Parasitic Computing

P.PUJITHA
Sometimes size does matter
If you’re one in billion in INTERNET,
there are millions of people like you.

WHO ARE BEING USED

In the world of Internet ,millions of

people JUST LIKE YOU

Some one else is using your

computer
You are a victim of
Parasitic Computing..
What is 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
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 Connection

Time→

Connection
Established

Initiator Acceptor
Node Node
When a user selects a URL….

Actions at receiver

Recieve message through IP

Validate checksum at TCP

Validated pushed to HTTP

Not validated discard the packet

 Internet Communication

HTTP > TCP > IP > TCP > HTTP

Implementation Using TCP

TCP Checksum

Provide enough logic to compute any Boolean function.

HTTP Service

Protocol always send a response to any message received.

 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

HOW IT WORKS
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
Algorithm

S= create TCP segments (x1, x2, x3, x4……….x15)

S.checksum = checksum
for each x
S.data = pad with zeros (x)
send S
receive answer
if answer = true
write 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..
CONCLUSION:

Parasitic Computing logically moves computation onto the

communication infrastructure of internet, blurring the distance
between computation and communication