RFS: distributed-net [non-free]
Hi,
The distributed-net package was orphaned by it's maintainer a few weeks
ago, and I have decided to adopt it. I have prepared a new version of
the package, and would now like to request that someone sponsor it.
The short and long descriptions below were taken from the control file
for the package, which was written by one of the previous maintainers.
Short Description:
donate unused CPU cycles - client for distributed.net
Long Description:
Donate your extra CPU cycles to a worthy cause!
distributed.net started in 1997 as a project whose purpose was to win a
series of contests sponsored by RSA Data Security Inc., to crack their
RC5 encryption by brute-force methods. These contests were meant to show
governments of nations such as the United States, who limit exports or
use of cryptography, that the standards allowed are too weak for general
use.
Since this time, distributed.net has changed their focus from solely
cracking RSA's RC5 and DES projects to working on more diverse
distributed computing problems.
The ongoing projects are RC5-72 and Optimal Golumb Rulers (25-mark), the
latter of which has practical applications in science. There are also a
number of other projects which are either periodic or upcoming. You may
choose which project you wish to participate in.
By installing this package, unused CPU cycles on your computer will be
used to work on cracking the code. There should be no noticeable
slowdown of your system, since the client runs niced, and only uses CPU
time when your computer would otherwise be idle.
For more information, see http://www.distributed.net/
Licence:
Distributed.net has a proprietary (non-free) licence, that generally
forbids redistribution, however they have mad an exception for the
Debian project (as can be seen on the copyright file).
Changes that I have made to the package:
For my fist upload I have updated the package to the newest upstream
version, added support for amd64, and bumped the standards version to
match the most recent version of the Debian policy manual (based on my
reading of the manual, no changes were needed).
Where to get the package:
I have put all of the relevant files (tar-balls, .deb and .changes
files) at the following location:
http://hebb.cis.uoguelph.ca/~jstark/debian/
I have set this up as an apt repository so apt should be able to
retrieve the packages once the following lines are added to your
sources.list:
deb http://hebb.cis.uoguelph.ca/~jstark/debian ./
deb-src http://hebb.cis.uoguelph.ca/~jstark/debian ./
Thanks,
James
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