[RealMac]

ECC2-109, is a distributed effort to solve Certicom's ECC2-109 challenge. The challenge offers a $10,000 (US) prize. The two participants who find matching Distinguished Point values will each receive $2,500 (US). The remaining $5,000 (US) will be split among the eCompute ECC2-109 project developers.

ECC stands for Elliptical Curve Cryptography.
Unfortunately there isn't a mac client out yet. Perhaps some coders who are reading this will get motivated. The source code is on their page so a group of people who are motivated enough might be able to pull it off. I'm thinking a Dual G5 system would really excel with this one.

The mathematics behind it are a bit confusing to me (heck, I wasn't even into Algebra), but it's interesting nonetheless.

Details about it can be found in this PDF file.

Certicom's page along with a list of other challenges they have are here.

Not saying people should jump left and right on it, but it does seem interesting at least.
Feel free to comment away

[Scotttheking]

no
no
nyet
lo
ni
non
nein

[jbcool]

[mikkyo]

Heh, the Keychain uses this method of encryption only it is called FFE.
It is also available to developers as part of the encryption technology in all macs.
Funny that there is contest to crack it as it is a pretty tough method to brut-force.
With a 109 bit key, and enough(30000) modern computers, there shouldn't be too much trouble cracking it with in a year.
Now if it were a 4096 bit key, not for years and years and years.

[The_Equivocator]

Hmmm, this project seems too much like RC5 to me, and most of you know what I think of that project...

Anyway, it seems like a fine distributed project, if you're really into cryptography, but I think the team is already spreading itself too thin. Also, it's a project that doesn't really seem to have any greater scientific purpose, like dFold, F@H, and D2OL.

Thanks for the heads-up, RealMac, but I think I am going to pass. Definitely let me know if you see any other projects like dFold, F@H, or D2OL, though!