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Journal by turgid
Here's one. Suppose you were a Three Letter Agency and you needed to break some strong encryption. Now say that the cost of the hardware to do that was prohibitive (it's not likely to be invented for several decades, for example) but you remembered that millions of people were running "grid computing" (remember that term) applications on their home computers with juicy GPUs (e.g. Folding@Home). Do you reckon you could get some secret code deployed by those projects to help you break that encryption in parallel right under the noses of J. Random Citizen?
Grid Computing and Cracking Encryption
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else
follows in the same way.
-- Alan J. Perlis
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Tuesday July 25 2017, @11:33PM (11 children)
I dabble with video codecs at 4K [soylentnews.org] and yet I've never joined the SoylentNews Folding@Home team [stanford.edu]. Why is that? Well, I try to avoid untrusted code which regularly makes network connections. Also, I had a discussion with an ex-housemate about CETI@Home. With suitable encoding and algorithm, CETI@Home clients can be used for Shor's algorithm [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:41AM (7 children)
Uhhh, what? That isn't even wrong. Clients running SETI@home cannot run the QFT in the second part Shor's algorithm. That requires a quantum computer, which is slower to emulate on standard hardware than just running GNFS or a modified Euclidean algorithm on a collection of keys. Plus, SETI@home is open source and you are free to read and compile it yourself, which is what many serious people do for their ASIC and FPGA and other bleeding edge implementations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cafebabe on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:02AM (6 children)
It may be slower to emulate a quantum computer for the purpose of running Shor's algorithm. However, I note three things. Firstly, emulation would use other people's resources; most notably electricity. Secondly, it is impossible to tell if a block of data is for astronomy or part of a key cracking effort. Thirdly, you agree that distributed clients may be clean implementations and yet be used as part of a "quantum" computer. In the case of Folding@Home, the client attempts to solve an NP-hard problem. Do you understand that other NP-hard problems can be mapped into this format?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:26PM (5 children)
1. Doing anything on a computer requires electricity, even listening and streaming music. 2. Yes, you can tell the difference. The whole system is open source so you know exactly what data is in a SETI work unit and what is done with it. 3. I made no such admission, I just said emulation is possible not practical and almost a complete non-starter, even at this kind of scale (when you assume the end product is running a system capable of running a QFT on encryption. 4. And yes, a a theoretical level any NP-complete problem can be mapped to any other, but again, look at the practicality and the actual implementation. It isn't practical to map quantum cracking to the type of work done by SETI, as what they look for are too specific.
Note also that I'm not defending Folding@home, closed source client with opaque work units used to generate closed results, may be used for whatever; but even still some things are more likely than others.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday July 26 2017, @04:41PM (4 children)
Regarding the first point, I see that you're familiar with desktop computing but I don't think you appreciate large-scale computing. With thousands of processor cores, the difference between an idle server farm and a loaded server farm is staggering.
Regarding the second point, are you suggesting that any nation state which hacks kernels, distributes compromised binaries, intercepts server and router deliveries, intercepts database replication, logs all telephone calls, installs keyloggers, reflashs harddisks, trawls financial history, detains its own citizens, fakes website logins and/or demands cryptographic keys has never sent a nefarious workload to a client with or without the co-operation of SETI@Home or Folding@Home? It proves nothing if either party publishes all of its code and uses SSL at all times.
Regarding the third point and fourth point, we have established that implementation of one algorithm is possible. Use of distributed clients may become economic and practical when there is sufficient urgency. And there are two alternative scenarios. We have only considered a limited set of published algorithms. We have not considered all possible algorithms. Also, distributed clients may be economic for testing algorithms in the absence of a quantum computer.
In the general case, it may or may not be feasible to use distributed clients for unauthorized computation tasks. However, I have sufficient doubt and therefore I do not offer my resources.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:23PM (3 children)
Thank you for that last comment. I now realize that you are an intellectual windmill, not a giant, and I have better than to tilt at windmills; but will leave this as a warning to others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @08:27PM (2 children)
Settle down Beavis! I think that cafebabe might have overlooked something regarding algebra and algorithms. To simulate something implies an approximation within certain constraints and therefore the results will be right enough to be useful but not perfect. However, using my scant home-spun knowledge of stuff to do with computers I can kind of guess that to simulate a quantum computing process to the point where it is useful (i.e. gives answers near enough to a real one) would take more resources than running a real one. Furthermore, if the answer (to the required approximation) can be computed on conventional hardware at all (one Turing Machine being the same as another) I'd wager (and I generally don't) that it would be cheaper in terms of computing power and electricity to use a brute-force/N^2 algorithm (or whatever) on conventional hardware. The simulation would be useful in predicting the behaviour of a proper quantum computer. But then we come full circle again... Then there is the chink in the armour. What's special about a quantum computer? I have no idea since I've read nothing about them, however, quantum systems are non-deterministic. Computers are deterministic. If you had a source of proper randomness, could you use that as input to your conventional deterministic Turing machine to get a good enough approximation to a quantum computer? I sat in some quantum physics lectures over 20 years ago with a hangover, so don't ask me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Thursday July 27 2017, @12:38AM (1 child)
A quantum computer is a constraint solver. Some problems are under-constrained. Some problems are exactly constrained. Some problems are over-constrained. Cryptographic problems tend to be exactly constrained. People have proposed or tried all kinds of crazy ideas for a quantum computer substrate including re-purposed medical imaging devices, a black hole and table salt. I would recommend not getting too concerned about the substrate of a quantum computer.
It is possible to simulate a quantum computer and get the exact answer that a real quantum computer would provide. Libraries are available in C, Perl, Python and others. Although the inputs and outputs are specified in a manner compatible with a quantum computer, the computation is performed sequentially. Is it possible to map such an interface to SETI@Home clients? Yes. Is it worthwhile for Shor's algorithm? Possibly. Is it worthwhile for other algorithms? Possibly. Has it ever occurred? Unknown. Are SETI@Home or Folding@Home willing partners in this matter? Unknown.
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(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:58AM
Considering the task and purpose. Taking over the central server might be one step..
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday July 26 2017, @07:40AM (2 children)
Sand I've never joined Folding@Home because I'm a carmudgeon and I do SETI@Home instead :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:46PM (1 child)
I run a few select BOINC programs as opposed to Folding@Home because I believe that if I'm paying the cost, then I should get some sort of benefit. The biggest difference to me is that I use open source clients that have open results that the public can use. Folding@Home is closed source and their results are not released publicly (they do claim they will release it publicly eventually, but there is no teeth to that promise).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:48AM
Your point is a good one. Unless the client can be inspected for security reasons. And the results are verifiable released to the public. It's not a good idea to donate free lunches to some Pharma that will just abuse people as thanks.