[clue-tech] distributed.net

[Nate Duehr]

On Jul 14, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Jason Ash wrote:

> About six months ago I discovered a way to donate my idle CPU cycles to science through distributed.net. The two current projects are breaking the RC5-72bit encryption algorithm and Optimal 27-Mark Golomb Rulers. Basically, they are building the world's largest supercomputer cheaply through distributed computing.

Building?  Haven't they been around for about 10 years?  If I remember correctly they were the first to crack DES at some level of bits... and then again at a higher level of bits... making the push to AES a reality for panic-stricken government folks... 

Mostly I stopped "donating" my CPU cycles to this and learned to have the machines go to sleep when not in use, after a) realizing that many of these applications are horrible about releasing your own CPU *back* to you when you actually start using it, and b) because electricity is well, used heavily by a machine (or five or six like I once had running distributed.net, SETI, who knows what other "fad" distributed platform prior to them firing up the new and improved marketing term for such things... "Cloud Computing"...) and I decided I'd stop payin' their power bill for things THEY wanted to find with computers... and pay the power only when I needed my computer to do things I wanted... 

I also started thinking deeply about... "Why would I want to escalate the crypto arms race?  It just leads to more bits of crypto, and requirements for never-ending faster processors, and that costs me money too... I have to keep upgrading machines 'round here to keep up!  Give me a break.  HELP prove that modern crypto will continue to fall again and again, and giving the researchers hard numbers as to just how easy/fast it'll be?  Not really all that smart from a personal finance point of view.

Of course, nowadays, the cool kids are doing all of this in GPUs (graphics cards), stuffing multiples in their machines and using them for insanely fast parallel number/factoring processors, since they do factoring far far FAR faster than the typical CPU/general purpose RISC or CISC processor.  Imagine row after row of machines stuffed with graphics cards crunching numbers, not displaying things, at your local "interested agency"... whoever you like to name for that job... 'cause they're doing it.  A lot of it.  And then look at the prices of graphics cards, and think "government is buying these"... and you'll see the cost curve typical of a product being bought by government... and you'll see the ever-increasing performance... 

You didn't think the graphics card makers were dumping millions into R&D so we could all get 60 fp/s in 3D games, now really, did you? ;-)  (Just look at their 10K filings at EDGAR...)

(Side-note: "Cloud Computing" as a general rule makes me laugh at bit, and also throw up in my mouth a little at the same time, like all good Marketing campaigns probably should do.   Pssst... hey you... Mr. IT manager... Want a mainframe?  I hear they're makin' a comeback!  Hahaha... again... it's only recently that I've gotten former Sun employees to tell the ghastly stories of running those "thin client" things Sun was pushing a while back... at Sun themselves... network hiccup, main Sun boxes down, whatever... you'd walk in and everyone's terminals were down, as well as whatever work you hoped to do that afternoon...)

Fun stuff, watching software like distributed.net do its thing, but it's been around a great long while... nothing wrong with helpin' them out if you feel so-inclined... but I think I'd rather help someone out that's doing research on helping humans with diseases, etc... today... over cracking crypto... again... and again... and again... just from an ethics standpoint.

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Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com

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