Defending “Moo! Wrapper” & “Distributed.net”

One of the main complaints in the recent push by some to de-list “Moo! Wrapper” from Gridcoin is that the project is not scientific and is not doing any useful work. Today I will seek to provide an example of how this project is actually useful.

First some Background.

What is Gridcoin?

“Gridcoin is an open source cryptocurrency (Ticker: GRC) which securely rewards volunteer computing performed upon the BOINC platform in a decentralized manner on top of proof of stake.
BOINC is an open-source volunteer computing grid which combines the processing power of all individual users for the purposes of scientific research. It's free, production ready and many projects already harness volunteered computing power to attempt to cure cancer/AIDS/Ebola/malaria, map the Milky Way galaxy, crack Enigma machine codes, etc.. “
https://gridcoin.us

What is Moo! Wrapper?

“Moo! Wrapper brings together BOINC volunteer computing network resources and the Distributed.net projects. It allows a BOINC Client to participate in the RC5-72 challenge.”
https://moowrap.net

What is Distributed.net?

”distributed.net was the Internet's first general-purpose distributed computing project.
Founded in 1997, our network has grown to include thousands of volunteers around the world donating the power of their home computers, cell phones and tablets to academic research and public-interest projects. Join us today in this ground-breaking cloud computing experience! We need your help... “
https://www.distributed.net

Onto the Steak (geddit) of the article

First we will go back to 2002 when Wired had this to say about the project

“When Distributed.net set up shop in 1997 to test various forms of encryption by essentially breaking through them, organizers figured it could take 100 years to uncover the RC5-64 sequence due to limited computer power and the fact that so many people would have to participate in the effort. Still, they forged ahead.

"We had confidence the rate would improve and that Moore's Law would help us cut down on that time," said David "Nugget" McNett, president of Distributed.net.”

……

“While the accomplishment of breaking the 64-bit encryption standard is noteworthy, there are even greater challenges ahead for Distributed.net.

Next up is breaking through RC5-72, RSA's next highest encryption key. RSA also has a 128-bit key, but trying to break a key that long is practically impossible because there are so many combinations of keys to consider, McNett said.

"Major advances would have to be made in keyrate processing before that would be even approachable," he said.”

https://www.wired.com/2002/10/codebusters-crack-encryption-key (2002)

Well 15 years later despite those “Major advances in keyrate processing” we are still hacking away at it, even with computers orders of magnitude faster. Back in 1997 they thought that 62bit encryption keys would theoretically take 100 years to crack and then cracked it within 5 years with an applied experiment.

By definition throwing computing power at even this old key, we are disproving that brute force attacks are possible against even modest key lengths even with hardware that would have been difficult to imagine 15 years ago.

Now onto 2006

“Imagine a computer that is the size of a grain of sand that can test keys against some encrypted data. Also imagine that it can test a key in the amount of time it takes light to cross it. Then consider a cluster of these computers, so many that if you covered the earth with them, they would cover the whole planet to the height of 1 meter. The cluster of computers would crack a 128-bit key on average in 1,000 years.”

“However, 2^32 isn't necessarily a very large set of keys when you're performing a brute force attack with a worldwide distributed network of computers. Such as the RC5 distributed computing project. Here's what they've done so far:
• A 56-bit key was cracked in 250 days.
• A 64-bit key was cracked in 1,757 days.
• A 72-bit key is still being cracked; 1,316 days so far with 379,906 days remaining.

The earliest 56-bit challenge, which ended in 1997, tested keys at a rate of 1.6 million per second. The ongoing 72-bit challenge is currently testing keys at the rate of 139.2 million per second. We're testing keys 88 times faster than we were 10 years ago, through natural increases in computing power and additional computers added to the distributed computing network.

And yet the RC5-72 project still has 1,040 years to go before they test the entire keyspace. Remember, that's for a lousy 72-bit key! If we want to double the amount of time the brute force attack will take, all we need to do is tack on one teeny, tiny little bit to our key. 73-bit key? 2,080 years. 74-bit key? 4,160 years.”

https://blog.codinghorror.com/brute-force-key-attacks-are-for-dummies/ (2006)

So Distributed.net and “Moo! Wrapper” are a living breathing experimental proof that this is currently still true. As long as it continues, it continues to prove that today even modest encryption key lengths are realistically as secure against brute force attacks as the longest of bit length keys.

This project still has value, even today it has and is proving that even with the move to GPU computing, for all its increase in performance, it still is not enough. Note that with the GPU computing revolution the key-test rate is now over 492,477 million per second, based on the above quoted article we are capable of testing keys at over 3500 times faster than 12 years ago.

As exponential growth of computing power continues, more powerful computers become available and with step changes in computing power on the horizon (Quantum Computing?) this ongoing project will continue to provide experimental proof of key length resistance to a realistic brute force attack.

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Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. If you have found this post useful please consider upvoting, resteeming and/or following me.

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