:: 26-Jul-2001 21:27 (Thursday) ::

I spent some time this morning updating the documentation on how to use
IRC to chat with other distributed.net users and staff. The new document
includes information on the new irc-ssl encrypted irc feature and has
scripts for accessing the nick and channel services offered by the new
network.

http://www.distributed.net/docs/tutor_irc.html

:: 12-Jul-2001 10:03 (Thursday) ::

Logfile cowpressed, rc5 stats running.

:: 12-Jul-2001 09:49 (Thursday) ::

I’m waiting on one of the master operators to compress a logfile that
ended up not being compressed. Once that happens, rc5 stats can run.

:: 09-Jul-2001 00:15 (Monday) ::

Well, since it’s hit slashdot and I’m getting lots of mails asking if
we’re aware of the situation, I thought I’d post a plan explaining
distributed.net’s perspective on David McOwen and the State of Georgia.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/08/2153206 for details

distributed.net can confirm that at least some part of what’s being reported
is accurate. We were subpoenaed for information relating to Mr. McOwen’s
participation in the RC5-64 project and supplied that information as
requested. We also spoke at length with representatives of the prosecution
to make sure they understood the actual impact of the dnetc software on
the machines and networks in question.

However, part of the subpoena restricts us from commenting on the details
of pending litigation. Especially since we do not know the details or
circumstances of the alleged activity, we do not want to do anything which
would endanger either party’s position in this case. We trust that the
community understands our position in this matter.

In the more general sense, not commenting at all on the specifics of this
case, it is never a good idea to run the distributed.net client software
on computers you don’t own or administrate. In the four years or so that
we’ve been in operation we’ve been dragged in to a handful of situations
where people have lost their jobs, positions, and scholarships by thinking
that forgiveness would be easier to obtain than permission. Nobody,
especially distributed.net, wants to see this happen.

It’s important to keep in mind that the literal resource consumption of
the client (which is as close to “zero” as can be) is often not the only
factor important to a business. The existence of prize money with the
RC5-64 project is discomforting to many organizations. One tactic which
has proven to be very effective is to provide an affidavit that you will
donate any winnings to a charity if a client you installed on a company
or university machine finds the winning key. In many cases, this has been
key to a participant receiving permission to run the client on non-owned
resources.

Another frequent stumbling block is with service and support contracts
which prohibit non-certified software running on workstations or servers.
Your university or employer may risk losing support on their equipment if
software is installed that hasn’t been explicitly mentioned in the support
agreements.

The bottom line is, always get permission first. It might not be as
difficult to get permission as you think. And if you can’t get permission,
don’t install the client.

We hope for a speedy and just resolution to this case, whatever that
outcome should be, and that we never have to be involved in another one.

:: 05-Jul-2001 12:23 (Thursday) ::

There was some confusion over what log transfer mechanisms should have
been transfered to the new master. This is why RC5 stats haven’t been
running. I’m about to start the run for the 3rd and the 4th. The automatic
transfers should begin again today, so hopefully no more delayed stats
after this. Sorry for the inconvenience.

:: 02-Jul-2001 16:21 (Monday) ::

Stats will be delayed a bit longer. For some reason the master stopped
compressing logfiles last night after 21:00, so both ogr and rc5 stats
are stuck on 6/30. Once dbaker fixes this, stats will start processing
again.

Sorry for the delay.

:: 02-Jul-2001 07:45 (Monday) ::

Tally is busy catching up on 6/29 rc5 stats. I’ve turned off web access
for now so it doesn’t have to share the database with the web (it’s selfish
that way ;P). Web access should automatically turn back on in ~10 hours.

:: 02-Jul-2001 01:15 (Monday) ::

As dbaker has already announced in his plan, the new machine to replace
our aging keymaster has finally been installed and migrated! You can read
more details about the hardware specs here:
http://cgi.distributed.net/cgi/planarc.cgi?user=dbaker&plan=2001-07-01.21:45

You can also see a picture that Daniel took of me standing in front of
the new machine at our collocation center. The actual machine is
the rack-mounted machine with the silver grill that is just below my
eye-level in the image. (We actually have a total of 4 machines in that
rack, but the others aren’t as visible due to the color and angle of them
in the image–one of them is the old keymaster, another is a content
mirror, and the other is non-critical machine).
http://www1.distributed.net/~bovine/dcti-colo-sm.jpg

:: 01-Jul-2001 22:40 (Sunday) ::

I’m pleased to announce the installation and implementation of our brand
new Dell Poweredge 2550 master server. This new server is a dual processor
PIII-1GHz machine with 1GB of ram, 70GB RAID-5 SCSI disk, and redundant
power supplies.

The distributed.net master server is the head project server for OGR and
RC5. It handles the creation of all new work, processing of completed
work, logging, and various other operational tasks.

This new capacity and processing power will allow faster processing of
work, more reliable proxy network functionality, and additional log storage.

Jeff (bovine) and I completed the process of transitioning to the new
server 3am EDT and it has been working flawlessly since then.

Thanks to everyone for their gracious financial support that has allowed
us to continue to expand our network infrastructure.

:: 01-Jul-2001 17:15 (Sunday) ::

For those who have noticed that the proxy info page is down, or that
keyrates aren’t being properly reported it #distributed, there’s a *good*
reason. We’re now running on our new keymaster. I won’t go into the details
as I don’t want to steal dbaker’s thunder… hopefully he’ll post a .plan
when he wakes up this afternoon (he and cow were working on getting the
new master installed until just a few hours ago).

As might be expected, there are a few things that still need to be taken
care of, and stats are one of them. It will probably be sometime tomorrow
before stats are completely up to date.