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Dcypher.net Linux Clients Available
Steve Porter writes "Dcypher.net has released MMX-only Linux clients for its CSC Contest. Full information is available at dcypher.net. Non-MMX Linux clients will be available shortly and will feature an improved non-MMX integer core. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome those who will join us, and would also like to apologize for the delay in releasing the Linux clients. FreeBsd clients and proxies will be out shortly."
The distributed.net network is currently crunching keys 8 times faster than dcypher.
/. advocating the use of a particular program even though it's demonstrably substandard, just because a majority of the ignorant masses are using it.
That's because the distributed.net network currently has over 15 times as many computers working on it than dcypher.net. (Compare here and here; I compared the number of clients which reported in the last day, since I figure that's the most relevent number to compare to current keyrate.) Furthmore, I'd guess that since dcypher.net is so new, distributed has an even higher proportion of the big-iron/large subnets working for it.
I waited, patiently, for over 6 months for distributed to come out with a new project--and when they release OGR, I'll probably come back. But after seeing my dismal keyrate running their CSC core, I decided to give dcypher.net a try.
On my machine (PII-350), the dcypher.net client is roughly 250% faster than distributed's CSC core. It's CSC keyrate is even about 10% faster than my rc-5 keyrate was with distributed.
Furthermore, their stats engine updates in real time, instead of distributed's absurd daily updates during which stats are completely down for an hour and a half. While both web sites are pretty poorly designed, distributed.net has been at times nearly unnavigable (this is getting a bit better).
But the important thing is, dcypher has accomplished all this and they've been around for a month! I can't imagine how you guys can complain about the fact that it took dcypher an extra 3 weeks to come out with a Linux client when it's taken distributed, a much larger organization with presumably much larger resources, months and months to build any clients at all for CSC or OGR (and the one they came up with is infernally slow).
At the time of this writing, d.net is the only network which seems to be able to solve this contest in time (remember that CSC is time-limited, any solution found after March 17, 2000 is void).
Obviously, that's just because 15 times as many people are going with the much more poorly coded, less efficient solution. It's more than a bit ironic to find people on
What's worse is that distributed takes the position that since they have so many loyal lemmings, they can release an unoptimized core and it won't matter because enough people will still run it. It's that arrogant attitude that turned me (and, I'd guess, many others) off of SETI@home.
Oh well; to each his own. Happy cracking!
It's unfortunate that dcypher.net chooses to post to slashdot anonymously, making this type of confusion possible.
dcypher.net has never approached distributed.net to discuss cooperating in the CSC contest.
The truth is, that unless dcypher.net releases their code, cooperation is impossible. CSC, like DES, is a bitslicable algorithim. This means that performance improvements can be achieved by overlapping common work for multiple keys.
Since the dcypher.net cores are not available, there is no way for us (distributed.net) to know what real range of keys is represented in one of their blocks.
Even knowing the start block and size of the block, without knowing the details of their core, there's no way to be certain what work is contained in the block.
Even if we did know the full details of their code, if the two codebases take differing approaches to optimization (which is likely), coordination of the keyspace might still prove to be cumbersome and impractical. This is exactly the situation distributed.net faced when we joined forces with EFF's deep crack box during the most-recent DES challenge. Due to the nature of deep crack's bitslicing, we had very little flexibility in subdividing the keyspace. We had very few options for the division that did not involve duplicating work between the distributed.net network and the deep crack boxes.
Distributed.net and dcypher both try to solve the CSC contest.
The distributed.net network is currently crunching keys 8 times faster than dcypher.
At the time of this writing, d.net is the only network which seems to be able to solve this contest in time (remember that CSC is time-limited, any solution found after March 17, 2000 is void)
D.net source code is available to anyone who wants to improve or just review it : http://www.distributed.net/source/
Right now, d.net have clients for
- Linux x86
- Linux Alpha
- Linux Sparc
- FreeBSD x86
- NetBSD Alpha
- DOS
- Netware
- Win16
- Win32 x86
- Win32 Alpha
- HPUX 10.20 (HP-PA 1.1)
- IRIX 5
- Solaris Sparc
DCypher.Net started first (November 8) DCypher.Net has faster clients (between 100% and 150% faster) DCypher.Net hands out the full prize money of 10,000 Euros ($10,500) to the finder of the key instead of just $2,000 at d.net DCypher.Net offers stats that are updated every hour or realtime instead of every 24 hours.
I really don't see the reasoning behind cracking these encryption routines. Surely we know that by throwing enough computing power at it, we'll get there eventually. So why bother with it? What does it actually achieve? This isn't flamebait. I'm generally interested in why people want to do something like this.
I'm a fan of SETI, since it's an attempt to discover something new. If you believe in the possibility of extra-terrestrial life or not, surely from a scientific standpoint, SETI is a far more worthwile use of computing power, isn't it?
And distributed.net had the first linux client when dcypher.net was still promising one. I am not going to reinstall clients after just having done that on several machines. I also don't really trust a new, closed source, binary only client.
While distributed.net isn't exactly open source, either, at least they play as fair as possible and give you nearly the full source with all of the key routines.
Regarding the money: distributed.net only claims 20%, but insists on donating 60% to a charity. Anybody can suggest one, but the one to get the 60% is decided by vote (everyone gets one vote per block done). Which is only fair. Why should one person get all the money tens of thousands of people have worked for? This isn't for the money, after all. And the odds of finding the key are slim.
So with distributed.net, you are working for a donation to a charity, which is certain. With dcypher.net, you are trying to get all the money, while most probably somebody else will get it, leaving you _and_ a worthy cause without money.
(The above leaves 20% for the participant, which gets split with his team if he joined one.)
Holger