Been using Gridcoin to provide idle CPU capacity to BOINC projects. Works well - once you have it all setup - which can take some time.
Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
51–60 of 61 posts
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#52Well, it's WebAssembly, so there can't possibly be any exploits!
If there are exploits, it's definitely going to be all Bitcoin and the like. Impossible for anything to compete against literally stolen, free CPU. Interesting way to make crypto eco-friendly: acknowledge that even the most exploitative mining rigs can't economically compete against literal cpu-jacking at scale :)
CPUs cannot mine modern bitcoin in any capacity. Were at exahashes now.
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#53See also Popular Power from 2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Power
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#54With the right malware, your CPU rents itself as part of a Botnet. I remember doing the Seti at Home and Folding at Home projects as a screen saver that used CPU time to solve problems. That was for charity. How is this different than mining for Bitcoin or any other virtual currency? I want to make sure my CPU is not used for illegal means and then the FBI busted down my door because my CPU was part of a peer to peer…
> How is this different than mining for Bitcoin or any other virtual currency?
Bitcoin mining is finding y > I want to make sure my CPU is not used for illegal means and then the FBI busted down my door because my CPU was part of a peer to peer network serving [illegal material]?
You run the same risks every time you click a link in a web browser currently. It can execute WASM code and it has network access.
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#55https://www.golem.network/ Haven’t thought of these guys in a while.
http://elastos.info/ and https://cosmos.network/ give you building blocks to build something similar to https://golem.network/
https://orchid.com/ and https://mysterium.network/ are doing something similar but with network/bandwidth; whilst https://filecoin.com/ and https://sia.tech/ are focused on storage.
Got to say, despite HN's general aversion towards blockchain/crypto, the space is budding with some really interesting decentralized frameworks, platforms, and apps not possible before at this scale.
As evidenced by Coinbase's numbers, they seemed to have absolutely zoomed past Stripe, and so it looks like there's some undeniable momentum and velocity in web3 initiatives.
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#56In 2007 when distributed computing was still a New Kid On The Block, I shared an idea with a colleague for what I considered to be a good idea at the time: Distributed computing for hire. Families around the world have reasonable amounts of computing power that sits mostly unused; why not make a few bucks doing things similar to Folding@Home Seti@Home, but for a price? Get paid for your computations. Of course this w…
> In 2007 when distributed computing was still a New Kid On The Block [..] Distributed computing for hire.
I remember I was excited about that based on CORBA, ages ago. There was a paper where this was outlined (which I can't find).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Object_Request_Broker_A...
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#57I think this would only work if a known company backs this up and control the workload/program/users. Otherwise, it is a heaven for hackers/spammers
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#58>"RentMyCPU
An app made to compute tasks from other nodes in the network using your CPU and you earn money for that.
[...]
How it works
This app works with webassembly files. These files are executed in a sandboxed environment (because uwp apps are sandboxed by default). You have the ability to execute a webassembly file on many nodes. To differentiate the node on which the webassembly file is executed, a numeric parameter is passed."
What's the story with WebAssembly and sockets/API calls?
I assume that WebAssembly prevents whatever it is running from opening sockets and making API calls...
If it doesn't -- then how will you prevent Black Hats / ill-intentioned people -- from creating Bot and DDoS networks, and other mayhem?
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding (which is admittedly very little) though is that homomorphic encryption requires many times more computations compared to running on unencrypted data, so that could dampen it's usefulness.
Perhaps, but there is a LOT of unused capacity out there.
It's less of a resource problem and more of an allocation/networking problem though.
Most problems worth sourcing out requires a lot of data, and piping that through a home network connection to a "meh" CPU and back isn't that useful.
Even if you spend time divvying it up, I can't imagine it would be easier/cost effecitve than just spinning up an AWS node to get it done.
Re: Show HN: RentMyCPU – An open-source computational network
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Distributed computing for hire. So I've been doing this for a couple decades now: You create an ad tag that does some work, and you buy some impressions. You then get to "hire" thousands or millions of compute-nodes around the world to do some work. Tooling to split up the work into ad tags is just something I've accumulated in the while. The real trick I think would be allowing users to join the (ad) network as an…
...what do you use this for?
The same thing anyone else does with a billion CPUs: Hashing things and looking for collisions, or variants on the theme.
Nowhere else could you get CPUs as cheaply as you could buying the cheap banner video vast+vpaid and simply not calling adImpression.