mkb is recalling the everything2 distributed.net team to active duty for the RC5-72 contest. This involves donating your otherwise wasted CPU cycles towards a collective brute force attempt at deciphering an encrypted text message.
This is a long-term effort and involves installing a small piece of client software on your system (and that of everyone else who will permit it). This client will sit in the background and run at the lowest priority (this means it will not steal processing time from any other application that needs it or otherwise slow down your system), and use the spare CPU time to process blocks of keys in search of the winning one. The expertise required to participate is minimal and help is readily available.
Should one of the team members find the correct key, E2 and the member would each earn USD 1000, with another USD 8000 going to other worthy causes.
2003-01-26: Every block takes us higher. We are now in the top 100 teams and still climbing rapidly. 144 noders have made Team Everything the seventh largest team in the contest and taken us as high as #11 in the daily standings.
This is also a reminder for people with old clients to upgrade to 2.90. Setting earlier versions to 'RC5' will NOT work for the RC5-72 contest.