August 18, 2006
A better distributed computing project [ Software ]
I've been a long-time dnetc user - the bovine's cute, it's fun converting electrons into packets of RC5 crack attempts - but lately I've been looking for a better distributed computing project to work on. Maybe it's just the thousand-year projected end-date for RC5-72, but I think I'd rather have my CPU cycles go towards something a wee bit more worthwhile than proving that yet another crypto cipher with a horrdendously huge keyspace can be broken.
The World Community Grid is a joint effort between United Devices (where many of the distributed.net guys actually work) and IBM. UD is also responsible for grid.org, which now refers people to the World Community Grid site.
They have an easy-to-install Windows client, plus Mac and Linux support via BOINC; and they're working on some really worthwhile projects, like defeating cancer, human proteome folding and fighting AIDS. If you're currently crunching away on crypto or mathematics projects, or looking for extraterrestrial radio signals, maybe you can consider lending some CPU cycles to projects that benefit humanity in a more direct fashion.
Original content copyright ©1995-2006 Eric Dobbs, except where otherwise noted.
