Worm CPU usage.

Thread View: comp.misc

3 messages

[T] Back to Threads [V] Tree View [G] Group Articles

3 total messages Started by pokey@well.UUCP Wed, 09 Nov 1988 09:55

#3851

Author: pokey@well.UUCP
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 1988 09:55

24 lines
1216 bytes

I've been thinging about how many CPU cycles the worm used in its
short but sweet rampage.  People have been tossing around the number
6000 for systems infected.  (Where did this number come from?)  Let's
say these machines averaged 2 MIPS each, and wildly guess that the
average length of infection was a day.  That comes out to (kachunk
kachunk) one quadrillion instructions.  This may well be the most CPU
power expended so far on a single problem.

Now, if we could harness that kind of power for useful work...  Imagine
a net-wide distributed ray-tracing service.  If you want something traced,
you send the NFF to a central clearinghouse.  All over the net, people
start ray tracing servers when they leave for the day.  These servers
connect up to the clearinghouse and fetch the scene description, and a
list of pixels to trace.  By morning, hundreds of scenes have been traced
and returned to their senders.  (Close your mouth, you're drooling.)

By the way, I spent Sunday doing the PostScript artwork for a worm
t-shirt.  Anyone interested in ordering one?
---
Jef

             Jef Poskanzer   jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov   ...well!pokey
      "Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" -- Ronald Reagan

Re: Worm CPU usage.

#3856

Author: desnoyer@Apple.C
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1988 01:01

10 lines
319 bytes

In article <7600@well.UUCP> pokey@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) writes:
> [estimate of CPU cycles used by virus]
>
>Now, if we could harness that kind of power for useful work...

Already been done. DEC just factored a huge number this way in the
last month or two. Made the papers and everything.

				Peter Desnoyers

Re: Worm CPU usage.

#3860

Author: rds95@leah.Alban
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1988 12:53

17 lines
962 bytes

In article <7600@well.UUCP>, pokey@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) writes:
> Now, if we could harness that kind of power for useful work...  Imagine
> a net-wide distributed ray-tracing service.  If you want something traced,
> you send the NFF to a central clearinghouse.  All over the net, people
> start ray tracing servers when they leave for the day.  These servers
> connect up to the clearinghouse and fetch the scene description, and a
> list of pixels to trace.  By morning, hundreds of scenes have been traced
> and returned to their senders.  (Close your mouth, you're drooling.)

I guess most of us [well, at least the groovier of us, anyway...] have
thought about this. Do we all need RPC? Why aren't we doing it now? They
do it at CMU, and apparently at DEC and elsewhere, so why not 'distributed
ray-tracing (or luminace modelling, or acid deposition modelling, or...)
for the rest of us'? I'd contribute my meager resources each night...

honest, rob

Thread Navigation

This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.

Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.

Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.

Back to All Threads