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DC Today | |
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1988- Members Arjen K. Lenstra and Mark S. Manasse of the DEC System Research Center write software that distributes factoring tasks among workstations within and outside of their laboratory in Palo Alto. Both tasks and results are sent via electronic mail.
1990- Lenstra and Manasse with a group of one hundred other people factor numbers
of 100 decimal digits.
1993- 600 volunteers join the Lenstra-Manasse factoring effort to factor a 129-digit
number, or RSA-129, as a challenge issued by RSA Security. They win a $100 prize.
1995- Another factoring effort is attempted and successful as another RSA challenge,
RSA-130 - a 130-digit number - is factored via email as well as a World Wide
Web interface. 1995- A group at Duke University use a dozen workstations to prove that there
isn’t a 19-mark Golomb ruler shorter than 246 units. 1996- David Vanderschel and Mark Garry create a software program called GVANT
to check the 19-mark optimal Golomb ruler for optimality. After confirming the
existing ruler is optimal, they look to the internet for more collaborators,
and later become known as the “original OGR project.” January, 1996- GIMPS launches, and within a month gains 40 users and 50 computers. November, 1996- GIMPS has its first victory, as user Joel Armengaud finds the
world record prime. November, 1996- With seven users, the original OGR begins its search for an
new optimal Golomb ruler of 20 marks. 1997- Distributed computing organization Entropia is formed. Spring, 1997- The original OGR group discovers that the existing 20-mark Golomb
ruler is optimal and begins the search for a new 21-mark optimal Golomb ruler. March 20, 1997- distributed.net joins the RSA Security Labs’ challenge
to break the 56-bit encryption code as their first project. June, 1997- An internet collaboration called DESCHALL cracks the DES 56-bit
encryption and wins a challenge issued by RSA Security. August 24, 1997- GIMPS user Gordon Spence finds the new record breaking prime. August 26, 1997- Fabrice Bellard launches the PI Challenge, in which he and
others will use distributed computing to find the 1000 billionth binary digit
of pi. September 22, 1997- Fabrice Bellard and his PI Challenge group with 20 computers
discover the 1000 billionth binary digit of pi- ‘1.’ October 19, 1997- After 250 days of searching, RC5-56 comes to an end as distributed.net
client users find the secret key to unlock the 56-bit encryption code. The feat
causes many people to doubt the security of 56-bit encryption. The message:
“It’s time to move to a longer keylength.” January 13 1998- distributed.net joins another effort to break 56-bit encryption,
DES-II-1, again sponsored by RSA Security Labs. January 27, 1998- GIMPS sets another record as user Roland Clarson finds the
new world record prime. February 23, 1998- distributed.net breaks the DES 56-bit encryption after only
39 days of searching for the key. The message: “Many hands make light work.” March 21, 1998- College student Colin Perceival launches PiHex, an effort to
calculate the five-trillionth bit of pi. April 19, 1998- PiHex launches its second project- to calculate the forty trillionth
bit of pi. May 8, 1998- The last stub is returned to the original OGR project, and the
group of 100 finds that the existing 21-mark ruler is optimal. August 21, 1998- PiHex has its first victory- the five trillionth bit of pi
is found to be ‘0.’ September 6, 1998- PiHex begins calculations of the quadrillionth bit of pi.
January 19, 1999- distributed.net, in conjunction with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF), finds the key to decrypt another DES encrypted message in
less than 24 hours. The message: “See you in Rome.” February 9, 1999- PiHex has its second victory- 126 computers are used to discover
that the forty trillionth bit of pi is ‘0.’ April, 1999- Akamai launches a commercial website to advertise their service
to alleviate internet congestion problems. May 17, 1999- SETI@home officially launches with clients available for UNIX,
Mac, and Windows users June 1, 1999- GIMPS user Nayan Hajratwala finds the current world record prime. November 17, 1999- distributed.net releases clients for the CSC challenge, another
challenge to show the weakness of 56-bit encryption, issued by CS Communications
and Systems. December 29, 1999- Digital Island and Sand Piper complete their merge, making
Digital Island an even more powerful player in the content delivery market.
January, 2000- Marc Hedlund and Nelson Minar found Popular Power, a commercial
and non-commercial distributed computing venture. January 16, 2000- distributed.net fulfills the CS Communications and Systems
CSCs encryption February 15, 2000- distributed.net begins their search for OGR, but must quit
a week later when buffering between files becomes corrupted. April 12, 2000- ProcessTree and DCypher.net merge under Distributed Science. April 20, 2000- 20,000 people register their interest in RAL’s Climate
Dynamics project, Casino-21, which will simulate the earth’s climate in
the 20th and 21st centuries. May 4, 2000- SETI@home enhances their screensaver client by adding a pulse detection
feature that can search for both strong and weak pulses that regularly occur. May 16, 2000- The two millionth user signs up for SETI@home. June 13, 2000- SETI@home scientists begin to compile returned data and find
that interesting spikes occur January 17-21. They are somewhat disappointed
upon learning that those results were the effect of an Arecibo malfunction. July 8, 2000- Evolutionary-research goes online with hopes of releasing a client
later this year. July 13, 2000- distributed.net’s OGR project is relaunched with a better
client and smaller work-units. July 24, 2000- Digital Island releases Footprints Secure, software that allows e-Business content delivery. |