · Score: 2
      At the keyrate of the last days of RC5-64 it would take even less than the predicted duration of RC5-64 when it started using RC5-56 keyrates as a measurement.


      If I'm reading their charts right, the rate at the end of RC5-64 was around 250 Gkeys/sec. That's roughly 2^38, so to search half the keyspace of RC5-72 at the same rate would take 2^33 seconds, or around 270 years. Until computers get a lot faster, any work done on RC5-72 will just be a drop in the very large bucket.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    5. Re:Is this even worth it? by seanadams.com · · Score: 2

      It doesn't seem like it makes any sense to start until computers are at least 20 times faster.

      Or you could just get 20 times as many people to run the client. There are LOTS of unused CPU cycles in the world. Probably 99.999% of all CPU cycles are doing nothing but spinning in main{} right now. Let's put 'em to work!

    6. Re:Is this even worth it? by Telastyn · · Score: 1

      People use up a bit of spare cycles "because it's pretty" (and to keep their screens fresh), some people find numerical patterns rather than visual ones 'pretty'....

    7. Re:Is this even worth it? by zbuffered · · Score: 2

      The interesting thing about brute forcing keys and Moore's law, is that if every 18 months processor speed doubles, you can accurately predict when the key will be broken.

      If right now we can do 2^38 keys/sec, or about 2^63 keys/year, in 18 months we'll be able to do 2^64 keys a year. 18 months later, 2^65. Still only a tiny fraction of the keyspace, but it gets bigger every 18-month period.

      From 2^63, or 1/512th of the keyspace, it takes 8 18-month periods to get to 2^71, meaning that in 12 years, we can cover half the keyspace in the course of a year.

      RC5-72 will be broken within 12 years. In theory.

      --
      Synergy is your friend
    8. Re:Is this even worth it? by TClevenger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or you could just get 20 times as many people to run the client. There are LOTS of unused CPU cycles in the world. Probably 99.999% of all CPU cycles are doing nothing but spinning in main{} right now. Let's put 'em to work!

      Or let's put 'em to sleep! I used to leave all my computers running all night just to crack RC5. I noticed a significant drop in my power bill when I started turning machines off. (Also, my laptop battery started lasting 2.5 hours instead of 40 minutes.)

      Maybe if they started paying for my cycles, I'd reconsider, but I'd still have to look at peak power prices first.

      Tim

    9. Re:Is this even worth it? by njchick · · Score: 1
      if they want to run this contest more power to them
      I would prefer more power to my heater. It's pretty cold here on the East Coast.
    10. Re:Is this even worth it? by TaliesinWI · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And, of course, that was when distributed.net was really the only game in town when it came to the whole "turn idle CPUs into something productive" thing. The prize money was probably a good incentive too. :)
      Now of course, we have SETI@Home, the various protein folding projects, all stuff that many people would argue is a "better" use of time.
      Plus, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the original point of the RC5 projects to show how weak limited-length keys were?

    11. Re:Is this even worth it? by plover · · Score: 2

      So run it on an Athlon... Crack keys and heat your house at the same time!

      --
      John
  10. Nope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not at all.

    Thanks for playing slashdot, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

  11. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  12. While you're at it. by jericho4.0 · · Score: 3, Funny
    While you're at it, would you mind cracking this
    $1$cFtzhvlv$waP1EXtATPrxZYz1W/4kv1

    Ideally before the end of the semester, thanks.

    --
    "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    1. Re:While you're at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >$1$cFtzhvlv$waP1EXtATPrxZYz1W/4kv1

      Why you'd want people to decode "eat my shorts!" is beyond me.

    2. Re:While you're at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, no problem.

      I'll get right on that, just as soon as I'm finished cracking your mother. ...Or is this your father, sucking on my dick? It's tough to tell; they both wear skirts.

    3. Re:While you're at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      $1$cFtzhvlv$waP1EXtATPrxZYz1W/4kv1 = All your base are belong to us.

    4. Re:While you're at it. by grape_soda · · Score: 1

      whats that? the code to your teachers yearbook? ;)

    5. Re:While you're at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I betcha its a 'witty' answer ... like
      "Congratulations!" .. tell your prof he's a fag for me.

    6. Re:While you're at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well fuck you, too! Asshole!

  13. Great! by DAldredge · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Now we can all use millions of watts to fingure out that it takes a long time to break codes!!!

  14. Choices. by Night0wl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm torn as to wether or not I want to participate in this, or Folding@Home.
    I ran the RC5-64 Project for a long time. I like it, In my year(s?) or participating I developed a habit of definding it, explaining it, and had grown to care for it.
    But when the end of RC5-64 came along I was left idle. I believe that some good can come of these distributed projects, but I've never made the effort to install F@H on my assorted boxen, my own little garden.
    I'm well versed in the cow though, and could be back on RC5 quickly...

    argh, choices, choices.

    --
    Computational Madness in a round package.
    1. Re:Choices. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just shut up and die you pathetic loser.

    2. Re:Choices. by CowbertPrime · · Score: 2

      F@H? Come on! At least be supportive and run the United Devices client. F@H has issues, primarily with code stability. Structural chemists do not necesarily make good coders. :)

    3. Re:Choices. by Blain · · Score: 1

      Choose both.

      Seriously. You can run both. I've been running d.net and f@h for a couple weeks now with nothing bad happening.

      Personally, I'm none too excited about RC5-72, because, in the end, we don't really know anymore than we do now. But OGR-25 actually has some value, so I'm sticking with it and, for the moment, doing a few RC5's just for the heck of it.

      You won't climb the stats mountain as quickly doing both, but I'm not a stats hound exactly either.

    4. Re:Choices. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      This is like playing the lottery. If I can get a couple thousand out of my spare cpu cycles then I'm all for it. Plus, I don't have to got to 7-11 and buy a ticket.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  15. Team Slashdot? by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 1, Informative

    Team Slashdot was 5th overall for RC5-64... maybe it's time to step it up a notch, except that there is no Slashdot.org team yet. :-/

    --
    sig.
    1. Re:Team Slashdot? by stratjakt · · Score: 1

      I always wondered about this 'team' distributed computing.

      Wooo... I'm not doing shit, and I'm on a team of people not doing shit.

      And the rankings.. If your team wins, that means either on of or both of the following:

      a) you have more computer than you need
      b) you don't use the computer you have

      Myself, I waste my idle cycles. Completely wasted. That brand new 2.53ghz P4 is sitting at home, powered on, doing absolutely NOTHING.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    2. Re:Team Slashdot? by ad1c · · Score: 1

      Someone form a team, and I'll donate 3 CPUs to the effort:

      P3 866
      P3 933
      P4 240

      - Jim

    3. Re:Team Slashdot? by ad1c · · Score: 1

      Oops, make that:

      P4 2400

    4. Re:Team Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good initiative, Jim.
      I'll start a team, just send the CPUs to 114 Fairview Ave.

      -CmdrTaco

  16. Correction: "'useless' work" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oops.

  17. If you wanna look at the stats... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... click here. Wanna bet we'll be at 1000 before tomorrow morning?

  18. What a waste of CPU cycles. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Come on people -- why waste the incredable amount of processing time this is going to require. There are much better uses for cycles -- from cancer research to finding unique, undiscovered numbers (primes, etc.)

    At some point, there's just no point...

    1. Re:What a waste of CPU cycles. by cgleba · · Score: 2

      I agree. That is why I set my distributed.net client to work on the OGR-25 project exclusively.

      OGR-25 has some really cool potential and will be helpful to the world if solved. Basically it is a project to find the "Optimal Goloumb Ruler of 25 marks" -- which basically means trying to find a ruler with the least number of marks that can measure the most distances. It's a number theory problem.

      For instance, if you have a ruler with a mark at one inch and one at three inches, one can measure 1", 2", 3" and 4" objects only using those two marks.

      The applications of this principle are numerous. One that comes to mind is the optimal antenna that has the least number of of parts (aka smallest) that can transmit and recieve the largest bandwidth (range). Very cool.

  19. Ehrm... by jeroenb · · Score: 2

    But do you think the average computer will stay at this speed for the next 256 years? :)

  20. RC5-72 stats not currently available by Decibel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Althogh that link does work, RC5-72 stats are not yet available, we're still working some bugs out.

    1. Re:RC5-72 stats not currently available by sirinek · · Score: 2, Troll

      I spent 3 months using 160 Sun workstations to crack keys on RC5-64 only to quit when the stats became "temporarily unavailable" (which IIRC, was at least a couple months!!!!) and my enjoyment of seeing how I fared against the rest of the participants disappeared.

      That was in early 1999, and I never returned.

      I dont give my cycles away anymore, but if I were, itd be to something that would help advance science and have nothing to do with aliens or cryptography.

      siri

  21. well kiss my grits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    troll tuesday has come to an end and you are all still faggots.

  22. I'll take on any team by Lt+Razak · · Score: 0, Troll
    My one computer will take on any team and stomp them into oblivion!

    1. Re:I'll take on any team by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you're the champion of your fraternity's "How Far Can You Shove This Mouse Up Your Ass?" competition, that doesn't mean you automatically rule EVERY aspect of computing.

      Now go back to playing EverQuest, hoping that you'll meet an elf who will be your girlfriend. Maybe, if you're lucky, by the time you're 35, you'll be able to talk one of them into unzipping your pants. ...And if that happens, a word of advice: Don't be too hurt by the fit of laughing that will ensue. I'm sure you'll eventually find a girl who will be SO impressed by your ability to use Linux that she won't care about your anatomical deficiencies.

  23. This is stupid by CvD · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    There are so many other uses for CPU cycles than this. I've looked at the site, and none of the reasons they are doing this is really worth the massive amounts of electricity that go into this BS: an idle CPU uses a lot less than a busy one.

    - To do something with all this computing power

    There are other interesting more useful things to do with computing power.

    - To prove that small-bitsize encryption is insufficient

    I think they got the message the first 2 times.

    - To explore the feasibility of cooperative networked multiprocessing

    You mean they're still not convinced after all those years?

    - Because it's fun

    Yeah, okay... I guess everyone has their little projects. :-) I'll give them that.

    - Because you can win money!

    Um... yeah... you can win money with the lottery too. This might give you a slightly higher chance, but you'll have to wait many years to find out if you've won or not.

    - To get to know more people

    You don't need to waste CPU cycles and electricity in this manner to meet people. Running an RC5 client is not necessary to use IRC. :-)

    Cheers,

    Costyn.

    1. Re:This is stupid by stratjakt · · Score: 1

      And it *will* shorten the life of your CPU, no matter what anyone says.

      You may, or may not care, if the machine sitting on your desk works in 5-10 years. Some upgrade and throw the old out, some like me keep it around as a printserver/router, etc.

      But they should at least mention that keeping your CPU (and memory bandwidth, HDD) at a close to 100% utilization constantly *WILL* shorten its life.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    2. Re:This is stupid by CrackerJackz · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about that. While running something at 100% may reduce its life lets say .001% (pulling that number out of my ass) I think the greater chance of failure is with you PC being idle, here is my logic: the one leading cause of failure in components is stress (in this example thermal), being run at 100% causes stress, but not nearly as much as going from idle to 100% when I fire up UT2002 for an hour of so... my CPU temp with a distributed app running is constant... I would think this would reduce the chances of metal fatigue over time...

  24. The winning team should be... by Slack0ff · · Score: 1

    Lets get all those china residents to load it up... so what there gov't will kill them for being a spy or somthing... but you must admit, all those people would give them great chances.

    --
    Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
    1. Re:The winning team should be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has got to be one of the stupidest posts I've ever read, on so many levels.

      - A.P.

  25. ...we need (peaceful) war :) by jki · · Score: 4, Interesting
    as we run the cyberian rc5-56 effort some years ago (the good guys of distributed.net beat us that time :)) - it was very fun and interesting. Ever since that we have been every now and then looking for something similar to do. However, I personally and the rest of us either did not see much point in putting a competing effort on rc5-64 or rc5-72 either. Distributed.net does a great effort in there :)

    Anyway, I think all of these efforts would benefit from some real competition. You can't believe how rewarding it was to race with distributed.net and the other efforts and to see who can develop best optimized code - for example.

    But to build that spirit of competition (without doing duplicate work) between the efforts, we would need some fresh and new (reasonable, interesting) idea for: what to crunch? Any ideas there? I am sure the guys at distributed.net and the multiple other efforts would love to see the same "fighting spirit" again as well :) And as result, I believe everyones code will be optimized much faster and new ideas will be created faster, more people will be interested to join...but: what to crunch, what would be really really interesting? :)

    1. Re:...we need (peaceful) war :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The real question is, how do we get people like you talking with people who run projects like protein folding? I'm betting that if their project were properly managed (open sourced cores for all to improve, many platform availability for all the geeks who care about this sort of thing) and some hand optimizing work done, then their processing rate would go up tenfold.

      I really hope to see this some day, because I will move from d.net to cure for cancer when I believe that the medical software is making as efficient use of my processor as d.net is now.

    2. Re:...we need (peaceful) war :) by jki · · Score: 2
      The real question is, how do we get people like you talking with people who run projects like protein folding?

      ...I think the key is to build a framework that feeds friendly but ruthless competition for the effort organizers as well. That's what seems to be missing today. :)

  26. You, sir, are a fucking cretin. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Die die die die die die die!

  27. I've decyphered it already! by seann · · Score: 1

    it appears..the spoon ran away.

    --
    I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
  28. NO, YOU'RE USING "WANKING AT HOME" YOU GREAT POOF by Subject+Line+Troll · · Score: 0, Funny
  29. Go after MD5 instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a waste of time. 56-bit keys were interesting since some people might not have been convinced they were are short. That has changed.

    They should spend the time on something else. Finding random collisions in MD5 would be interesting. 128 bit hashes are too short! Complexity somewhere around 2^64...

  30. Yeah, such wonderful news... by tvadakia · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Now, is this where we submit porn?

    --
    Unique.
  31. What key rates are you guys getting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    on my p3-450 latop i am getting about 950,000 keys/sec. on dual p3-500 desktop I am getting a little overe 2 million keys/sec.

    1. Re:What key rates are you guys getting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On my 800mhz duron laptop im getting 2.3 million keys a sec, while on my 1.5Ghz Athlon XP im getting 3.9 million sec.

  32. We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by jerryasher · · Score: 5, Funny

    If it's a distributed solution, don't you also have to consider the sheer numbers of processors participating? There are more folks in participating in the project now than four years ago, and many of these folks have more computers.

    Five years from now, it may be that your house is participating, your cars are, as well perhaps as your shirts and underwear.

    In sixeen years, shortly before skynet takes over, the smart dust in your living room may decide to participate as well. (Most likely the dust will not participate, but will instead form themselves into a gollum and try to kill you, but maybe...)

    1. Re:We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by kaxman · · Score: 1

      Didn't skynet take over like four years ago?

      --
      Everyone on slashdot has a journal.
    2. Re:We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IIRC it was activated Aug 1997. Can't remember the day, but that is just when it is activated and goes online.

    3. Re:We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In sixeen years, shortly before skynet takes over, the smart dust in your living room may decide to participate as well. (Most likely the dust will not participate, but will instead form themselves into a gollum and try to kill you, but maybe...)

      Would this be an application of fuzzy logic?

      *ducks*

    4. Re:We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by kaxman · · Score: 1

      Quick, to the KAZAAMOBILE!!! Actually, something that old probably isn't even available on kazaa. I do know for a fact that I have the movie sitting at home somewhere, but that's 280 miles from here.... :(

      --
      Everyone on slashdot has a journal.
    5. Re:We fiddle while the puppeteers flee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, I would rather have my car not explode or crash, thank you.

  33. Hmm... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Other then yet another encryption crack or useless mathematics, what else is there around to waste my server's cycles on? Preferably something useful, like cancer research or something. Oh, and SETI isn't considered to be useful IMHO.

    1. Re:Hmm... by greymond · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cancer Research - if you install the google bar you will be helping the google team with the folding@home project for simulating the folding of proteins.

      - some how this is supposed to help with cancer but I am no doctor and have no idea what folding protein means - i just draw pretty pictures all day, but this makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside after passing by the bums on the street.

    2. Re:Hmm... by rhombic · · Score: 3, Informative

      Like this ?

      --
      1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
    3. Re:Hmm... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 2
      if you install the google bar

      I'm looking for a Linux client instead

    4. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simulating protein folding allows us to make a rough guess as to the shape of sequences of DNA - laying aside a variety of factors such as the environment the protein is folded in.

      That useful for not just cancer research, just figuring out how we work in general.

      And the more runs they do, the better their simulations and the better our understanding of what is critical to simulate, and what isn't.

    5. Re:Hmm... by Dark+Lord+Seth · · Score: 2

      Ah yes, the United Devices client for Cancer Research. I already run that one on my main (windows) PC, I'm not looking for something on my Linux server.

    6. Re:Hmm... by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 1, Troll

      so your saying that google has usurped free cycles from me by making my machine a part of their distributed team when I installed the google bar?!

      Was this in the EULA - this should be illegal.

      I fired a consultant who setup some FTP servers for our company and had them working on the RC-5 project without our knowledge. (and if I said who this guy was - or the company he worked for - everyone on slashdot would know who I'm talking about)

      These things are not good from a professional standpoint.

    7. Re:Hmm... by greymond · · Score: 2, Informative

      actually it ASKS you if you want to help but defaults to off

      you can turn it on by clicking the DNA icon on the bar

    8. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow you suck.

  34. Learn to spell, asswipe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What a drooling moron you are. Jesus FUCKING Christ!

    It's spelled "INCREDIBLE", asshole. Got that? No? Fuck you, shiteater.

  35. What do participants think? by ryochiji · · Score: 2

    Out of curiosity, what's is the justification for using all this computing power to crack some code? Personally, it seems even more futile than Seti@Home, but I'd like to hear from participants what their reasons are.

    1. Re:What do participants think? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      $10,000

    2. Re:What do participants think? by cyberlemoor · · Score: 2, Informative
  36. I HAVE AN IDEA by BasharTeg · · Score: 5, Funny

    These cycles would be a lot better spent on something constructive like the protean folding project.

    We can use some of distributed.net's power to spell check this guy's post!

    1. Re:I HAVE AN IDEA by TerryAtWork · · Score: 2

      Thing is - I DID spell check it.... the dicitonary passed it....

      --
      It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
    2. Re:I HAVE AN IDEA by root_dev_X · · Score: 1

      that's because "protean" is actually a word.

      Something that is ever-changing is "protean". It's a throwback to the parable of Proteus in Homer's Odyssey - one of the greek kings [the first one Odysseus' son visits - i've forgotten his name] had to wrestle the pseudo-god Proteus, who constantly changed form during the struggle.

      the idea of the protean theme is widespread in literature - the best example being the so called 'protean chapters' from Joyce's "Ulysses".

      so technically it's not spelled wrong. it's the wrong word.

      knowlege is a burden

      --
      ===== Warble://VX
  37. Also... by serlaten · · Score: 5, Funny

    if the correct key is found by a P2 300 MHz laptop, floating around the pacific on a small raft, before it's batteries are empty, Taco Bell will give free tacos to all.

  38. Re:NO, YOU'RE USING "WANKING AT HOME" YOU GREAT PO by BasharTeg · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Subject line troll? Have we truly sunk that low?

    Someone needs to write a trolling-on-slashdot is dead post.

    BT

  39. [OT] font size? by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    opening the page in Chimera gave me bloated font size. Doesn't happen on any other pages. Is this a strange bug in Chimera? Slashcode? Anyone else have this problem?

    --
    I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
    1. Re:[OT] font size? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have had problems with Chimera screwing up the automatic locale determination and giving me the wrong fonts. You need to go through all of the locales in the font preferences and set them all to your desired font/size. That worked for me (actually I just set a few of them and used emacs on the prefs.js file to fill in the rest).

  40. Re:Dear Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You moron, this should have been in the format of a "switch" ad. Get a clue you fucking noob troll.

    BT

  41. Why not ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    spend the CPU time on finding Osama Bin Laden? Have them take spy pictures and then have the program look for a long beared man waving his fist at USA.

  42. Linux client exist. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://folding.stanford.edu/

  43. Somebody with points, up-mod this parent. by zvogt · · Score: 1

    Why do I never have moderator points when I need them... Come on people, this parent is FUNNY.

  44. One thing i like about the cow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is at least when i use the cow and my system is not idle it won't carb 98% of my cpu and never release it like F@H did after running it over night a couple times. Using all my cpu when I'm not on the box is nice when i come back i want my cpu cycles back damn it! There mine after all

  45. OS/2 baby by vandel405 · · Score: 0

    Did anyone notice there were 6 times as many OS/2 users than linux users yesterday!

  46. Folding At Home Misguided? by EschewObfuscation · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OK, granted that this project may be a waste of computing power (assuming that they're not going to be just sitting there wasting cycles anyway), but I saw a lot of people suggesting that users instead participate in the folding@home project. That got me to thinking...

    I'm not against folding@home, but I don't think that the number crunching approach to solving protein folding is ever really going to give us the breakthroughs we want. We need to theoretically address the issue of folding and find more simple behavioral theories with which to approach the problem. I know a lot of work is currently being done from the physics front with spin glasses and other complex systems models.

    The difference between these two approaches is the difference between the current encryption cracking projects, and a Sneakers-like approach to actually find a mathematical solution to the large number factoring problem.

    --

    (email addr is at acm, not mca)
    We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
    --The Sphinx
    1. Re:Folding At Home Misguided? by Duncan3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You'd be right if the goal were just to find a folded state, but well, it's not :) In this case it's to simulate the actual folding process, matching the models (which they are working on) with experimental results.

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    2. Re:Folding At Home Misguided? by EschewObfuscation · · Score: 2

      > In this case it's to simulate the
      > actual folding process

      My understanding is that the folding model they're using is based on molecular kinetics. I agree that we need further investigation of the area, and it may absolutely be that physical chemistry is the only way to address the problem.

      But the similarity of the problem space to other complex systems would seem to indicate that there may be another way. All I'm saying is that as long as we are forced to address the problem with horsepower, as opposed to refining a theoretical approach (possibly a radical approach that does not come directly from the underlying molecular mechanics), the solutions are going to remin one-shot deals. There are just so *many* proteins we're interested in that taking a long time on an @home type project just will not be able to address them.

      If I'm incorrect, and this is the actual point of the research, I aplolgize... It just didn't look that way from their website (based on a recent, and cursory, examination).

      --

      (email addr is at acm, not mca)
      We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
      --The Sphinx
  47. Because, my mom has cancer by enjo13 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    While it's probably to late to help her, why the hell can't you help save someone else?

    --
    Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
    1. Re:Because, my mom has cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      yeah guys... drop your other distributed computing projects and go for this one. The other ones will never help people as well as this: http://members.ud.com/download/gold/.

  48. Exponential arithmetic. by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 2
    Assuming that computers continue to get twice as fast every 1.5 years, and that we start with a set of computers, right now, that could crack RC5-64 in a year, then the RC5-72 project should be finished in 12 years.

    2^(t/1.5) = 256

    (t/1.5) = log_2 (256) = 8

    t = 8 * 1.5 = 12.

    1. Re:Exponential arithmetic. by Darkforge · · Score: 4, Interesting
      2^(t/1.5) = 256

      (t/1.5) = log_2 (256) = 8

      t = 8 * 1.5 = 12.

      Uhm, not quite. That's how long it will take before our machines are 256 times faster, which is a very different question. (It would be tempting to just multiply this number by 4, the number of years it took to solve RC-64, but that would merely tell us how long it would take the computers of 2014 to solve RC-72 [answer: 48 years].)

      You need a more nuanced answer that takes into account your exponential progress as you're ramping up to full speed.

      Let C be the Moore doubling time. Let P be the number of computations required to solve RC-64. Let X be the instantaneous speed at which you can solve problems, in units of P/year. So for t = 4

      1/2 x/C t^2 = 1

      so x = (C/8 years) P/year

      Given that, we can calculate t in this equation:

      1/16years^2 t^2 = 256

      t^2 = 4096 years^2

      t = 64 years

      --

      When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!

    2. Re:Exponential arithmetic. by jareds · · Score: 2

      What the hell are you talking about? RC-72 requires 256 times as much computation as RC-64, so once computers are 256 times faster, the faster computers will be able to solve RC-72 in the same length of time that current computers could solve RC-64. The fact that the previous poster forgot to take into account that work can be done while you're ramping up to speed means that the correct answer should be smaller than the previous poster's answer, not larger.

      In fact, if we do as you did and let C be the Moore doubling time, let P be the number of computations to solve RC-64, let t be time in years, with 0 being now, let f(t) be the instantaneous computation speed in units of P/year, and let f0 be the time it would take to solve RC-64 now if computers remained at constant speed, then we have f(t) = (1/f0)*2^(t/C).

      Starting now, we can solve RC-72 in time t, such that the integral of f(x) from 0 to t is 256.

      The integration gives us C/(f0*ln(2))*(2^(t/c)-1)=256.

      So, if we plug in C=1.5 and f0=1, then t=10.3 years.

    3. Re:Exponential arithmetic. by Darkforge · · Score: 1

      Well, this thread is probably lost to the sands of time, but yes, you're right. Shucks.

      --

      When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!

  49. Don't forget Optimum Slackitude by Crag · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The principle of Optimum Slackitude points out that because of Moore's Law, the overall cost in time or money can be decreased by waiting to being. If current numbers predict 12 years to exhaust the keyspace, and we wait 18 months to start, then that first 18 months worth of effort will have to be made up at the end, but 12 years later computers will be 2^8 or 256 times faster. That first 18 months worth of effort will only take 2-3 days to make up at the end of the project.

    I think that's probably what people object to about starting this project now instead of in a couple years.

    1. Re:Don't forget Optimum Slackitude by bnenning · · Score: 2

      Thanks, that's exactly what I was trying to say. "Principle of Optimum Slackitude", I like it.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    2. Re:Don't forget Optimum Slackitude by evilpenguin · · Score: 2

      By that logic, if we never start, aren't we already finished? ;-)

      Sorry, long day...

  50. Fighting Cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have no idea what exactly program it is, however, there was one, and I forget what it is, this was many formats ago. It was looking for a cure for cancer..

  51. My brain hertz by jerryasher · · Score: 2

    As I think you know, you raise a valid question: the social good to society of the answers to these distributed processing questions (aliens-p, better drugs, better understanding of math) vs. the social good to society of better energy conservation.

    And then you also bring in the economic problems of understanding altruism (folks do pay the costs of participating in these low payoff questions, why do they?).

    The problem of free riders. Jeez Tim, when we find the aliens one hour too late, just because you didn't turn your computer on, I hope you're the first one up against the wall.

    And even the problem of how much sense does common sense make: I think you want to look at average power prices, not peak.

  52. http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/updates.html by Sdrawcab · · Score: 1

    http://www.aspenleaf.com/distributed/updates.html damn near exhaustive listing of distributed computing projects that is updated frequently. I personally run Find-a-Drug.com.

  53. Its like ProgessQuest by Necroman · · Score: 1

    Its pretty much some useless thing that you run, and see if you can get more time put into it than others. Most people do it just to look at the Statistics and compare with everyone else out there.

    ProgressQuest is worse and better at the same time. It does not eat up all your CPU cycles like d.net does, but it has no purpose what so ever.

    --
    Its not what it is, its something else.
  54. Maybe. by Karoshi · · Score: 1

    RC5-56 took about 1 year iirc, and RC5-64 didn't take 256 years, not even 64 years if you divide by 4.

    But I still can't tell you if it's worth it. :)

    --
    Don't answer me. Moderate. Slashdot is about moderation, not discussion.
  55. How may lottery tickets? by tkg · · Score: 1

    - Because you can win money!

    Um... yeah... you can win money with the lottery too. This might give you a slightly higher chance, but you'll have to wait many years to find out if you've won or not.


    I wonder how many lottery tickets one could buy with the money spent on electricity to power the cpu cycles? Enough for one or two a week, maybe? Given the potential payoff, the lottery might be a better choice, assuming you're only in it for the money.

  56. You're all wrong! (Re:I've decyphered it already!) by The+J+Kid · · Score: 1

    Dude, you're all wrong....there is no spoon!

    --
    Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
  57. There's some stuff that's even less worth it by gotr00t · · Score: 1
    Have you people ever seen Project Dolphin? It's basically a system that counts the keystrokes of certain voluenteer users who download a special client that's only avaliable for Windowz computers. Although it dosen't use as much processing power, they technically are taking pride in pressing the most keys, and some people even use macros to screw up their key count so that they press several million a day. I think that the entire project serves no purpose at all except waste time and expose the computers of its users to trojan keyloggers. Moreover, I just fail to see what the point of this is. They claim that it's for "scientific purposes" but how does a number that's probably way off due to macro usage help any research at all?

    Compared to this, I honestly believe that there is some point to distributed computing in cracking codes and doing useful things, like the Optimal Golumb Ruler finding, even when RC5 is a dead issue. There IS more to Distrubed.net than just cracking RC5

  58. IN SOVIET RUSSIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the spellchecker checks you!