cracking for RC5....need some ?'s answered

[blurredvision]

Ok guys, I'm thinking of doing this cracking RC5 thing just for the hell of it, to kind of give my computer a workout. I just need a few questions answered about this whole deal. Here goes:

1.) If I was to begin cracking for RC5, I presume it would be easy to setup, correct? I have gotten the PM from dennilfloss before. Would it matter if I joined a sub-group under Anandtech, and what are the benifits of doing so?

2.) When cracking, what exactly goes on about cracking and uploading scores? It's my understanding that the program runs in the background at all times, right? And if so, does it only crack when the computer is idle for a certain amount of time? And does it crack all the time, or only when I'm connected the internet? Or can I let my computer crack all night long, then hop on the internet in the morning and upload the stats of what was done overnight? For those wondering, I do have a dial-up connection, if that wasn't blatently obvious.🙂

3.) Is the process of uploading scores easy?? I would assume it would be, but don't really want to have to go through a bunch of screens on my slow-ass connection, and drive me crazy just trying to help out.

4.) What are the benefits of doing this, and will I get anything out of it? I don't WANT anything out of it really, I just want to be aware of the whole situation before I get into it.

5.) If I do this for a couple of weeks, and decide not to do it anymore, am I under any obligation to keep going for a certain amount of time?

6.) Can there be any adverse effects on my processor if it pushed to hard? I've heard from many people that this was a good 'burn-in' program.

Thanks for your time. I'm gonna head off to bed, and hopefully there will be some responses to my questions. When I get up in the morning, I'll check here, and if I like what I hear, I might go ahead and sign up for it. If you can, PM me some info on it as well, I'm sure I might hear from Dennilfloss again.🙂

 

[BurntKooshie]

1.) If I was to begin cracking for RC5, I presume it would be easy to setup, correct? I have gotten the PM from dennilfloss before. Would it matter if I joined a sub-group under Anandtech, and what are the benifits of doing so?

Its not tough to set up. Its even easier if you want to do the Borg Floppy version. That means that you're doing a subteam, which means you get all the perks associated with being borg. A borg page, an Integral designation, your herd count, etc. Its not too tough to set it up for your own account, just ask any/all questions you have 😉 You can choose among many other subteams should you choose (often called mini-teams).

2.) When cracking, what exactly goes on about cracking and uploading scores? It's my understanding that the program runs in the background at all times, right? And if so, does it only crack when the computer is idle for a certain amount of time? And does it crack all the time, or only when I'm connected the internet? Or can I let my computer crack all night long, then hop on the internet in the morning and upload the stats of what was done overnight? For those wondering, I do have a dial-up connection, if that wasn't blatently obvious.

Well, that depends. It can crack without a 'net connection, which is great! If the computer does not have one, then you'll need to "sneakernet" by copy/pasting the "buffer files" from one computer to another via floppy or whatever. It can be setup so that it downloads a lot of work (read: Work Units), and store them, finish them up, and then send them in ONLY when you are ALREADY online (it won't dial up itself). Or there are other alternatives 😉

3.) Is the process of uploading scores easy?? I would assume it would be, but don't really want to have to go through a bunch of screens on my slow-ass connection, and drive me crazy just trying to help out.

Yep. Easy as two clicks in most worst case senerios (you don't have a nasty firewall, do you?). Best case, you don't have to do anything at all 🙂 Just connect to the 'net every so often, and you'll be fine.

4.) What are the benefits of doing this, and will I get anything out of it? I don't WANT anything out of it really, I just want to be aware of the whole situation before I get into it.

We have a GAMEBOX in the works. We get together at times for "fly-ins", where we meet each other, play some games if people want, or just hang out.

STATS! lots of stats 😉 You'll see what I mean....

5.) If I do this for a couple of weeks, and decide not to do it anymore, am I under any obligation to keep going for a certain amount of time?

Not at all. You can stop any time. I still maintain that I can quit ANY time.

6.) Can there be any adverse effects on my processor if it pushed to hard? I've heard from many people that this was a good 'burn-in' program.

It can make a bad situation worse. If your processor/cooling situation is fine, meaning, there is NOTHING wrong with your CPU, nothing will happen. If there is a slight problem, maybe a cooling problem, which you've never noticed before, you might notice it now. It can make a bad situation worse, but normal situations remain the same. I've been running it for nearly 2 years now.😀

Cheers

 

[Fardringle]

1. Once you download the client, it's not hard to set up at all.

2. 'Cracking' is only done when the computer is idle. There isn't any delay between when you stop using the computer and when the client starts working as it will constantly be using ANY idle CPU cycles, even if you are using the computer. (But it will only use the CPU cycles which you are not actually using at the time...) You do not have to be connected to the Internet to run any Distributed Computing project. You download the amount of work you want to 'queue' and then let your computer go at it. When the computer finishes working on the information you have given it, you can choose to either have it automatically connect to the Internet to get more work, or wait until you manually connect.

3. Yep, it's pretty much automatic.

4. It's fun, and you get to help the best team on the planet (this applies to ANY of the DC projects)! 🙂

5. No obligation at all. In fact, many people sign up and then never process any work at all...

6. The only possible 'bad' part to running a DC client is if your computer does not have adequate cooling, in which case the processor may overheat and lock up the system, but if this were to happen when running RC5 or SETI or OGR (or any other client) then it would probably happen during your normal computer usage anyway...


EDIT: Heh...BK beat me to it. I guess that's what I get for trying to do some work while typing a post.. 😛

 

[BurntKooshie]

lol, mine got in juuuuust before yours 😉 That was close! 😀

 

[Adul]

I'll try to answer what I can

1.It is easy to setup. If you join a subgroup under Anandtech like tacube, the federation, The Naked Crakers, Crackheads, etc... your contribution would go to one whole total. You would not see an individual stat. The bennifit, you don't have to worry about join the team since that is already done.

2.It will crack on any free cpu clock cycles. So if your are using 50% of you cpu, it will use the other 50% unless some apps demand it and take it away. It will crack all the time and will upload to a keyserver when it needs to. If you dont have a 24/7 connection or do not connect often, then buffering up a lot of blocks is a good idea to keep from cracking randoms. You can also set it to fill your buffers whenever a net connection is detected.

3. Once installed everything else is handled by dnet.

4. Your helping by adding to the brute force needed to help find the key to an encrypted message that the RSA labs encrypted. The used their RC5-64 bit encryption scheme. 3 years and counting, and we are only 1/3 the way through the keyspace. Imagine how long a 128 bit key would take to find. ( someone else explain this better please)

5. No your not, join and leave has you see fit, though we will be saddened.

6. Only if you happen to have a very poor cooling solution, then you might have the processor run hot. But this is in only a few cases where very cheap cooling was used, or someone was doing some overclocking on the dge of stability. It is a good way to see if your system is stable has well.


Dang it, all that typing to get beaten 😛

 

[blurredvision]

You guys are talking about buffers and everything, how does that work? Is it like downloading something to be processed? If you do have to download something, how big are the files?

 

[divide by zero]

A 10K file will hold enough work to last for at least a week,
unless you have an in with Mr. Cray! 😉
If so, an introduction would be appreciated. 😀

[Edit]
The client software will automatically refill the "buff-in" file when it flushes the completed blocks from the "buff-out" file. You can set how many blocks (work units) you want to have in your buff-in.

 

[danzigrules]

THIS is the easiest way to have the client set up, What you download will set the client up the way that is right for rc5. The ones on the top are set up for the borg, the ones below for TA. The borg are part of TA BTW.

Hope that helps