OVERVIEW OF PARASITIC COMPUTING

The net is a fertile place where new ideas/products surface quite often. In this seminar work, parasitic computing was reviewed. Parasitic computing, which harnesses the computing power of machines that spread across the Net to accomplish complex computing tasks, is new in this category. Parasitic computing works by exploiting a weakness in the TCP/IP system's error checking system. The problem is that forcing target machines into performing calculations puts a greater load on them than a regular packet would, and the server owner has not agreed to take part - in effect the technique is stealing processing power, but without breaking any laws.