| Sajha.com Archives | |
| Username | Post |
| Gandhi | Posted
on 10-Mar-02 10:41 PM
I read in a website that some free internet service providers use individual's computer for computational uses in return to the free service to the users. Their terms and condition also says that the user allows the ISP to install computational software and the user is required to leave the computer turned on while the user is not using. My question as a lay man of the computer field, how do these companies install computer software into the individual user's computer? What type of computational software is that? What type of computational works can they do this way? How is the work done? How safe is the user from being stolen of his/her personal profiles/information from that computer? Biswo, Sainju, San, ......, ...., ....... can any one explain this? |
| Sangey | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 09:08 AM
Gandhi-ji, It's called Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing. Few years ago, NASA took this initiative for their Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program. Basically, the idea was to harness the idle processing power of all the computers around the world and use that to search for ET. When you are not using the computer, you just leave it on so that this software will continuously use your processor to do computational math. This way, SETI would have resources of huge huge computer without having to invest in one. Quite an innovative idea, back then. I would guess this program you are talking about is similar. The ISP would probably install it when you sign up for their service. It works in the background, so you would probably not be affected by it during your regular work. For what computional purpose they are using it, I don't know, you'll have to find out. I would recommend investigating the security issue before allowing them to use your processor. Hope this helps. Sangey. |
| Sangey | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 09:15 AM
Whoa! Why is my name coming up as an originator of this thread? Bug in the system... |
| Paakhe | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 03:26 PM
Sangey, SETI was initiated by NASA, but peer-to-peer version of SETI (SETI@Home) was not initiated by it. Actually, earlier SETI initiative of NASA was abandoned after few years. The p2p version was initiated at SSL (Space Science Laboratory) of University of California by a former student to do the thing you've already mentioned in your earlier reply. |
| Sangey | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 08:57 PM
Thanks Mr. P One learns new things every day. |
| walter | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 11:12 PM
another great example of harnessing the power of idle computers. This one's called YETI@home. check it out! |
| waler | Posted
on 11-Mar-02 11:14 PM
The url is - http://www.phobe.com/yeti/ |
| Biswo | Posted
on 12-Mar-02 01:08 AM
Interesting infos. As long as I know, private PCs are not used for p2p computing. Anyway,why fret over it? Reaching out to Mars is a common cause we all can unite for! Kaso Gandhiji? Why not contact the Colsa guy in Huntsville, NASA office directly? |
| Paakhe | Posted
on 12-Mar-02 08:12 AM
Biswo; Concept of p2p is to use the unused power residing at the edge of the internet, also called 'dark matters of the internet' likening that with dark matter of the universe, which are computing resources normally left as client only. And if you check out the site of SETI@Home, you will see a person titled as the user of the day. There are other p2p projects like, JXTA, Gnutella, Freenet, Publius etc. some of them utilize private user computers and other use anonymous but always on server to provide anonymous service. BTW, JXTA is a platform to develop p2p applications. |
| cyberpal | Posted
on 12-Mar-02 12:35 PM
have you looked into JXTA. I've started digging around a little. Seems quite interesting. |
| Paakhe | Posted
on 12-Mar-02 01:54 PM
I know the general architecture of JXTA. But I haven't been able to execute the sample downloads provided at the JXTA website. Everytime I try to run them, I get errors like: "cannot resolve symble xxx". Do you have any idea? Have you written any of your own class using JXTA platform? I think I haven't downloaded enough .jar files. I am not sure. thanks. |