Parasitic computing

Albert László Barabási*, Vincent W. Freeh, Hawoong Jeong, Jay B. Brockman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Reliable communication on the Internet is guaranteed by a standard set of protocols, used by all computers. Here we show that these protocols can be exploited to compute with the communication infrastructure, transforming the Internet into a distributed computer in which servers unwittingly perform computation on behalf of a remote node. In this model, which we call 'parasitic computing', one machine forces target computers to solve a piece of a complex computational problem merely by engaging them in standard communication. Consequently, the target computers are unaware that they have performed computation for the benefit of a commanding node. As experimental evidence of the principle of parasitic computing, we harness the power of several web servers across the globe, which--unknown to them--work together to solve an NP complete problem.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)894-897
Number of pages4
JournalNature
Volume412
Issue number6850
DOIs
StatePublished - 30 Aug 2001
Externally publishedYes

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