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Project Bovine - The distributed RC5 effort

In the U.S., there is a tight control on any encryption technology using keys longer than 64 bits. For that reason and the fact that there are comparatively loose approaches to encryption control in other countries, federal regulators in the U.S. have been subjected to quite a barrage of criticism.

In fact, according to the Cryptography and Liberty 1999 international survey of encryption policy, (http://www.epic.org/reports/crypto1999.html), "In the vast majority of countries, cryptography may be freely used, manufactured and sold without restriction."

"How does this affect me?" you ask. Well, since Canada is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, you get a taste of this retentiveness every time you download the patch to upgrade your copy of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer for 128 bit encryption.

Academic arguments don't always get you very far in government circles, so one of the major critics of the U.S. government's encryption regulations decided to crack the key. The logic was that, once the 64 bit key was cracked, the U.S. government would feel compelled to leave the 64 bit key unregulated and move on to regulating any encryption key longer than, say, 128 bits. This task would require searching through almost 69 billion blocks of key space. It's the second encryption challenge that Project Bovine has attempted, the first being RSA Labs' 56 bit secret-key challenge.

To harness the power of distributed computing, the huge job was broken down into almost 69 billion smaller jobs, or blocks. To appreciate the magnitude of the task, think of the RC5 Project as a hotel with 68,719,476,735 locked doors and one that's unlocked. The project's aim is to coordinate the help of as many computers and computer users as possible in the search for that one unlocked door. At the time this article was written, there were 38,923 participants actively working on cracking blocks.

All the 486 users, there at home, will be happy to know that the prize does not necessarily go to the swiftest. In fact, the first person who finds the block that solves the 64 bit key gets (US)$1,000. If he belongs to a team, his team gets $1,000. to split among themselves. There's also (US)$6,000. for the charity of the winner's choice. It's very much like a lottery. If you have serious CPU power on your side, then your chances are naturally much better. If you want to see how well you're doing, you can check the Project Bovine statistics page.

To get involved, you only need a couple of specific items. First, you need a computer running any one of the operating systems mentioned in the supported operating systems list. You also need an Internet connection of some kind. If you're on a dedicated (full-time) connection, you can set your client up to download and submit blocks pretty much non-stop. If you have dial-up Internet service, you can configure your client to download blocks when you are connected, work on them 'offline', and then submit the completed blocks when you go back online. This process is called lurking.

To get your free distributed RC5 client, simply visit the Project Bovine download page (http://www.distributed.net/clients.html). The client software can be run invisibly on your computer and will only grab CPU resources that you aren't using. In most cases, you won't even know that it's there.

The system that coordinates the whole RC5 effort is constantly online, constantly passing out unfinished key blocks and receiving finished key blocks. At the end of each day, the blocks are tallied up by the system and statistics are generated for all of the active users. Your statistics (http://stats .distributed.net/rc5-64) will show you how many blocks you 'cracked' the day before, the average rate at which you've been cracking blocks and the total number of blocks you've cracked. Click on your e-mail address in the statistics chart and you can even find out what percentage of the entire key space you have cracked. (Sadly, my total is only about 0.00002293 per cent).

Since it started, Project Bovine has enlisted the help of 202,959 computer users in the effort to crack the 64 bit encryption key. In this corner of the world, I and others have assembled a small but dedicated group of key-crackers. Six of us are working to at least make a ripple in the ocean of unfinished blocks. While we don't reasonably expect to crack the winning key (according to the RC5 statistics page, the odds are 1 in 10,343 that our team will find the key before anyone else does), it is fun to pit each other's home and work systems against each other. And, if nothing else, it gives us a chance to rev our CPUs at each other.

Our local Web site can be found at: http://members.kingston.net/jcrowe

Anyone who wants to join us or who has questions about the RC5 effort is invited to visit the page!