:: 02-Jul-1999 16:56 (Friday) ::
Ok, The article in question appeared in a Swedish Internet World magazine.
Thanks to Rene Mosegaard for the scan, Hans Robinson, Karsten Spang, and
Andreas Ottosson for translations of the article.
Translation is as follows:
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THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRAIN DRAWS ON YOUR COMPUTER’S IDLE TIME
The more we are together the merrier we will be. And the more computers
working together, the more complex problems we are able to solve. This is
the simple idea behind the technically very complex and smart project
known as Distributed.net – non-profit research project that could also
earn you a bit of money if you are in luck.
It is Distributed.net who succeeded in cracking hard encryption algorithms,
generating attention around the world, demonstrating that many small computers
together can be many thousand times more efficient than a single supercomputer.
It’s easy to join. All you have to do is visit the homesite, download a
small program and start it up. As soon as you are connected to the
Internet – the program automatically contacts Distributed.net. Depending on
the power of your computer you are given a bigger or smaller amount of data
to work on. As soon as the computer has received the task, the actual computing
starts off without needing to be constantly connected. When the task is done,
it is sent back to Distributed.net as soon as you connect to the Internet.
The program can be configured after your liking, either you choose when
tasks should be fetched, or you tell the program to automatically connect as
soon as a task has been done.
Since Distributed.net accepts challenges, in particular from RSA – a
company that develops encryption algorithms and proffers rewards to anyone
who can break their codes – there is even the possibility to make some
money. If your computer is the one to crack the right key, you can presently
get $1000 for the trouble.
The interesting part though is that Distributed.net doesn’t try to
take over your computer completely, but runs silently in the background.
The idle time of your processor is used, that is to say the program runs only
during those times when your computer is doing nothing else. Over the course
of a workday there will be quite few such idle moments. Enough to solve the
most difficult of mathematical problems.
As they say at their website: “go forth and multiply, divide, rotate,
invert, and conquer. May no computer ever be idle again.” NM
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Thanks for the assistance!
