If there were such a need, would you volunteer to help solve a big math task by contributing the idle processing power of your computer? What would put you off (or, what are your preferences) if you were considering taking part in something like this?
Would you want access to source code (for auditing) before you take part? Would you require complete control over when your CPU is used? When do you think is the best time to use CPU? During a screensaver? All the time, in the background, with low priority? At user-configurable times (like at night)?
What are your thoughts on this? Would you volunteer at all? Do you think many klikers would support something like this?
Yeah, I think the biggest problem is trust. And it's likely to be annoying if headed by a kliker, like when they put obscure INI files in your Windows directory. So, no, I wouldn't volunteer at all, especially since it would be using some bandwidth as well.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
It's come in handy for me in the past, but only over LAN. I installed Xgrid on both my Macs and video rendering speeds were about 1.5x faster (I think I was limited by the connection more than anything).
That's a different type. It was kind of off-topic since I was thinking about those setups where data is stored on a server and you have a virtual desktop. Certainly cool and useful in a lot of cases (thinking about giving it a try for fun if I find a suitable computer) but still overrated. If the world economy collapses I want to have my last two hours of my laptop battery WITH my data, thank you very much.
Yes, I was thinking of something along the lines of SETI@home, where you have a volunteer computing setup. And yes, it is hypothetical, just something I've been wondering about.
So, besides the project's purpose, the biggest issue is trust! I suppose the most obvious way to address that would be to make the source code public? And even then? And what about using something like BOINC? It's an app from Berkeley that allows you to control how much CPU percentage you want to give to each project. Then again I don't think it offers much in terms of security.
It would be plagued by trust issues whether you issued the source code or not, or allowed someone to allocate a certain percentage of their CPU to use. It's just strange to think that someone's accessing your computer's hardware in some way, I think..
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Edited by OMC
