Distributed.net

Distributed.net (official name Distributed Computing Technologies, Inc. or short DCTI ) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States. Your goal is to further develop the possibilities of distributed computing and to promote the use of appropriate techniques. To this end, performs distributed.net own globally-distributed computing projects in which the participants represent the unused computing power of their computers.

Currently distributed.net performs two computing projects.

Current computing projects

RC5 -72

The aim of this project is to decrypt a message that has been encrypted with a 72 -bit key for the RC5 method. The deciphering of this message is part of the "Secret -Key Challenge" RSA Laboratories. The project approach, all possible keys are tried ( brute force method ) until the matching key is found. For this, the entire area is divided into individual packages, which are then checked. A package usually consists of (4,2 billion) combinations, which also is many times possible. The size of the packets is primarily dependent on the hardware used.

In May 2007, the RSA Labs announced not to continue the competition. The project of distributed.net but it will continue until further notice. At current computing speeds, the project would, however, scans the entire key space until over 900 years.

Means GPGPU computing is possible to accelerate the calculation speed significantly. The graphics card handles the calculations. The enormous potential becomes apparent when one compares a standard processor with a graphics card.

OGR -28

The project OGR -28 for an optimal Golomb ruler of order 28 is searched. OGR projects are part of a potentially infinite series, since optimal Golomb rulers can be of any length.

Platforms ( Operating Systems )

The Distributed.net client supports a variety of different platforms. The source code is up to the communication protocols remains open and can be translated by experienced programmers on almost any platform.

The software is available for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 7, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS. For the systems of Microsoft Windows 7, Linux and MacOS are also GPGPU clients ready. This allows to use the graphics card for computation.

Program (function )

The program can be divided for a simple functional description into two blocks. Firstly, there is the basic program, which is providing general program settings, such as Participant's account, buffer sizes, run-time behavior, hardware detection or project priorities allowed, on the other hand, the highly optimized so-called cores.

The cores provide it to processors or graphics cards highly optimizing routines that working the respective work units. These will be further developed by volunteers and taken over by a test phase, if necessary, in the official client. This generally leads to increased performance, particularly when a new architecture is introduced.

The program currently has a limitation; so the client can not simultaneously use the processor and the graphics card. In this case, each with its own program instance for both the processor and the graphics card has to be downloaded separately, configured and started.

History

In February 1997, Earle Ady and Christopher G. Stach II started a project with the aim of the RC5 -56 part of the ' RSA Secret -Key Challenge " to solve, so to find the correct key. This first project was canceled but on several computers due to a SYN flood attack.

A new project led by Jeff Lawson, was then founded " distributed.net " under the name, to continue the work. On October 19, 1997, after 250 days, after the correct key is found. Next, the decryption another with RC5 encrypted message was tackled, but this time long with a 64 bit key. It took nearly five years, until the correct key was found.

Since then participated distributed.net at various competitions in the field of cryptography, including encrypted messages were decrypted using DES.

  • 56 bits RC5 - Successfully completed on 19 October 1997 ( after 250 days, 47 % of all keys have been checked )
  • 56 bit DES II-1 - Successfully completed on 24 February 1998 (after 39 days )
  • 56 bit DES II-2 - Finished ( not solved by distributed.net, but by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF ) to two and a half days with the EFF DES cracker) on 17 July 1998
  • 56-bit DES- III - Successfully completed on 19 January 1999 (after 22.5 hours with the help of the EFF DES Cracker, which, however, was at this time part of distributed.net )
  • 64 bits RC5 - Successfully completed on 14 July 2002 (after 1757 days, 83 % of all keys have been checked )
  • CS- Cipher Challenge - Completed successfully on 16 January 2000 ( after 60 days, 98 % of all keys have been checked )
  • Optimal Golomb ruler of length 24 ( OGR -24) - Successfully completed on 13 October 2004
  • Optimal Golomb ruler of length 25 ( OGR -25) - Successfully completed October 24, 2008
  • Optimal Golomb ruler of length 26 ( OGR -26) - Successfully completed on 24 February 2009
  • Optimal Golomb ruler of length 27 ( OGR -27) - Successfully completed on February 19, 2014
CUDA OpenCL General-purpose computing on graphics processing units SYN-Flood List of distributed computing projects
241954
de