Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image


Distributed.net

distributed.net
The distributed.net logo
Type of site
Volunteer computing
OwnerDistributed Computing Technologies, Inc.
URLdistributed.net
LaunchedFebruary 1997
Current statusActive

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).[1] The RC5-72 project is on pace to exhaust the keyspace in just under 37 years as of January 2025,[2] 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[3] 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.[4]

In 2001, distributed.net was estimated to have a throughput of over 30 TFLOPS.[5] As of August 2019, the throughput was estimated to be the same as a Cray XC40, as used in the Lonestar 5 supercomputer,[6] or around 1.25 petaFLOPs.[7]

  1. ^ "RC5-72 project page". distributed.net.
  2. ^ "RC5-72 / Overall Project Stats". rsa.com. Archived from the original on 2023-09-17.
  3. ^ "RSA Laboratories Secret-Key Challenge". rsa.com. Archived from the original on 2007-07-06.
  4. ^ "RC5-72 Continuation Announcement". distributed.net.
  5. ^ "distributed.net mailing list archive".
  6. ^ "Distributed.net: Staff blogs – 2019 – August – 23".
  7. ^ "TACC's Lonestar 5 Supercomputer Now in Full Production".

Previous Page Next Page