Parasitic computing

Parasitic ComputingAritra Mukherjee

If you’re one in a billion in INTERNET..

…..there are millions of people like you.

In the world of internet, millions of peopleJust like you…And You Will Never Know

Someone else is using your computer

He is slowing your Connection Speed for his own purpose..

You are a victim of Parasitic Computing..

First Reported in journal ‘Nature’ in 2001 by Barabasi, Freech, feong and Brockman A form of Distributed Computer Architecture Used for solving Complex Computational Problems Target could never know Exploit Standard set of communication protocol in internet. Potential standard protocols are TCP, HTTP, IP

To know how it works we need to know something first….

How The Communication through Internet is done?

When a user selects a URL….Actions at Sender Open a TCP connection to web server Issues a HTTP request over TCP connection TCP message is carried via IP

Establishing TCP ConnectionSYNTime->SYN+ACKACKConnection EstablishedInitiator NodeAcceptor Node

When a user selects a URL….Actions at receiverRecieve message through IP Validate checksum at TCP Validated pushed to HTTP Not validated discard the packet

Internet CommunicationHTTP > TCP > IP > TCP > HTTP

Implementation Implementation takes place at many layers in internet Several protocols may be exploited to perform parasitic computing Implementation made using TCP or higher levels

Implementation Using TCP TCP ChecksumProvide enough logic to compute any Boolean function. HTTP ServiceProtocol always send a response to any message received.

The Proof of Concept.. Solved 3 SAT problem Solved other NP- Complete Problems..

A Single home parasite node initiates the computation Sends a specially created TCP packet containing a possible solution. If the possible solution is correct, the HTTP server returns an error message. If the solution is wrong, then packet is dropped at TCP Layer

Creating Parasitic Message The problem is constructed as the data part TCP checksum sent is a representation of expected answer Parasitic checksum and the variable string are sent to the remote machine for verification

AlgorithmS= create TCP segments (x1, x2, x3, x4……….x15)S.checksum = checksumfor eachxS.data = pad with zeros (x)send Sreceive answer if answer = truewrite x as a solution

Prototype of Parasitic Computing

Problem for Parasite Several computational cycles are taken to process the solutions Possibility of false negative Possibility of false positive

Problem for Servers Delay due to the parasitic message could cause a denial of service Almost impossible to prevent Removing or changing the exploited functions would cause the server unable to communicate.

Future… Computation to communication ratio must increase. Exploiting HTTP or encryption / decryption could execute in an efficient manner. The ethical dilemma could lead it to a vulnerable future..

Parasitic Computing logically moves computation onto the communication infrastructure of internet, blurring the distance between computation and communication

ReferencesBarabasi et.al. Parasitic Computing, NATURE 412, 30 Aug 2001. Barabasi et.al. Supplement material for Parasitic Computing: http://www.nd.edu/~parasite/ Barger N. Robert & Crowell R. Charles, The ethics of Parasitic Computing, Sept 2003 : www.nd.edu/~ccrowell/Parasitic%20Computing.pdfIvars Peterson, Sneaky Calculations, Science News 160, 17 Nov 2001. www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/09/13/stories/08130001.htm

Parasitic computing

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Parasitic computing