Slashdot Mirror
Finding MD5 Collisions With Chinese Lottery
Stanislav Shalunov writes "Jean-Luc Cooke posted a Usenet article describing a distributed webpage-based effort (Chinese Lottery) to find a collision in the MD5 function. All you need to do to participate in the effort is visit the URL that loads the code. The author comments: 'What is interesting about this approach - when we reach final release stage - is that any website that adds this small snippet of code to their pages will have their visitors working on the problem for the duration of their visit to the site'."
From the link:
;)
You run an Applet, it reports to us the search results. Distributed computing without installing anything...and without people knowing you're stealing their idle CPU time.
I don't know about you but I wouldn't lean out the window with the fact that I'm stealing from others.
Idle CPU time might be unused but I still want to know what my box is doing and why.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
I respect the effort and ingenuity, but the rationale that "hey, we're helping solve a problem" somehow justifies stealing someone else's resources... it's just wrong.
Be upfront with people - tell them why it's so important, what can be accomplished with it, and what it does. You'd be surprised - people might help out of *gasp* the goodness of their own hearts. A good example might be SETI, etc.
Have you ever tried even using a dedicated renderfarm? The complications that can arise if you don't have all the textures and files locally, not to mention the fact that rendering is so heavy a tax on the CPU people would NEVER want to do it. Plus, that would involve them releasing files that go into making the movie. And so on and so forth, The idea is so terrible I couldn't imagine anyone ever trying it. Peace out and try to talk about something you konw for once.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
No, it would take too long just to upload the scene data to the client, let alone render anything useful within the average person's attention span.
Why don't the slashdot editors who put this online embed the code in the story page? That way the slashdotting would have some use at least.
-- Alper
Let's put the research effort asside here and thing about the underlying concept here... basically, this is a distributed computing app being buried within webpages. Could commercial interests use this concept to get access to computing resources from their web users without telling them?
I believe the term was parasitic computing. Ideally the web master makes visitors aware to what's going on. You're using visitors' computing power to accomplish a neat sort of distributed computing. Great idea, if you're not just stealing resources
I wonder if the good slashdot people would be willing to make this into a slashbox ?
Basically, in a world where everything was based on a thumbprint, would you want even the smallest chance, no matter how statistically unlikely, that someone else had the same thumbprint as you?
..some. You use bandwidth for data throughput, you have the CPU usage..
All on the server side. Yes, the clients are the ones doing the Real Work, but you have to do something with the result of that work. And its the Doing that taxes your servers, if only a little bit.
"The most looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict"
Not that I mind technology, and new tricks.
But the last thing I want to see is every website hogging my CPU. Either selling computing power of their web visitors for profit, or using it for themselves.
Imagine the next series of Spyware Trojans... rather than spy, they harness your CPU and sell the power. All without the knowlege of the computer owner.
Interesting business model, but not something I want to see. I like my CPU. Note the word "my".
...has it become acceptable to use anyones computing resources without their knowledge and consent?
From where I come, this would be at least considered theft. It's stealing power (electricity) that you pay for, CPU cycles and RAM you might have other use for. It's using your resources that you pay for.
It's premeditated - not some action of a whim. It's also targeted at any and all passers by - like if you just happened to stroll by a store they were all of a sudden stripping your credit card of "just small amounts" using some yet unknown method for scanning your card from a distance without neither your knowledge nor consent.
Where I come from, such crimes can, and would, put people in jail.
This uses Java not Javascript; learn the difference.
moreover, most programs that hash MP3s fail to exclude the ID1/ID2 tags, so it's pretty simple (and common) for different MP3s to sound exactly the same.
My standard reply to this is that there are 2^128 possible hash sums which is many magnitudes more than the number of electrons in the universe! So you'd have a pretty hard time storing them all.
As for the set of short strings, because this is such a limited set, if MD5 is any good (which it is), you won't find a collision in such a small subset.