[extropy-chat] COMP: Distributed Computing

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Dan Clemmensen <dgc at cox.net> wrote:
> Actually, the largest and most powerful distributed
> computing networks
> are all too easy to join. to join, just use a
> Windows PC and disable 
> your firewall.
> you will automatically join multiple distributed
> computing systems.
> 
> I refer of course to zombie pools. your computer
> will join multiple pools,
> some of which have hundreds of thousands of members.

The problem, of course, being that the owners of said
computers did not agree to have their computers in
said pools.  At the moment, those using pools for
honest work disavow dishonest recruiting methods, but
one of the dangers of luddites in power is that they
may drive honest scientific work to such methods if
the work is to be done at all - and with odds like the
survival of the human race (and of individual humans
themselves) on the line, one could well argue that
these would be justified if they indeed become the
only possible ways.