Frequently Asked Questions

And there's no shortage of them... I'm only gonna put the really popular ones on here.

1. What exactly is this thing anyway? Am I breaking any laws?

The effort consists of several thousand people all using their computers to complete a single task, in this case Encryption Breaking. By getting computers from all over the internet working on the same task, we can complete it much faster then a single computer could do alone.

And no this is not illegal. The contest is being sponsored by RSA Data Labs, a highly respected American Corporation that has been doing this for a long time.

2. Ok, so then why are you doing this?

So far as I have checked, I get a different reason from every person on the team. Some of the more popular ones are a sense of competition, seeing how much more you can do then your friends. Maybe you want a piece of that prize money. Perhaps you want to help a charity win some of the money. Or in my case, you are concerned about the lack of good encryption for the Internet and want to help prove to everyone that stronger encryption is needed. Hell, some people just like the little cow or butterfly icon in the system tray.. :-)

3. Did you say money???

Yes. The contest is sponsored by RSA, which is a well known data security company. Each of the contests has a prize in cash, which is given to Distributed.Net. Now a chartiy gets 60% of that prize, and Distributed.Net keeps 20% for their efforts. The winning team gets 10%, and the winner themself gets 10%. Now the prize in the Rc5 contest is $10 000, so there is some serious cash up for grabs. :-)

4. How is the money being split up if we win??

As things stand right now, The person who finds the key will get $1000. That persons team will also get $1000, presumably to the team leader. Currently that team $1000 is going to be split up among all Active members. If someone would like to see this changed (maybe to a % of the money based on your contribution in blocks to the team), then you should let me know.

5. What do I have to do to help out?

Its easy. All you have to do is download and run one of the client programs on your computer. It sits harmlessly in the background during your idle time and checks blocks. Whenever you come online it will connect to one of the co-ordinating servers, and report in its completed work, then download some more key blocks to check. (help in setting up the clients is available). Then you may wish to join into our team.

6. Why would I want to join a team?

Teams offer the benifit of combining your work with that of others to give a better showing overall. Some teams want to support their favorite OS, others a favorite game, and still others are just a big group of friends. Being on a team also can lead to some fun rivalries, as is the case between two members of my team as I am writing this... you two know who you are. :-)

7. Where did the name "The Java Knights" come from anyway? Are you a bunch of psycho Java Advocates or something?

Several people on the team do support Java (both the programming language and the coffee), including me, however several people on the team also despise Java because it manages to load amazingly slowly on every platform known.

The truth about the name is that it comes from a story. Actually that is the same story which is posted on my homepage. The Java Knights are an organization in the story, and I liked the name so much I named the team after them. :-) (special thanks to Brian Drinkwater, aka Lord Serian, co-author of the story)

8. How come you didn't answer my question in this FAQ!????

Sorry.. :-) I can't fit in answers to every question I get in here, but I peridocially will add questions that I get asked a lot. If you still have a question, feel free to contact me.