7 ms·

Parasitic Computing (2001)

76 points by dedalus 9y ago

raker 9y ago
Very interesting concept, but is the actual paper linked here available to read online?
- cybertronic 9y ago
  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/24bd/35f377212dfb846afe6abfee0cc6bf14964f.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/24bd/35f377212dfb846afe6abf...
  - etiam 9y ago
    You could also get a copy at Barabási's homepage. http://barabasi.com/publications/24/network-science http://barabasi.com/publications/24/network-science
    - exikyut 9y ago
      PSA/headsup - this is the best copy, it contains the diagrams and figures. Direct link: http://barabasi.com/f/95.pdf http://barabasi.com/f/95.pdf (Unfortunately the <a> link on the site has `download="Paper.pdf"` inserted unhelpfully. This direct link won't suffer from that problem.)
  - exikyut 9y ago
    This is formatted more neatly than the copy I found, but it's missing the diagrams and figures. This link may or may not work: http://dacemirror.sci-hub.la/journal-article/8a98ee98ed5bf8060c080f53081e87e2/barabsi2001.pdf http://dacemirror.sci-hub.la/journal-article/8a98ee98ed5bf80... After a little digging, I was able to find http://sci-hub.la http://sci-hub.la. Really sad they're having domain issues :( (direct IP access seems to be a little broken at the moment)
- exikyut 9y ago
  Really cool to see this simply being asked. :)
- tomxor 9y ago
  https://sci-hub.hk/10.1038/35091039 https://sci-hub.hk/10.1038/35091039
cybertronic 9y ago
(2001)
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks, updated.
exikyut 9y ago
Here's the TL;DR: > The parasite node creates 2n specially constructed messages designed to evaluate a potential solution. The design of the message, exploiting the TCP checksum, is described in Fig. 3. These messages are sent to many target servers throughout the Internet. ... > The message received by a target servercontains an IP header, a TCP header, and a candidate solution (values for x(i)). The operators in the Boolean equation determine the value of the checksum, which is in the TCP header. The parasite node injects each message into the network at the IP level (Fig. 1), bypassing TCP. After receiving the message, the target server verifies the data integrity of the TCP segment by calculating a TCP checksum. > The construction of the message (Fig. 3) ensures that the TCP checksum fails for all messages containing an invalid solution to the posed SAT problem. Thus, a message that passes the TCP checksum contains a correct solution. The target server will respond to each message it receives (even if it does not understand the request). As a result, all messages containing invalid solutions are dropped in the TCP layer. Only a message which encodes a valid solution `reaches' the target server, which sends a response to the `request' it received. References: http://web.archive.org/web/20161106073051/http://www3.nd.edu:80/~parasite/ http://web.archive.org/web/20161106073051/http://www3.nd.edu...
- bribroder 9y ago
  Another bit about the practical usefulness at this point: > The TCP checksum provides a series of additions and a comparison at the cost of hundreds of machine cycles to send and receive messages, which makes it computationally inefficient. To make the model viable, the computation-to-communication ratio must increase in order that the computation exported by the parasitic node is larger than the amount of cycles required by the node to solve the problem itself instead of sending it to the target. However, it is important to emphasize that these are drawbacks of the presented implementation and do not represent fundamental obstacles for parasitic computing. It remains to be seen whether a higher-level implementation of a parasitic computer could execute in an efficient manner.
sheepz 9y ago
Mining cryptocurrencies in your browser could be seen as form of parasitic computing that is actually happening right now (mining Monero on Piratebay)
- stri8ed 9y ago
  Though it requires active participation from the participant, i.e. visiting the "infected" website. Whereas this method requires no actions on part of the server, beyond behaving normally.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    Makes me wonder what other sort of things a given server is participating in without realizing it. I don't see how you could use this exact technique(TCP checksums) to mine crypto, for example, but there might be some relatively common web applications out there that could be exploited in a similar way.
    - gwern 9y ago
      You actually kinda sorta can 'mine' HTTPS - as part of a cryptocurrency which incentivizes DDoSes! https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16-paper-wustrow.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16...
  - rinchik 9y ago
    Not necessarily, "infection" can be injected into websites you visit on router level.
- sleavey 9y ago
  It's a shame how so many websites just don't function even with minimal Javascript features turned off, because that's essentially the only way to really defend against this sort of malware.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
c3534l 9y ago
I was really confused about how subscribing to Nature vs. Redcube was an NP-Complete problem.
bane 9y ago
I know of a few organizations that buy multicore systems for their staff, and then "reserve" a few cores as part of a local grid computer. I think of this as more "symbiotic" computing than parasitic.
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  How does that work in practice? Is it basically just asking everyone to run a distcc node, or there something more to it?
  - bane 9y ago
    There's several vendors for it but typically there's some kind of service that runs on the organization's desktop machines that are centrally controlled by a job scheduler/server. I don't have a lot of familiarity with them other than in conversation. But here's a few: http://www.jppf.org/ http://www.jppf.org/ http://www.digipede.net/ http://www.digipede.net/ https://www.maplesoft.com/products/toolboxes/GridComputing/index.aspx https://www.maplesoft.com/products/toolboxes/GridComputing/i...
- wdfx 9y ago
  This happens at my employer too, although the developer has full resources during work hours but outside of that the machine is a compute node
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  That sounds pretty interesting. My wife's work has a dedicated rendering machine that sits idle something like 75% of the time. (And apparently due to contract issues, they can't farm it out to an external server somewhere.)

76 points by dedalus 9y ago

raker 9y ago

Very interesting concept, but is the actual paper linked here available to read online?

cybertronic 9y ago
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/24bd/35f377212dfb846afe6abfee0cc6bf14964f.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/24bd/35f377212dfb846afe6abf...
- etiam 9y ago
  You could also get a copy at Barabási's homepage. http://barabasi.com/publications/24/network-science http://barabasi.com/publications/24/network-science
  - exikyut 9y ago
    PSA/headsup - this is the best copy, it contains the diagrams and figures. Direct link: http://barabasi.com/f/95.pdf http://barabasi.com/f/95.pdf (Unfortunately the <a> link on the site has `download="Paper.pdf"` inserted unhelpfully. This direct link won't suffer from that problem.)
- exikyut 9y ago
  This is formatted more neatly than the copy I found, but it's missing the diagrams and figures. This link may or may not work: http://dacemirror.sci-hub.la/journal-article/8a98ee98ed5bf8060c080f53081e87e2/barabsi2001.pdf http://dacemirror.sci-hub.la/journal-article/8a98ee98ed5bf80... After a little digging, I was able to find http://sci-hub.la http://sci-hub.la. Really sad they're having domain issues :( (direct IP access seems to be a little broken at the moment)
exikyut 9y ago
Really cool to see this simply being asked. :)
tomxor 9y ago
https://sci-hub.hk/10.1038/35091039 https://sci-hub.hk/10.1038/35091039

cybertronic 9y ago

(2001)

sctb 9y ago
Thanks, updated.

exikyut 9y ago

Here's the TL;DR: > The parasite node creates 2n specially constructed messages designed to evaluate a potential solution. The design of the message, exploiting the TCP checksum, is described in Fig. 3. These messages are sent to many target servers throughout the Internet. ... > The message received by a target servercontains an IP header, a TCP header, and a candidate solution (values for x(i)). The operators in the Boolean equation determine the value of the checksum, which is in the TCP header. The parasite node injects each message into the network at the IP level (Fig. 1), bypassing TCP. After receiving the message, the target server verifies the data integrity of the TCP segment by calculating a TCP checksum. > The construction of the message (Fig. 3) ensures that the TCP checksum fails for all messages containing an invalid solution to the posed SAT problem. Thus, a message that passes the TCP checksum contains a correct solution. The target server will respond to each message it receives (even if it does not understand the request). As a result, all messages containing invalid solutions are dropped in the TCP layer. Only a message which encodes a valid solution `reaches' the target server, which sends a response to the `request' it received. References: http://web.archive.org/web/20161106073051/http://www3.nd.edu:80/~parasite/ http://web.archive.org/web/20161106073051/http://www3.nd.edu...

bribroder 9y ago
Another bit about the practical usefulness at this point: > The TCP checksum provides a series of additions and a comparison at the cost of hundreds of machine cycles to send and receive messages, which makes it computationally inefficient. To make the model viable, the computation-to-communication ratio must increase in order that the computation exported by the parasitic node is larger than the amount of cycles required by the node to solve the problem itself instead of sending it to the target. However, it is important to emphasize that these are drawbacks of the presented implementation and do not represent fundamental obstacles for parasitic computing. It remains to be seen whether a higher-level implementation of a parasitic computer could execute in an efficient manner.

sheepz 9y ago

Mining cryptocurrencies in your browser could be seen as form of parasitic computing that is actually happening right now (mining Monero on Piratebay)

stri8ed 9y ago
Though it requires active participation from the participant, i.e. visiting the "infected" website. Whereas this method requires no actions on part of the server, beyond behaving normally.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  Makes me wonder what other sort of things a given server is participating in without realizing it. I don't see how you could use this exact technique(TCP checksums) to mine crypto, for example, but there might be some relatively common web applications out there that could be exploited in a similar way.
  - gwern 9y ago
    You actually kinda sorta can 'mine' HTTPS - as part of a cryptocurrency which incentivizes DDoSes! https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16-paper-wustrow.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot16/woot16...
- rinchik 9y ago
  Not necessarily, "infection" can be injected into websites you visit on router level.
sleavey 9y ago
It's a shame how so many websites just don't function even with minimal Javascript features turned off, because that's essentially the only way to really defend against this sort of malware.
- Fnoord 9y ago

c3534l 9y ago

I was really confused about how subscribing to Nature vs. Redcube was an NP-Complete problem.

bane 9y ago

I know of a few organizations that buy multicore systems for their staff, and then "reserve" a few cores as part of a local grid computer. I think of this as more "symbiotic" computing than parasitic.

mikepurvis 9y ago
How does that work in practice? Is it basically just asking everyone to run a distcc node, or there something more to it?
- bane 9y ago
  There's several vendors for it but typically there's some kind of service that runs on the organization's desktop machines that are centrally controlled by a job scheduler/server. I don't have a lot of familiarity with them other than in conversation. But here's a few: http://www.jppf.org/ http://www.jppf.org/ http://www.digipede.net/ http://www.digipede.net/ https://www.maplesoft.com/products/toolboxes/GridComputing/index.aspx https://www.maplesoft.com/products/toolboxes/GridComputing/i...
wdfx 9y ago
This happens at my employer too, although the developer has full resources during work hours but outside of that the machine is a compute node
pavel_lishin 9y ago
That sounds pretty interesting. My wife's work has a dedicated rendering machine that sits idle something like 75% of the time. (And apparently due to contract issues, they can't farm it out to an external server somewhere.)