(New York, 1 April 2005) The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Hash Collisions distributed research Network (SETHashCol Net) was announced today in New York. Its purpose is to search for pairs of one megabyte random strings which generate the same hash code. Researchers believe that these strings will aid in locating wormholes in the universe which will enable immediate transit to distant galaxies. The two random strings define the locations of the entrance and exit of the wormhole. When two string have the same hash code, this means that the corresponding locations in spacetime connect to the same wormhole nexus.
Volunteer computer owners can download the SETHashCol software from www.sethashcol.net. The software requires several gigabytes of scratch disk storage and a broadband network connection. It uses a configurable amount of network bandwidth. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The first user to discover a hash collision which represents a nearby wormhole will be eligible to join the expedition to explore it. Nodes of the SETHashCol net generate new random strings, calculate the hash code, and send the string to the peer which specializes in that region of the hash code spectrum. That peer records the string on scratch disk and checks to see if it has another string with the same hash code. Peers which specialize in nearby hash codes keep track of which codes their neighbors are dealing with, and exchange strings as needed to avoid overlaps. ... In other news, as the traffic on SETHashCol net increases, the load on FreeNet has dropped and users are experiencing much faster page load time and fewer missing files. One researcher said, "It's just a coincidence. There is no real connection between the two projects. A Freenet node operator remarked, "We are amazed and jealous at how many more nodes and total storage the SETHashCol project was able to obtain. I guess people care more about visiting other galaxies that ensuring free speech, especially when protecting free speech might get them arrested. Maybe they hope there will be free speech in the other galaxies." There are some strange connections, though. Your correspondent has observed many FreeNet nodes contributing random strings to SETHashCol net. "We have lots of randomness, and they need it for their vital search for wormholes," says one FreeNet node operator. When asked about messages from SETHashCol net to FreeNet, he explained "SETHashCol net sometimes needs to dispose of excess order without losing entropy. Instead of generating entirely new random strings, sometimes they encrypt or scramble existing random strings. They need to forget about how this was done without wasting entropy doing it. So they send the information (excess order) to FreeNet. FreeeNet needs all the order it can get." -- Ed Huff :-) pgp.mit.edu 7933 71DB 3085 F43F BF3F 46B4 25F2 83B2 D5FA 1719 _______________________________________________ devl mailing list devl at freenetproject.org http://hawk.freenetproject.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl
