              Information on distributed.net cracking and the
                 Acorn User Group  RC5/DES Cracking Effort


    Welcome to the Acorn User Group's RC5/DES cracking page.
    The Acorn User Group 'Team ID' is 4266. 


What is the RC5/DES project?

    This is a project incorporating thousands of computers around the globe,
    managed by distributed.net. Basicially, it is about legally decrypting
    messages. The RC5-64 contest is a long-term contest, and may take a
    couple of years to solve, while the DES contests, run twice a year,
    are short, and should take less than a month to solve. These tasks are
    achieved by using your computer's idle time to check whether a particular
    key is the correct one. As thousands of computers are involved, huge
    tasks can be accomplished, as has been proven in distributed.net's
    cracking of a 56 bit RC5 key.


Why would I want to join?

    The first reason is that you can win $1000 is you happen to find the
    correct key! The only slight problem is that the chances of this is
    around 18,446,743,900,000,000,000 to 1 per every key block tried.. 

    The second reason is fame. The more blocks you try, the higher up in the
    ranks you go. Also, if you have elected to join a team (similar to a
    lottery syndicate), your team's rank will get higher and higgher. If one
    of the members of your team finds the correct key, a further $1000 is
    distributed between all the members.


How do I become part of it?

    You will need to download a client for your particular platform in order
    to become connected to distributed.net. Visit http://www.distributed.net/
    and click on 'Moo: Download the client' to reach a listing of all
    different clients. From here you can download the client for any platform
    available; make sure you get the GUI version! 

    Once you download the client, unarchive it and run it. This should bring
    up a new icon at the right side of the icon bar. You must set it up
    before usage, with your e-mail address and buffer sizes, loggging,
    performance and startup options.


How do I setup the client?

    When you first load !RC5DES, it should bring up a configuration window.
    First of all, enter your e-mail address in the 'User' section. Leaving
    the 'Networking' and 'Connection' settings as they are shouuld be
    sufficient for now. 

    In the 'Buffers' section, you can choose how large you want your key
    blocks to be. Choosing a value of '28' will fetch the smallest blocks.
    This means that they will be decoded the quickest, but it onlyy counts
    as one block on your statistics. On the other hand, choosing a value of
    '31' will fetch the largest blocks. This means they will take longer to
    decode (8 times longer over a 2^28 block), but itt counts as 8 blocks
    on your statistics. 

    Leaving all other options as they are is enough to get you started. Once
    you get used to the client, it is advisable to change some of the other
    options.


What's the Acorn User Group?

    In the RC5-64 contests, you are allowed to join what is known as a
    'team'. Although you don't haveto join a team, they exist to show group
    strength, to advocate a platform etc. The only disadvantage to joining
    a team is that a partof the prize money that would normally go to you
    will be split with your team. 

    In the case of the Acorn User Group, it's main objective is to advocate
    the Acorn platform, and to get others to notice the Acorn platform. The
    main contact for this team is Ian Molton <ian@warwick.net>.


Briefly, how is the client used?

    Once you have configured the client and it is running, a white window
    should open with the current status of the client. After the words 'x
    RC5 blocks are in file buff-out/rc5', it may seem as though noothing is
    happening. What is actually happening is your first block decrypting.
    After a while, you will see a '.' appear on the screen. If you leave it
    a while longer, '10%' will appear. Once this gets to '100%', a block is
    completed. 

    If you wish to send this completed block to the distributed.net server,
    press menu over the window, go over to 'Network' and click on 'Perform
    network flush'.


How do I join the team?

    Before distributed.net can recognise you, you have to have submitted at
    least one block to a 'keyserver'. After an average of 24 hours since you
    submitted your first block, you should receive an e-mail from
    distributed.net telling you information on altering your user account. 

    To join a team, go to http://stats.distributed.net/ and search for your
    'personal page'. To do this, scroll down to the entry 'search for e-mail
    address' and enter your e-mail address, then click 'go'. You should be
    given a screen that shows your currennt rank, e-mail address, total
    blocks, time working, date of last block and average keyrate. Click on
    your e-mail address and you will be taken to your personal page. 

    If you haven't already received your password, scroll to the bottom where
    it says 'Mail me a password' and click. Then, wait for your password to
    arrive. if it hasn't arrived in your e-mail in 15 minutees or so, go
    back to your personal page and click 'Whoops! I can't seem to find m
     password. Can you send it to me again?' 

    Once your password arrives, enter your password on your personal page and
    click 'Edit participant information'. once inside, you'll see a screen
    with your e-mail address, team affiliation, charity selecctionand a
    button that says 'update participant information'. Here, enter the team
    id of the team you wish to join. In the case of the Acorn User Group,
    it is 4266. You may also wish to vote on where the charity part of the
    prize money will go at this time as well. When you're done, click
    'update participant information' 


Congratulations, you've just joined a team! 


-- 
http://www.alpha-programming.co.uk/
16th August 1998
