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{{Short description|Distributed computing organization}}
{{lowercase title|distributed.net}}
{{Infobox website
| name = distributed.net
| logo = [[Image:DistributedNetLogoW.jpg|200px|The distributed.net logo]]
| screenshot =
| caption =
| url = [http://www.distributed.net/ distributed.net]
| alexa =
| type = [[Volunteer computing]]
| language =
| registration =
| owner = Distributed Computing Technologies, Inc.
| author =
| launch_date = February 1997
| current_status = Active
| revenue =
}}
'''Distributed.net''' is a [[volunteer computing]] effort that is attempting to solve large scale problems using otherwise [[Idle (CPU)|idle CPU]] or [[Graphics processing unit|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).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.distributed.net/RC5/|title=RC5-72 project page|publisher=distributed.net}}</ref> The RC5-72 project is on pace to exhaust the keyspace in just under 36 years as of July 2025,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://stats.distributed.net/projects.php?project_id=8 |title=RC5-72 / Overall Project Stats |publisher=rsa.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230917103047/https://stats.distributed.net/projects.php?project_id=8 |archive-date=2023-09-17 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2100|title=RSA Laboratories Secret-Key Challenge|publisher=rsa.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070706195654/http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2100|archive-date=2007-07-06}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2008/09/08/02/09/bovine/|title=RC5-72 Continuation Announcement|publisher=distributed.net}}</ref>

In 2001, distributed.net was estimated to have a [[throughput]] of over 30 [[FLOPS|TFLOPS]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.distributed.net/pipermail/rc5/2001-June/037127.html|title=distributed.net mailing list archive}}</ref> {{as of|2019|8}}, the throughput was estimated to be the same as a [[Cray XC40]], as used in the Lonestar 5 [[supercomputer]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2019/08/23/02/44/mikereed|title=Distributed.net: Staff blogs – 2019 – August – 23}}</ref> or around 1.25 petaFLOPs.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/taccs-lonestar-5-supercomputer-now-full-production|title=TACC's Lonestar 5 Supercomputer Now in Full Production}}</ref>

==History==
A coordinated effort was started in February 1997 by [[Earle Ady]] and [[Christopher G. Stach II]] of [[Yahoo! HotJobs|Hotjobs.com]] and New Media Labs, as an effort to break the RC5-56 portion of the [[RSA Secret-Key Challenge]], a 56-[[bit]] [[encryption]] algorithm that had a $10,000 [[United States Dollar|USD]] prize available to anyone who could find the [[key (cryptography)|key]]. Unfortunately, this initial effort had to be suspended as the result of [[SYN flood]] attacks by participants upon the server.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,2350,00.html|first=James|last=Glave|title=Macho Computing at Root of RSA Contest Flap|publisher=Wired|date=1997-03-03}}</ref>

A new independent effort, named distributed.net, was coordinated by Jeffrey A. Lawson, Adam L. Beberg, and David C. McNett along with several others who would serve on the board and operate infrastructure. By late March 1997 new proxies were released to resume RC5-56 and work began on enhanced clients. A [[Cattle|cow]] head was selected as the icon of the application and the project's mascot.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faq.distributed.net/?file=80|title=What's with all the cows?|publisher=distributed.net}}</ref>

The RC5-56 challenge was solved on October 19, 1997, after 250 days. The correct key was "0x532B744CC20999" and the [[plaintext]] message read "The unknown message is: It's time to move to a longer key length".<ref name="distributed.net: Project RC5">{{Cite web|url=http://www.distributed.net/RC5|title=distributed.net: Project RC5|website=www.distributed.net|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref>

The RC5-64 challenge was solved on July 14, 2002, after 1,757 days. The correct key was "0x63DE7DC154F4D039" and the plaintext message read "The unknown message is: Some things are better left unread".<ref name="distributed.net: Project RC5"/>

The search for [[Optimal Golomb Rulers]] (OGRs) of order 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 were completed by distributed.net on 13 October 2004, 25 October 2008, 24 February 2009, 19 February 2014, and 23 November 2022 respectively.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2004/11/01/10/24/nugget/|title=distributed.net: staff blogs – 2004 – November – 01|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2008/10/25/23/14/bovine/|title=distributed.net: staff blogs – 2008 – October – 25|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2009/02/24/17/26/bovine/|title=distributed.net: staff blogs – 2009 – February – 24|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.distributed.net/2014/02/25/16/09/mikereed/|title=distributed.net: staff blogs – 2014 – February – 25|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2022/11/23/03/28/bovine/|title=distributed.net: staff blogs – 2022 – November – 23|language=en-US|access-date=2022-12-29}}</ref>

==Client==
"DNETC" is the file name of the [[software application]] which users run to participate in any active distributed.net project. It is a command line program with an interface to configure it, available for a wide variety of platforms.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.distributed.net/Download_clients|title=distributed.net: Client Downloads|website=www.distributed.net|access-date=2019-04-22}}</ref> distributed.net refers to the software application simply as the "client". {{As of|2019|April|df=}}, volunteers running 32-bit Windows with AMD FireStream enabled GPUs have contributed the most processing power to the RC5-72 project<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=8&view=tco|title=stats.distributed.net - RC5-72 CPU Participation|website=stats.distributed.net|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref> and volunteers running 64-bit Linux have contributed the most processing power to the OGR-28 project.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=28&view=tco|title=stats.distributed.net - OGR-28 CPU Participation|website=stats.distributed.net|access-date=2019-04-23}}</ref>

Portions of the source code for the client are publicly available, although users are not permitted to distribute modified versions themselves.<ref name="publicsource">{{cite web|url=http://distributed.net/source/|title=Public source code|publisher=distributed.net|access-date=2010-01-23|archive-date=2012-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120523202532/http://www.distributed.net/Source|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Distributed.net's RC5-72 project is available on the [[BOINC]] client through the [[Moo! Wrapper]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://moowrap.net/ | title = Moo! Wrapper | publisher = Moo! Wrapper | access-date = 2019-03-08}}</ref>

==Development of GPU-enabled clients==
[[Image:Average RC5-72 production.png|thumb|350px|Average daily RC5-72 production by platform for 26 May 2024 – 4 January 2025<ref name="currentwork">Calculated by subtracting the completed work units as of 4 January 2025 from the totals on 26 May 2024, creating a 223-day average.</ref>]]

In recent years, most of the work on the RC5-72 project has been submitted by clients that run on the [[Graphics processing unit|GPU]] of modern [[video card|graphics cards]]. Although the project had already been underway for almost 6 years when the first GPUs began submitting results, as of July 2025, GPUs represent almost 89% of all completed work units,<ref name="platformlist">{{cite web |url=http://stats.distributed.net/misc/platformlist.php?project_id=8&view=tco |title=RC5-72 / CPU Participation |publisher=distributed.net |access-date=27 July 2025}}</ref> and complete more than 95% of all work units each day.<ref name="currentwork" />

*NVIDIA
:In late 2007, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on [[NVIDIA]] [[CUDA]]-enabled hardware, with the first completed work units reported in November 2008. On high-end NVIDIA video cards at the time, upwards of 600 million keys/second was observed<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cgi.distributed.net/speed/query.php?cputype=all&arch=4&contest=rc572&multi=3|title=Client Speeds Database (GPU RC5-72 search)|publisher=distributed.net|access-date=27 February 2014}}</ref> For comparison, a 2008-era high-end single [[Central processing unit|CPU]] working on RC5-72 achieved about 50 million keys/second, representing a very significant advancement for RC5-72. As of July 2025, CUDA clients have completed almost 11% of all work on the RC5-72 project, and perform almost 9% of the work each day.<ref name="platformlist" />

*AMD / ATI
:Similarly, near the end of 2008, work began on the implementation of new RC5-72 cores designed to run on [[AMD FireStream]]-enabled hardware. Some of the products in the Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series provided key rates in excess of 1.8 billion keys/second.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=19780660&sid=19c2e0958c0248dfd2cae221f5e737c1#p19780660 |title=Benchmark results for Radeon HD 5870 |publisher=MrJackson2000 |date=April 1, 2010}}</ref> As of January 2025, FireStream clients have completed over 19% of all work on the RC5-72 project.<ref name="platformlist" /> Daily production from FireStream clients has dropped below 0.5% as the majority of AMD GPU contributors now use the OpenCL client.<ref name="platformlist" />

*OpenCL
:An [[OpenCL]] client entered beta testing in late 2012 and was released in 2013. As of January 2025, OpenCL clients have completed more than 58% of all work on the RC5-72 project, and now perform 86% of the work each day. No breakdown of OpenCL production by GPU manufacturer exists, as AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel GPUs all support OpenCL.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2010-01-16 |title=[TEST] GPU Computing - GeForce and Radeon OpenCL Test (Part 3) {{!}} Geeks3D |url=https://www.geeks3d.com/20100116/test-gpu-computing-geforce-and-radeon-opencl-test-part-3/ |access-date=2023-09-05 |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Timeline of distributed.net projects==
{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto"
! Timeline of projects hosted by distributed.net, {{as of|2025|Jul|lc=on}}
|-
|<timeline>
# All measures are in pixels

ImageSize = width:800 height:247
PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:20 top:10
AlignBars = justify

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy
Period = from:01/01/1997 till:07/27/2025
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1997

# there is no automatic collision detection,
# so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap

Define $dy = 25 # shift text to right side of bar

Colors=
id:yellow1 value:rgb(0.867,0.797,0.33)
id:yellow2 value:rgb(0.816,0.714,0.031)
id:yellow3 value:rgb(0.70,0.60,0.175)
id:blue1 value:rgb(0.418,0.543,0.950)
id:blue2 value:rgb(0.318,0.484,0.769)

PlotData=
bar:RC5 color:yellow width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:start till:10/19/1997 text:RC5-56 color:yellow1
from:10/29/1997 till:07/14/2002 text:RC5-64 color:yellow2
from:12/03/2002 till:end text:RC5-72 color:yellow3

bar:OGR color:blue1 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:07/14/2000 till:10/13/2004 text:OGR-24
from:10/26/2008 till:02/24/2009 text:OGR-26
from:02/19/2014 till:11/23/2022 text:OGR-28
bar:  color:blue2 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:08/01/2000 till:10/24/2008 text:OGR-25
from:02/24/2009 till:02/19/2014 text:OGR-27

bar:CSC color:orange width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:11/17/1999 till:01/16/2000 text:CSC

bar:DES color:green width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:01/13/1998 till:02/24/1998 text:DES-II-1

bar:    color:yellow1 width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:07/13/1998 till:07/17/1998 text:DES-II-2

bar:     color:purple width:25 mark:(line,white) align:center fontsize:S
from:01/18/1999 till:01/19/1999 text:DES-III

</timeline>
|}

; Current

* RSA Lab's 72-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge started 3 December 2002 — ''In progress'', 14.365% complete as of 26 July 2025<ref>{{cite web |title=RC5-72 Overall Project Stats |url=https://stats.distributed.net/projects.php?project_id=8 |access-date=26 July 2025 |publisher=distributed.net}}</ref> (although RSA Labs has discontinued sponsorship)

; [[Cryptography]]
* RSA Lab's 56-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — ''Completed 19 October 1997'' (after 250 days and 47% of the key space tested).
* RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-II-1 Encryption Challenge — ''Completed 23 February 1998'' (after 39 days)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.distributed.net/pipermail/announce/1998/000037.html|title=The secret message is...|author=David C. McNett|date=24 February 1998|publisher=distributed.net|access-date=27 February 2014|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304000105/http://lists.distributed.net/pipermail/announce/1998/000037.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-II-2 Encryption Challenge — ''Ended 15 July 1998'' (found independently by the [[EFF DES cracker]] after 2.5 days)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESCracker/HTML/19980716_eff_des_faq.html#doesitwork|title=The Electronic Frontier Foundation DES Cracker FAQ|date=16 July 1998|publisher=EFF|access-date=27 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170507231657/https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Crypto/Crypto_misc/DESCracker/HTML/19980716_eff_des_faq.html#doesitwork|archive-date=7 May 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* RSA Lab's 56-bit DES-III Encryption Challenge — ''Completed 19 January 1999'' (after 22.5 hours with the help of the EFF DES cracker)
* CS-Cipher Challenge — ''Completed 16 January 2000'' (after 60 days and 98% of the key space tested).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.distributed.net/CSC|title=CSC project page|date=16 January 2000|publisher=distributed.net|access-date=25 February 2016}}</ref>
* RSA Lab's 64-bit RC5 Encryption Challenge — ''Completed 14 July 2002'' (after {{age in days|1997|10|22|2002|7|14}} days and 83% of the key space tested).<ref name="history">{{cite web|url=http://www.distributed.net/History|title=History & Timeline|publisher=distributed.net}}</ref>

; Golomb rulers
* Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-24) — ''Completed 13 October 2004''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2004/11/01/10/24/nugget/|title=distributed.net is proud to announce the completion of OGR-24! |date=2004-11-01}}</ref> (after {{age in days|2000|7|14|2004|10|13}} days, confirmed predicted best ruler)
* Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-25) — ''Completed 24 October 2008''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2008/10/25/23/14/bovine/|title=distributed.net is proud to announce the completion of OGR-25!|date=2008-10-25}}</ref> (after {{age in days|2000|8|1|2008|10|24}} days, confirmed predicted best ruler)
* Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-26) — ''Completed 24 February 2009''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2009/02/24/17/26/bovine/|title=Howdy all|date=2009-02-24}}</ref> (after {{age in days|2008|10|26|2009|2|24}} days, confirmed predicted best ruler)
* Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-27) — ''Completed 19 February 2014''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2014/02/|title=OGR-27 Completion Announcement|date=2014-02-25}}</ref> (after {{age in days|2009|02|23|2014|2|19}} days, confirmed predicted best ruler)
* Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR-28) — ''Completed 23 November 2022''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.distributed.net/2022/11/23/03/28/bovine/|title=Completion of OGR-28 project|date=2022-11-23}}</ref> (after {{age in days|2014|2|19|2022|11|23}} days, confirmed predicted best ruler)

==See also==
* [[RSA Secret-Key Challenge]]
* [[Golomb Ruler]]
* [[DES Challenges]]
* [[Brute force attack]]
* [[Cryptanalysis]]
* [[Key size]]
* [[List of volunteer computing projects]]
* [[Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing]]

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==External links==
* [http://www.distributed.net/ Official website]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Distributed.Net}}
[[Category:Cryptographic attacks]]
[[Category:Volunteer computing projects]]
[[Category:Charities based in the United States]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1997]]
[[Category:Articles which contain graphical timelines]]

Distributed.net - Revision history

imported>Forcotis: Added links to other articles