[yoshida]

Has anyone heard of the World Community Grid? No, it's not something like the Lifestream, or the Jenova project. It's much bigger, and better, if I do say so myself.
The World Community Grid is a project in which data is uploaded to your pc, calculated whenever you're idle and send back when finished. The results benefit research on AIDS, malaria, cancer, muscular dystrophy and other important medical issues. Your spare computing time might safe lifes whenever you're sleeping, working or at school.

[FutbolDude21586]

My spare CPU time is spent on decrypting space information. I can't remember what the program is called at the moment, but it's run by NASA through Berkley.

[Solar]

I think its called SETI, FBD

my spar power is run to heat up my office on chilly mornings like today! by rendering ocmplicated 3d images in the background...

-J

[yoshida]

My spare CPU time is spent on decrypting space information. I can't remember what the program is called at the moment, but it's run by NASA through Berkley.

You mean SETI? ExtraTerestial intelligence exists, the fact they never contacted us is proof enough for me. ^^

Me... I'm more interested in aiding medical science. And I'm trying very hard not to whore this research, altho it'd be worth it.

[FutbolDude21586]

Yeah, that's the one. SETI, Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence. I've had it for... 6 years?

[yoshida]

Yeah, that's the one. SETI, Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence. I've had it for... 6 years?

Any results?

[FutbolDude21586]

Not that I know of, but they don't tell you if your 'research' finds anything... since all data bits is sent in anonymously.

/end thread hijacking

This post has been edited by FutbolDude21586: 19 January 2007 - 01:52 PM

[Evac156]

Not that I know of, but they don't tell you if your 'research' finds anything... since all data bits is sent in anonymously.

/end thread hijacking

Hmmm.... I don't know if I'm perpetuating the hijacking, or making an honest contribution.

The one FBD's referring to is SETI@home, and their home page is here. I used to see it running on tons of machines at work and at cybercafes, but it seems to have gone out of vogue. I didn't even know whether it was still around until I saw it mentioned here.

Another one that I've heard of is one that is trying to crack some big decryption problem -- it might be a 128-bit encryption scheme. With that one, you actually might get some feedback, because there were rewards if your computer just happened to be the one doing the processing that produced a valid digit in the key. Unfortunately I don't know what it was called or whether it's still active.

The one that Yoshida originally mentioned (World Community Grid) seems worthwhile.

I've never gotten involved in any of these distributed computing projects, because I used to just power down any time I wasn't using my machine. But considering what a monster workhorse I have now, and that I do now leave it on and idle most of the time (so it's available on the network), I might consider it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it -- although of course I'd have to look at the security issues as well, and how it might affect other idle-time activities (nightly virus scans and backups).

This post has been edited by Evac156: 19 January 2007 - 02:12 PM

[siwelwerd]

Personally, I do GIMPS. Folding@Home is another good one. GIMPS is a search for very large prime numbers (a computationally intensive task). Folding does protein folding simulations, which is useful since many diseases are caused by proteins not folding correctly (e.g Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and some cancers).

[ForgottenCode]

Please people. We have other forums than A&E for a reason. If something should go into one of them, please post it there. Moved. -FC

[yoshida]

Folding does protein folding simulations, which is useful since many diseases are caused by proteins not folding correctly (e.g Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and some cancers).

Actually, folding is just one of the researches. Another one is comparing proteins from organisms worldwide, and calculating which molecules fit best in certain enzymes (of which the best results will actually be lab-tested for new AIDS-medicines)

.
I created a team for us (LICD) on WorldCommunityGrid.org.

...

Well, JOIN already! (and select LICD for Team)
Do something good for humanity while your PC is downloading your weekly batch of whatever you fancy.

This post has been edited by yoshida: 21 January 2007 - 04:46 AM

[Cybercat]

Another one that I've heard of is one that is trying to crack some big decryption problem -- it might be a 128-bit encryption scheme. With that one, you actually might get some feedback, because there were rewards if your computer just happened to be the one doing the processing that produced a valid digit in the key. Unfortunately I don't know what it was called or whether it's still active.

That's what eats up my space processor cycles. Yes it's still going, you can find out more here.

[siwelwerd]

Another one that I've heard of is one that is trying to crack some big decryption problem -- it might be a 128-bit encryption scheme. With that one, you actually might get some feedback, because there were rewards if your computer just happened to be the one doing the processing that produced a valid digit in the key. Unfortunately I don't know what it was called or whether it's still active.

This one is really neat, as basically it answers the question of how "uncomputable" RSA is (or really, how difficult it is to brute-force solve the discrete log problem).

I should also mention, for GIMPS, there are prizes for discovering suitably large primes. The next prize is $100,000 for a 10 million-digit prime.

[yoshida]

Another one that I've heard of is one that is trying to crack some big decryption problem -- it might be a 128-bit encryption scheme. With that one, you actually might get some feedback, because there were rewards if your computer just happened to be the one doing the processing that produced a valid digit in the key. Unfortunately I don't know what it was called or whether it's still active.

This one is really neat, as basically it answers the question of how "uncomputable" RSA is (or really, how difficult it is to brute-force solve the discrete log problem).

I should also mention, for GIMPS, there are prizes for discovering suitably large primes. The next prize is $100,000 for a 10 million-digit prime.

Hijacker
WCG offers rewards too, be it in points per completed task. I don't know if there's going to be a real-world reward but with over a milion cpu hours each day I think we don't have much chance to get anywhere near the top-1000.
Ah well, join Team LICD. It's for the greater good.

This post has been edited by yoshida: 21 January 2007 - 02:41 PM

[Cactus]

I've had the United Devices cancer research program running on my home comp for some years now. Although the IT manager is happy for me to run it at work, the UD client uses ports that are blocked there. Sadly, WorldCommunityGrid uses the same Windows client.

*Goes off to uninstall it*

Any suggestions for other medical or otherwise socially useful projects that use a different client?

[siwelwerd]

Any suggestions for other medical or otherwise socially useful projects that use a different client?

Pretty sure GIMPS just uses plain old HTTP. See here for details.

[Maelgwyn]

Im in Yo - as MaelgwynLICD

[yoshida]

Im in Yo - as MaelgwynLICD

I'm impressed by your quick number of results so far. Keep it up.

[TiranoPetrie]

I'm in. w00tzors
TiranoPetrie, LICD team

[yoshida]

Cool. We also received our first non-LICD member, Teisenberger. I don't know who he is or where he's from, but he's generating results.

I'm curious what rank LICD will stick to. As for now we've climbed to 9,820 (results returned). Keep 'em coming, folks
EDIT: our ranking is 7,613 now, keep it up!

Maelgwyn, how many computers do you have running on this project? your total computing time is already 28 days (!)

This post has been edited by yoshida: 05 February 2007 - 01:20 PM