Distributed.net
Encyclopedia
distributed.net is a worldwide distributed computing
effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU
or GPU
time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization
under U.S. tax code 501(c)(3).
Currently, distributed.net is working on RC5-72
(breaking RC5 with a 72-bit key), OGR-27 and also has recently completed the OGR-25 and OGR-26 projects, which searched for 25- and 26-mark optimal Golomb ruler
s. The RC5-72 project is currently expected to exhaust the keyspace in just over 200 years, although the project will end whenever the required key is found. Both problems are part of a series - OGR is part of an infinite series; RC5 currently has eight unsolved challenges from RSA Security
, although in May 2007, RSA Security announced that they would no longer be providing prize money for a correct key to any of their secret key challenges. distributed.net has decided to sponsor the original prize offer for finding the key as a result.
In 2001, distributed.net was estimated to have a throughput
of over 30 TFLOPS
. Current throughput is likely to be much higher.
, a 56-bit
encryption
algorithm that had a $10,000 USD
prize available to anyone who could find the key
. Unfortunately, this initial effort had to be suspended as the result of SYN flood
attacks by participants upon the server.
A new independent effort, named distributed.net, was coordinated by Jeffrey A. Lawson, Adam L. Beberg, and David C. McNett along with several others who would serve on the board and operate infrastructure. By late March 1997 new proxies were released to resume RC5-56 and work began on enhanced clients. A cow
head was selected as the icon of the application and the project's mascot. The RC5-56 challenge was solved on October 19, 1997 after 250 days.
The next project was the RC5-64 challenge which took nearly five years to complete before the correct key (0x63DE7DC154F4D039) was found on July 14, 2002 decrypting the message to the plaintext "some things are better left unread".
on Intel x86 in second place, and Mac OS X
on PowerPC
in third place.
Portions of the source code for the client are publicly available, although users are not permitted to distribute modified versions themselves.
Current
Cryptography
Golomb rulers
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU
Idle (CPU)
A computer processor is described as idle when it is not being used by any program.Programs which make use of CPU Idle Time mean that they run at a low priority so as not to impact programs that run at normal priority...
or GPU
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
time. It is officially recognized as a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
under U.S. tax code 501(c)(3).
Currently, distributed.net is working on RC5-72
RC5
In cryptography, RC5 is a block cipher notable for its simplicity. Designed by Ronald Rivest in 1994, RC stands for "Rivest Cipher", or alternatively, "Ron's Code"...
(breaking RC5 with a 72-bit key), OGR-27 and also has recently completed the OGR-25 and OGR-26 projects, which searched for 25- and 26-mark optimal Golomb ruler
Golomb ruler
In mathematics, a Golomb ruler is a set of marks at integer positions along an imaginary ruler such that no two pairs of marks are the same distance apart. The number of marks on the ruler is its order, and the largest distance between two of its marks is its length...
s. The RC5-72 project is currently expected to exhaust the keyspace in just over 200 years, although the project will end whenever the required key is found. Both problems are part of a series - OGR is part of an infinite series; RC5 currently has eight unsolved challenges from RSA Security
RSA Security
RSA, the security division of EMC Corporation, is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, and maintains offices in Australia, Ireland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong and Japan....
, although in May 2007, RSA Security announced that they would no longer be providing prize money for a correct key to any of their secret key challenges. distributed.net has decided to sponsor the original prize offer for finding the key as a result.
In 2001, distributed.net was estimated to have a throughput
Throughput
In communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. This data may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or pass through a certain network node...
of over 30 TFLOPS
FLOPS
In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...
. Current throughput is likely to be much higher.
History
A coordinated effort was started in February 1997 by Earle Ady and Christopher G. Stach II of Hotjobs.com and New Media Labs fame, as an effort to break the RC5-56 portion of the RSA Secret-Key ChallengeRSA Secret-Key Challenge
The RSA Secret-Key Challenge consisted of a series of cryptographic contests organised by RSA Laboratories with the intent of helping to demonstrate the relative security of different encryption algorithms...
, a 56-bit
Bit
A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...
encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
algorithm that had a $10,000 USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
prize available to anyone who could find the key
Key (cryptography)
In cryptography, a key is a piece of information that determines the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm or cipher. Without a key, the algorithm would produce no useful result. In encryption, a key specifies the particular transformation of plaintext into ciphertext, or vice versa...
. Unfortunately, this initial effort had to be suspended as the result of SYN flood
SYN flood
A SYN flood is a form of denial-of-service attack in which an attacker sends a succession of SYN requests to a target's system in an attempt to consume enough server resources to make the system unresponsive to legitimate traffic.-Technical details:...
attacks by participants upon the server.
A new independent effort, named distributed.net, was coordinated by Jeffrey A. Lawson, Adam L. Beberg, and David C. McNett along with several others who would serve on the board and operate infrastructure. By late March 1997 new proxies were released to resume RC5-56 and work began on enhanced clients. A cow
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
head was selected as the icon of the application and the project's mascot. The RC5-56 challenge was solved on October 19, 1997 after 250 days.
The next project was the RC5-64 challenge which took nearly five years to complete before the correct key (0x63DE7DC154F4D039) was found on July 14, 2002 decrypting the message to the plaintext "some things are better left unread".
The distributed.net client
"dnetc" is the file name of the software application which users run to participate in any active distributed.net project. It is a command line program with an interface to configure it, available for a wide variety of platforms. distributed.net refers to the software application simply as the "client". , 32-bit Windows on Intel x86 is the most used configuration, with LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
on Intel x86 in second place, and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
on PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
in third place.
Portions of the source code for the client are publicly available, although users are not permitted to distribute modified versions themselves.
Development of GPU-enabled clients
- NVIDIA
- Beginning in late 2007, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on NVIDIANVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
CUDACUDACUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...
enabled hardware. The CUDA parallel computing architecture enables high-speed processing of RC5-72 work units. On high-end NVIDIA video cards, upwards of 300 million keys/second has been reported. Considering a very high end single CPUCentral processing unitThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
working on RC5-72 may achieve 50 million keys/second, the CUDA advancement represents a performance increase of roughly 500%. At present, the CUDA clients are still under development, and have only obtained release candidate status. - Similarly, near the end of 2008, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on ATIATI TechnologiesATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
STREAMAMD FireStreamThe AMD FireStream is a stream processor produced by Advanced Micro Devices to utilize the stream processing/GPGPU concept for heavy floating-point computations to target various industries, such as the High Performance Computing , scientific, and financial sectors...
enabled hardware. STREAM allows for high-speed processing of RC5-72 work units in a manner comparable to CUDA. In the fall of 2009, ATI released the Evergreen GPU family, providing distributed.net with its most powerful processing engine ever. Some of the products in this series provide key rates in excess of 1.8 billion keys/second.
Timeline of distributed.net projects
Current
- RSA Lab's 72-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — In progress, 2.019% complete as of Nov 30, 2011 (although RSA Labs has discontinued sponsorship)
- Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-27) — In progress, ~45.58% complete as of Nov 30, 2011
Cryptography
- RSA Lab's 56-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — Completed 19 October 1997 (after 250 days and 47% of the key space tested).
- RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-II-1 Encryption Challenge — Completed 24 February 1998 (after 39 days)
- RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-II-2 Encryption Challenge — Ended 17 July 1998 (found independently by the EFF DES crackerEFF DES crackerIn cryptography, the EFF DES cracker is a machine built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1998 to perform a brute force search of DES cipher's key space — that is, to decrypt an encrypted message by trying every possible key...
after 2.5 days) - RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-III Encryption Challenge — Completed 19 January 1999 (after 22.5 hours with the help of the EFF DES cracker)
- CS-Cipher Challenge — Completed 16 January 2000 (after 60 days and 98% of the key space tested).
- RSA Lab's 64-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — Completed 14 July 2002 (after 1757 days and 83% of the key space tested).
Golomb rulers
- Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-24) — Completed 13 October 2004 (after days)
- Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-25) — Completed 25 October 2008 (after days)
- Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-26) — Completed 24 February 2009 (after 122 days)
See also
- RSA Secret-Key ChallengeRSA Secret-Key ChallengeThe RSA Secret-Key Challenge consisted of a series of cryptographic contests organised by RSA Laboratories with the intent of helping to demonstrate the relative security of different encryption algorithms...
- Golomb RulerGolomb rulerIn mathematics, a Golomb ruler is a set of marks at integer positions along an imaginary ruler such that no two pairs of marks are the same distance apart. The number of marks on the ruler is its order, and the largest distance between two of its marks is its length...
- DES ChallengesDES ChallengesThe DES Challenges were a series of brute force attack contests created by RSA Security for the purpose of highlighting the lack of security provided by the Data Encryption Standard.-The Contests:...
- Brute force attackBrute force attackIn cryptography, a brute-force attack, or exhaustive key search, is a strategy that can, in theory, be used against any encrypted data. Such an attack might be utilized when it is not possible to take advantage of other weaknesses in an encryption system that would make the task easier...
- CryptanalysisCryptanalysisCryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
- Key sizeKey sizeIn cryptography, key size or key length is the size measured in bits of the key used in a cryptographic algorithm . An algorithm's key length is distinct from its cryptographic security, which is a logarithmic measure of the fastest known computational attack on the algorithm, also measured in bits...
- List of distributed computing projects
External links
- Official website
- The RSA Laboratories Secret-Key Challenge (no longer active)