PrimeGrid is having issues...

[Murray]

Those that are crunching for Primegrid, I am sure will agree that the project is having some major issues!

Firstly the server and its hardware is inadequate and secondly I think the project needs more focus.

Therefore I propose two things:
The first being that those who haven't done so already (if they can) please donate some cash to the buying of RAM for the project {see the projects donations page} so that it can get back on track.

The second being the very nature of the project... Primegrid is participating in the RSA factoring challenge and for the current module which needs to be solved, there is $100,000 prize money. However the project leaders have not used this fact to thier advantage, principly by dancing around the issue of what to do if PrimeGrid wins any money. [See the project forums to see what I mean]

I propose, as one of the leading teams in the project, we draw up a plan for the betterment of the project and present it to the guys running the project. This would encorperate a plan for how the money would be divided if it is won...eg. 40% goes to a project trust to buy new servers, pay for hosting etc... so that finance will never be an issue again, 20% to charity, cos we are nice people and 40% is divided among the user who finds the winning WU and his/her team. Not only would this ensure the financial security of the project. It would also get more users interested and result in the rallying of more teams, considering there is money involved. Ultimately resulting in PrimeGrid having a greater chance of winning the RSA challenge...

What does everyone think?

[NeoGen]

If they are still trying to brute-force the RSA challenge, as they were initially, then it's no use making plans for the way to split the money because the chances are very small that they find the RSA prime numbers still in this century! :?

But, the idea of helping out the project is very good. PrimeGrid is not just trying to crack the RSA Challenge. It's actually a project to convert the boinc server code to Perl (PerlBoinc). The purpose of it is that developers familiar with Perl, but not with PHP, can also be able to set up Boinc projects. (I've also heard some loose bits about the hosting fees for PHP capable servers being higher? I have not a clue about that, just heard it somewhere)

[Murray]

If they are still trying to brute-force the RSA challenge, as they were initially, then it's no use making plans for the way to split the money because the chances are very small that they find the RSA prime numbers still in this century! :?

Okay, I thought it was actually not as hard as you make it out to sound...

Silly Me :oops:

[NeoGen]

I actually did some researches of my own on the subject... the number of primes to test on the 106 digits range is colossal, and just to find them is in itself another huge task. (RSA-704 is 212 digits long, most likely is composed by 2x106 digits primes)

As I've seen on a Q&A webpage...

There are enough prime numbers that RSA users will never run out of them. The Prime Number Theorem states that the number of primes less than or equal to n is asymptotically n/log n. This means that the number of prime numbers of length 512 bits or less is about 10^150, which is a number greater than the number of atoms in the known universe.

And PrimeGrid is working on the RSA-704 which is 704 bits long... not 512! :shock:

[vaughan]

Is PG still down?

I posted yesterday on the Message boards but Rytis hasn't done anything yet.

[Evil-Dragon]

They'll never win anything if they can't keep their servers running. I've got more chance of cracking the 4th section of Kryptos before they find the correct prime for the RSA challenge.

(If you don't know what Kryptos is then perhaps you can help crack the 4th part... don't worry it's been going for 15 years now, still no plaintext solutions)

[Murray]

I have requested two basic changes to the way Prime Grid opperates...please eco my sentiments in a show of support:

"Hi Rytis,
I have two requests and I think these will be ecoed by many other PrimeGrid BOINC users...

1.) Supply us with a constant supply of WUs
2.) Increase the deadlines on repeated WUs

Regards
Murray"

http://www.primegrid.com/orig/forum_thread.php?id=385

[vaughan]

I have been getting an error message on several PCs running PrimeGrid which I have not encountered before:

6/29/2006 7:32:24 PM|PrimeGrid|Message from server: Invalid or missing account key. Visit this project's web site to get an account key.

Edit/ I tried accessing the official project Message Boards but cannot connect. I get:

Table './boinc/user' is marked as crashed and should be repaired
Warning: mysql_fetch_object(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/www/boinc/inc/database/mysqldatabasehandler.php on line 456

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/www/boinc/inc/util.inc:100) in /home/www/boinc/inc/util.inc on line 97

so I guess the project is having some problems just now.

Oh well, time to crunch something else ... there's plenty to select from.

[Murray]

The entire project is down...in its entirity...and what is the projects admin doing instead of running his own project he is helping BOINC Chess or whatever it is called set thier project up... :evil:

I am going to vote with my crunching power and move on... :mad:

[vaughan]

Its working again now.