a distributed attack on the Sierpinski problem. The problem deals with numbers of the form N = k2n + 1, for odd k and n > 1. Numbers in this form are called Proth numbers. If, for a particular value of k, every possible choice of n results in a composite (non-prime) Proth number N, that number k is called a Sierpinski number. The Sierpinski Problem asks "what is the smallest Sierpinski number?"