Distributed Rc5 Decryption as a Consumer for Idle-time Brokerage

RSA Data Security, Inc. is sponsoring contests to prove the (in-)security of miscellaneous cryptographic algorithms as DES or RC5. We have joined RSA’s RC5 contest by combining idle CPU power from users visiting a web site. Via an embedded Java RC5 applet down-loading and testing RC5 keys from the web server it was originating from, visitors can participate and donate idle CPU cycles without hassle for the secret key contests. This example of distributed computing with Java applets served as a base to further explore the possibilities Java is offering for the brokerage of idle CPU resources on the Internet. Our new concept – provider orientation, low overhead, working incentives and new, modest applications – solves deficiencies of related full-grown, user-oriented distributed computing environments and gives way to a propagation of an electronic idle-time market focused on the mainstream Internet user as providers of idle computing time.