What’s parasitic computing?

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Parasitic computing is a technique in which a computer or server connects to other servers and uses that equipment to provide computing power. It is not usually considered hacking or theft of computer services, because the program does not override any locks or protections on other equipment. Rather, a legitimate message can be delivered to other computers and they will provide processing capabilities without any breach of security.

As the Internet grew in the late 20th century, many thousands if not millions of servers were connected using public computer networks. When one computer sends a request for a web page or document to another computer on the Internet, a series of acknowledgments are used to confirm that the messages sent and received are the same. One technique is to use a “checksum”, which is a calculation of the data sent by the requesting computer and recalculated at the other end. If the two calculations agree, the message is considered legitimate and not an attempt to steal computer time or “hack” the other computer.

When a computer makes a parasitic request for processing time from other computers, the message is still legitimate. There is code in the message that requires some calculations to be performed on the receiving computer. No human has approved the request, and in most cases, the fact that the job is being done is not apparent. Calculations can be completed and data returned to the requesting computer with no visible effect on either computer. However, there are ethical concerns about the effect of computer parasites on Internet resources.

After a computer is asked to provide processing time from another computer, some of its resources are used up for that request. Along with the power consumption of your computer hardware, other legitimate computer activities may be slowed down or delayed by the parasitic processing request. There is no security breach and the requesting computer does not steal any information. While no physical damage can occur, it can affect the performance of the other computer, which some critics consider a steal of services.

Parasitic computing is often confused with a different type of shared computing services, usually called cluster computing. Clusters are groups of computers voluntarily linked together to provide capabilities far beyond the capacity of any single computer. In the 20th century, an example of computer clusters were thousands of public and private computers linked together to compute signal data from a search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (SETI) or signals from other planets. A radio telescope scanned portions of the sky and collected radio signal data, and clustered computers shared computational time to analyze the data and look for patterns.

Negative parasitic computing can occur if a computer is infected with a virus or software called a Trojan horse. Viruses can be downloaded from infected emails or websites and in some cases will allow your computer to become a parasite to a hacker, providing you with a computer that can repeatedly infect others. Infected computers can also send multiple requests to a legitimate website and overwhelm its servers, a technique called a “denial of service attack” that can bring websites down.

A Trojan horse is a software package that is carried along with a legitimate message or website and is usually invisible to any casual computer user. This is why it takes its name from the mythical horse that hid the soldiers they used to surprise and defeat an enemy. When the Trojan horse installs itself on a new computer, it can use some of that computer’s resources to send unauthorized e-mail called “spam” or provide stolen computing power to another person.

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