TCLUG Archive
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [TCLUG:818] Running RC5 automatically



Carlos Sabo wrote:
> 
> I'm sorry but what's RC5?

Hey Carlos and anyone else who's interested,

Bovine RC5 is sponsored by distributed.net and is an effort to crack*
the RSA Labs 64-bit encryption key. Basically, you download a client
from their server and, using your CPU's spare computing cycles, you try
to decode their secret message. The person who happens to download and
process the correct key gets a a portion of RSA's $10k prize. You can
also work on the project as part of a team.

While I'm on the subject, <advertisement> there's a Sibley H.S. team
that I'll be starting with my students this fall. We're team #3997,
Sibley Warrior Science. Our winnings will be used to buy more hardware
for the science dept. </advertisement>

You can get all the info you want and download an RC5 client at
http://www.distributed.net/rc5/

Later,
Tim

* I don't think it's quite proper to refer to this effort as code
"cracking." Distributed.net is using massive computing power and the
brute force approach of trying every single combination (a daunting task
when you consider the 2^64 possible combinations).

-- 
Timothy Wilson		 |  Powered by Linux  |      Check out:
Henry Sibley High School |                    | http://www.redhat.org
West St. Paul, MN  USA	 |  Proud Linux user  | http://www.linux.org
wilson@chem.umn.edu	 |    since 2.0.32    | http://www.gnu.org