SCN: Distributed computing

[Steve]

x-no-archive: yes

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(Janelle Brown, Salon)---When David McOwen, a computer 
administrator at DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, installed a 
screensaver from an outfit known as Distributed.net on his school's 
computers in June 1999, he thought he was doing something that 
would make the world a better place. The Distributed.net 
screensaver is a prominent early example of what "distributed 
computing" systems can do, similar to the SETI at Home program 
that takes advantage of unused computer downtime to look for 
extraterrestrial radio signals that might finally prove the existence 
of life beyond Earth.

Distributed computing cobbles together the collective unused 
resources of the Net's computers to replicate the power of a 
supercomputer by breaking up big problems into small pieces that 
individual personal computers can nibble on. In the case of the 
Distributed.net program, however, aliens weren't the quarry. 
Instead, it focused on solving complicated encryption problems -- 
whenever DeKalb's students weren't actively using the college's 
computers, the screensaver would kick in, contact the 
Distributed.net system and start cranking away.   

McOwen had worked on the first versions of the pioneering Hayes 
modem and had also helped develop worldwide DSL (digital 
subscriber line) standards -- his geek credentials are beyond 
challenge. One definition of a true computer geek may be that he or 
she never wants to see a computer processor cycle go wasted, so 
McOwen was thrilled that the DeKalb computers could be useful 
even when students weren't pumping out term papers. At one point, 
the DeKalb network of hundreds of computers even reached No. 1 on 
the Distributed.net charts, meaning that he was contributing more 
computational power to the encryption challenge than anyone else 
in the world.   

"I saw what the technology was about, and it was a good technology -
a new technology and a pioneering effort, and certainly not bad or 
criminal in any way," says McOwen, a soft-spoken man in his late 
30s. "If Distributed.net is successful, it has worldwide implications." 
 
But while McOwen may know his way around a computer network, 
he appears to have been less savvy about how to negotiate with the 
DeKalb bureaucracy. Because DeKalb's administrators didn't agree 
with McOwen's assessment of the wonders of distributed computing. 
Six months after the Distributed.net screensaver began quietly 
churning away on the DeKalb computers, McOwen was pulled into 
an office and handed a letter that said he was going to be facing 
criminal charges. According to McOwen, the DeKalb administrators 
were equating the screensaver with a hacking tool.   

"I was never given a chance to just turn it off," says McOwen, who 
says the crackdown came from out of the blue. "I was never given 
an opportunity to explain what it was or how it worked ... It was just a 
blanket: boom, you're out of here."   

In February 2000, at the college's request, McOwen resigned and 
went to work as a consultant, thinking that the affair was over. But in 
late June, the Georgia attorney general's office contacted McOwen to 
inform him that he should expect an indictment by the end of July. 
According to McOwen's lawyer, David Joyner, after spending 18 
months researching the case the attorney general decided to 
convene a grand jury to see if McOwen should be charged with 
breaking a criminal statute that's typically used to combat computer 
hacking.   

The penalty could be stiff: McOwen could face 15 years in prison, 
plus a fine of more than $415,000 -- calculated on the basis of 
charges for "$.59 per second" for use of 500 computers, including 
the cost of bandwidth, backbone, networking and frame relay.   

Russ Willard, spokesperson for the attorney general's office, says, 
"We are currently investigating an allegation of misuse of state 
government property; I really can't comment."   

"Apparently, they felt that McOwen didn't have the authority to 
download the program, even though it didn't adversely affect the 
computer system," says Joyner.   

The programming community that follows distributed computing 
developments is, not surprisingly, up in arms. In early July McOwen 
sent out a mass e-mail begging for legal advice; he immediately 
received thousands of responses, including a story on the news site 
OpenP2P. A group of concerned software programmers started a 
legal fund for McOwen that so far has collected more than $1,200; 
McOwen says he's heard from the chief technologist at the FCC as 
well as from congressional staffers. "The outpouring has just been 
incredible," he says, gratefully.   

The case may be attracting such attention because geek idealists 
see distributed computing as one answer to a host of intractable 
problems. Distributing computing systems have been aimed at 
problems as varied as finding cures for cancer or AIDS or predicting 
worldwide climate changes. If McOwen is found guilty, the negative 
publicity for distributed computing might discourage other 
universities and large institutions from lending their computer 
networks to the cause.   

Or perhaps it's simply that the restitution charges don't seem to 
make sense: $.59 per second? Distributed.net staffers did not 
respond to a request for comment (according to McOwen, they have 
been subpoenaed for the case), but Dan Wertheimer, who founded 
SETI at Home, says that distributed computing applications typically 
don't use much bandwidth, since the screensavers connect to the 
Internet for merely a second or two every few days. "The costs are 
minuscule," says Wertheimer. "And it doesn't use much computer 
time -- it's a screensaver. It's hard to imagine this would hurt the 
school system."   

There have been cases in the past of institutions that disapproved 
of distributed computing, but never because of the costs of the 
program. According to Wertheimer, some companies have 
expressly asked their employees not to install SETI at Home, not 
because it interfered with the network but "because they don't want 
outside code on their computers based on security concerns." But 
other companies, such as Sun Microsystem, have avidly embraced 
distributed computing and happily donate their entire networks to the 
cause.   

McOwen and his attorney hope the promised indictment will never 
arrive; it remains to be seen what the final charges against him will 
be. Meanwhile, McOwen continues to ponder what, exactly, he did 
wrong. He worries that the future of the entire Distributed.net project 
is at stake simply because he thought that DeKalb's computers 
might be useful for solving collective problems. "If it's so damaging 
to them, then it must be damaging to the rest of the world, too," he 
says, wryly.   

As Joyner puts it, "I've had a lot of criminal cases, and there's 
always an alleged victim in a criminal case. But where's the victim 
here?"   


Copyright 2001 Salon.com





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