New BOINC Project - Anyone In?

It would have been nice if you had asked first before jumping in with both feet and creating a team without even asking, but you've gone and done it anyway now, so what's done is done.

As a matter of coincidence, I've been researching this subject myself recently. As stated above, MD5 has a well-known and well-publicised weakness to attacks based on hash collisions. SHA-128 does as well (though it's supposedly less severe than MD5). 160 bits is considered the bare minimum required for high security now, and 256 is recommended (I'm already using SHA-256 for my own purposes). You'll find 256-bit SSL security is out there if you look hard enough, though it probably has US export restrictions like 128-bit SSL had.

I also won't be joining this project. While it's unlikely the creators of the project intended to cause any harm, the fact remains that it's undermining one of the current most popular internet security algorithms, flawed though it is. The 'this is for research only' tag is used far too often, and it simply doesn't wash. Therefore, I won't be getting involved with this project at all, and neither will I be carrying any stats for it.
 
Last edited:
Do Berkeley really want this kind of thing using their platform?

I won't be going anywhere near it either. In my eyes DC projects are supposed to run for the benefit of mankind. HashClash certainly advances our knowledge but I can't see how hundreds of computers working to dismantle one of the most popular internet security algorithms is a good thing.

Find some proteins or extraterrestrial bodies or even aliens. A better use of CPU time, I'd say.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Isn't this along the same vein as distributed.net?


Exactly what I was thinking, although i've never really heard such critism towards distributed.net so maybe it isn't as bad. I'm actually running distributed.net on all my machines now.
 
Berserker said:
It would have been nice if you had asked first before jumping in with both feet and creating a team without even asking, but you've gone and done it anyway now, so what's done is done.

Sorry I did not mean to cause offence to anyone, but clearly I have in a big way, I will close the team now, and if somebody want to run it who will not cause other members offence, they can, I am very sorry for my mistake. Just thought it would be helpful, but clearly not.

I was not my intention to do something that was not wanted or would cause some offence and for this I apologise.

Mark
 
Last edited:
It's not that bad, really. The protocol around here is getting a don, in this case Berserker, to make the team. If the team founder were to drift away the currnet crunchers for OcUK would have no way to change team properties. The OcUK folding team stuck this way if I recall correctly. Putting a don in charge of the team makes it so that someone affiliated with the OcUK forums can always have control over the team's properties.

You're ceartinly welcome to stick around, Mark. It's just that it appears that there are not many others interested in this project. You need not be scared away by a somewhat less than warm reception.
 
Don't let this dishearten you. Glad you changed your original (second) post - you should definitely stick around :) To be honest, the forum isn't as active as it used to be and it's good that we have people willing to take the initiative, although it looks like we won't be crunching this project! But we still have strong communities around Seti, Folding and other projects which you can make your home.

Billy, any idea what is going on with that Folding ownership?
 
I agree completely, you're welcome to stick around here and post (in fact, I encourage it). It's just that, as BillyTheImpaler correctly pointed out, having teams founded the way you did almost inevitably will cause problems for us down the road. I spent about a month trying to gain access to our Folding@home, and nearly succeeded, only for it to slip away again.

Last time I checked, distributed.net was assessing the computing horsepower needed to brute force crack a single message, which is absolutely fine with me. HashClash on the other hand is attempting to smash MD5 into tiny little pieces. The only portion of humanity that's useful for is those who want to crack computer systems, and there's no way in hell I'm going to deliberately aid them in their goals. Yes, I really do feel that strongly about it.

I closed the thread, but then changed my mind. I'll leave the thread open for a day or two in case anyone else wants to discuss. :)
 
Berserker said:
I agree completely, you're welcome to stick around here and post (in fact, I encourage it). It's just that, as BillyTheImpaler correctly pointed out, having teams founded the way you did almost inevitably will cause problems for us down the road. I spent about a month trying to gain access to our Folding@home, and nearly succeeded, only for it to slip away again.

Last time I checked, distributed.net was assessing the computing horsepower needed to brute force crack a single message, which is absolutely fine with me. HashClash on the other hand is attempting to smash MD5 into tiny little pieces. The only portion of humanity that's useful for is those who want to crack computer systems, and there's no way in hell I'm going to deliberately aid them in their goals. Yes, I really do feel that strongly about it.

I closed the thread, but then changed my mind. I'll leave the thread open for a day or two in case anyone else wants to discuss. :)

You may feel strongly about it, and you clearly know more about it than I do.

However, I did not know that is what it was used for and would not have expected Berkley to allow such a thing. For the record I have stopped crunching for them now.

Be that as it may, I must state that you need to understand that clearly your knowledge of things is more superior than some of us (ok, me) and therefore a more polite reaction to a new poster on the forums who only had good intentions would have been a lot better placed. This may not have been your intention, but it sure came across that way.

To sum up, a) I did not know that it was a problem to open another team and I did not want to step on your toes, if it was a project that we were going to contribute to, I would have signed it over to you. b) I did not know of the problems you had with trying to get control of the teams other groups and c) I did not know this project could be used for bad purposes.

Mark
 
My 2p fwiw:

a) Fair enough - it's also just polite to check with a group of people before you do something for them, though :)

b + c - fair enough. c) is kinda technical.

Welcome to the nuthouse, what're you gonna crunch? :D
 
It's okay, Mark. You're forgiven and a all is well and good in the world of DC. Berserker might've come off as a bit harsh but since he is the law around here he must do so from time to time. I hope you stick around a bit longer so that you can see that we're pretty easy going about most of this, especialy the not-so-serious world of distributed computing.
 
Am sm still planning to stick around, I am hoping to get more than just my one rig up and running to do some serious crunching, just need to find a few bits.

I am currently crunching Predictor, but can only average about 220 per day with my slow 2600+.

Mark
 
Back
Top Bottom