Distributed.net

Template:Short description Template:Lowercase title Template:Infobox website Distributed.net is a volunteer computing effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise idle CPU or GPU time. It is governed by Distributed Computing Technologies, Incorporated (DCTI), a non-profit organization under U.S. tax code 501(c)(3).

Distributed.net is working on RC5-72 (breaking RC5 with a 72-bit key).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The RC5-72 project is on pace to exhaust the keyspace in just under 37 years as of January 2025,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> although the project will end whenever the required key is found. RC5 has eight unsolved challenges from RSA Security, although in May 2007, RSA Security announced<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2001, distributed.net was estimated to have a throughput of over 30 TFLOPS.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:As of, the throughput was estimated to be the same as a Cray XC40, as used in the Lonestar 5 supercomputer,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or around 1.25 petaFLOPs.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

HistoryEdit

A coordinated effort was started in February 1997 by Earle Ady and Christopher G. Stach II of Hotjobs.com and New Media Labs, as an effort to break the RC5-56 portion of the RSA Secret-Key Challenge, 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The RC5-56 challenge was solved on October 19, 1997, after 250 days. The correct key was "0x532B744CC20999" and the plaintext message read "The unknown message is: It's time to move to a longer key length".<ref name="distributed.net: Project RC5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The RC5-64 challenge was solved on July 14, 2002, after 1,757 days. The correct key was "0x63DE7DC154F4D039" and the plaintext message read "The unknown message is: Some things are better left unread".<ref name="distributed.net: Project RC5"/>

The search for Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGRs) of order 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 were completed by distributed.net on 13 October 2004, 25 October 2008, 24 February 2009, 19 February 2014, and 23 November 2022 respectively.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ClientEdit

"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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> distributed.net refers to the software application simply as the "client". Template:As of, volunteers running 32-bit Windows with AMD FireStream enabled GPUs have contributed the most processing power to the RC5-72 project<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and volunteers running 64-bit Linux have contributed the most processing power to the OGR-28 project.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Portions of the source code for the client are publicly available, although users are not permitted to distribute modified versions themselves.<ref name="publicsource">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Distributed.net's RC5-72 project is available on the BOINC client through the Moo! Wrapper.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Development of GPU-enabled clientsEdit

File:Average RC5-72 production.png

Average daily RC5-72 production by platform for 26 May 2024 – 4 January 2025<ref name="currentwork">Calculated by subtracting the completed work units as of 4 January 2025 from the totals on 26 May 2024, creating a 223-day average.</ref>

In recent years, most of the work on the RC5-72 project has been submitted by clients that run on the GPU of modern graphics cards. Although the project had already been underway for almost 6 years when the first GPUs began submitting results, as of January 2025, GPUs represent 88% of all completed work units,<ref name="platformlist">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and complete more than 95% of all work units each day.<ref name="currentwork" />

NVIDIA

In late 2007, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on NVIDIA CUDA-enabled hardware, with the first completed work units reported in November 2008. On high-end NVIDIA video cards at the time, upwards of 600 million keys/second was observed<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> For comparison, a 2008-era high-end single CPU working on RC5-72 achieved about 50 million keys/second, representing a very significant advancement for RC5-72. As of January 2025, CUDA clients have completed almost 11% of all work on the RC5-72 project, and perform about 9% of the work each day.<ref name="platformlist" />

AMD / ATI

Similarly, near the end of 2008, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on AMD FireStream-enabled hardware. Some of the products in the Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series provided key rates in excess of 1.8 billion keys/second.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> As of January 2025, FireStream clients have completed over 21% of all work on the RC5-72 project.<ref name="platformlist" /> Daily production from FireStream clients has dropped below 0.5% as the majority of AMD GPU contributors now use the OpenCL client.<ref name="platformlist" />

OpenCL

An OpenCL client entered beta testing in late 2012 and was released in 2013. As of January 2025, OpenCL clients have completed more than 56% of all work on the RC5-72 project, and now perform almost 86% of the work each day. No breakdown of OpenCL production by GPU manufacturer exists, as AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel GPUs all support OpenCL.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Timeline of distributed.net projectsEdit

Timeline of projects hosted by distributed.net, Template:As of

All measures are in pixels

ImageSize = width:800 height:247 PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:20 top:10 AlignBars = justify

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1997 till:01/05/2025 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1997

there is no automatic collision detection,
so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap

Define $dy = 25 # shift text to right side of bar

Colors=

 id:yellow1    value:rgb(0.867,0.797,0.33)
 id:yellow2    value:rgb(0.816,0.714,0.031)
 id:yellow3    value:rgb(0.70,0.60,0.175)
 id:blue1      value:rgb(0.418,0.543,0.950)
 id:blue2      value:rgb(0.318,0.484,0.769)

PlotData=

 bar:RC5  color:yellow width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center  fontsize:S
 from:start       till:10/19/1997    text:RC5-56   color:yellow1
 from:10/29/1997  till:07/14/2002    text:RC5-64   color:yellow2
 from:12/03/2002  till:end           text:RC5-72   color:yellow3

 bar:OGR color:blue1 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center  fontsize:S
 from:07/14/2000  till:10/13/2004   text:OGR-24
 from:10/26/2008  till:02/24/2009   text:OGR-26
 from:02/19/2014  till:11/23/2022   text:OGR-28
 bar:   color:blue2 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center  fontsize:S
 from:08/01/2000  till:10/24/2008   text:OGR-25
 from:02/24/2009  till:02/19/2014   text:OGR-27

 bar:CSC color:orange width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center  fontsize:S
 from:11/17/1999  till:01/16/2000   text:CSC

 bar:DES color:green width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
 from:01/13/1998  till:02/24/1998  text:DES-II-1

 bar:    color:yellow1 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
 from:07/13/1998  till:07/17/1998  text:DES-II-2

 bar:     color:purple width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
 from:01/18/1999  till:01/19/1999  text:DES-III

</timeline>

Current

RSA Lab's 72-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge started 3 December 2002 — In progress, 13.228% complete as of 4 January 2025<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> (although RSA Labs has discontinued sponsorship)

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 23 February 1998 (after 39 days)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-II-2 Encryption Challenge — Ended 15 July 1998 (found independently by the EFF DES cracker after 2.5 days)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

RSA Lab's 64-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — Completed 14 July 2002 (after Template:Age in days days and 83% of the key space tested).<ref name="history">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Golomb rulers

Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-24) — Completed 13 October 2004<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation