Dimes Boosting

[LichtJF]

as found here: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/122097561/m/817009733731/p/5


I know the question everyone is dying to ask...

"How is BuddhaMan able to get such high # of results from only three clients?"

Easy, I hax0red the xml config file for the client decreasing the traceroute time to one second from the slider's limitation of 15 seconds. There really is no difference in the result count when set somewhere between 1-5 seconds and it looks to my untrained eye that my three boxes are tracerouting as fast as they can.

How to up the trace frequency:

1) Make a backup of ..\DIMES\Agent\Classes\Base\conf\Properties.xml before even attempting this.

2) Open up ..\DIMES\Agent\Classes\Base\conf\Properties.xml with an editor (I used HTML-Kit myself).

3) Scroll down to the <scheduler> section which has two sub sections of <delay> and <period> which will probably have "15000" in there (if you set the slider to "15" already). The # is in thousandths, so set it to 1000 for one second, etc, etc.

4) Wait until the \DIMES\Agent\Classes\Base\Outgoing\results\xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.results.out.tmp file gets purged of it's info. You'll see this happen if you have the directory open and you see another file appear. This new file is caching the results received while the other data is sent back to DIMES HQ. Once you're back to only one file in that directory, you know your last set of results have been sent.

5) Restart the client. Besides reloading the properies.xml and using your new settings, this has the side affect of killing off your results file and starting it over. Hence the reason for step 4 above (I got yer back! Big Grin)


Notes: I have my 3 clients set to 5 seconds. Setting them any lower didn't seem to make the results come any faster. This may be due to the upstream bandwidth on my cablemodem only being 512 kbit. This brings me to my next point, bandwidth used.

I have a Linux firewall with IPTraf installed and accidentally left it (iptraf) running for way longer than I meant too...which turned out to be a smart thing because I now have data to crunch. Big Grin

So, running three clients with the DIMES clinet set to run a test every 5 seconds, my firewall detected the following ICMP traffic:

Outgoing: 14,647,814 bytes
Incoming: 19,918,610 bytes
Total: 34,589,681 bytes (#s were changing as I wrote the numbers down...we're not splitting atoms here)
Time: 25:39 (hrs/mins)

Math In Public results in: ~925 Mbytes of bandwidth used in 30 days (7.4Gbit) (I hope that's right...no flames for bad math Big Grin).

Additionally: there are other <delay> and <period> values in properties.xml config file. I tried tweeking the comState values, but saw no changes in the number of results received.

Improve upon my work and report back.

If I see someone rocket up the standings after today, I'll assume what happened. Big Grin

A Linux client would rock as I have a VPS server sitting on the Atlanta InterNAP with a fat pipe and 50GB bandwidth a month that's going almost unused at this point. :/

[Bok]

I saw that yesterday, not tried it, but it doesn't sound good for the project....

Bok

[LichtJF]

Ok folks here is some hot info.
Micro$oft has a program called Virtual PC.
With it I have 3 Dimes clients running fine on the same single cpu system. Would have more but only have 512mb ram (100m for OS and 50 for dimes each).
Now for the best part Micro$oft has a free 45 day evaluation copy waiting for your download Big Green Big Green Big Green
So what are you waiting for.
Note I'm using W2K Pro and Java 142, I don't know if Win XP would work with the registration crap and Win98,Win95 etc don't play with the dimes client.
And please if you sorch your system don't blame me. Wink

More from the ars site: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/122097561/m/817009733731/p/6

[meep]

Oh dear - I did wonder where their new found output had come from...

It is not bad for the project as the limit was imposed by the DIMES staff to prevent against ISP's noticing the customers usage / constant tracert's. Valuable results will be collected at a far higher rate. However, some users may start doing this unaware that their ISP will come down on them extremely hard if they think it is related to "scanning".

Also, it will throw a lot of BB users over their monthly limits.

[LichtJF]

Erans Response:


I guess you already know that he is dead wrong. He can put the value on zero but the hard coded limit would not allow going faster than 4/min unless he tweaks the code and recompile.
Anyhow, looking at the bandwidth consumption rates he presented, they are fully in tune with 4/min rate and not with a higher rate.
Thanks for the quote, it was indeed very amusing...

[Bok]

Cool,

thanks for the update. I'd hoped they had a hardcoded limit in there.

Bok :D

[Shish]

And as I already said over there (one of my last posts actually before the mods locked everything up) he`s likely to get jumped on by his ISP for scanning so much which is why the 15 second timer is there and hardcoded.
Think what would happen if you had several machines on the same connection, be nearly like a ping flood :rolleyes:

[meep]

I run a lot on one connection - but do not have any bandwidth limits or an ISP that would not question that activity with myself before doing anything...

It will depend a lot on the individuals setup.

I run 8/9/10 DIMES agents here and have no problems.

[Shish]

Some ISPs run check scans of one sort or another, especially when there`s worms and stuff on the go but most will ask you first what you`re up to altho` an odd one or two that I know have blocked off several ports and some protocols on their networks.
YMMV.

[LichtJF]

I actually modified two of my pc's using the instructions above. I have noticed no benefit from doing do.My daily totals have stayed the same, and I will be reverting the program back to it's natural state this evening when I get home.

[Jammy]

Originally posted by meep
Oh dear - I did wonder where their new found output had come from...



Maybe the fact that we have so many active members?

[BuddhaMan]

Shish: don't worry about me or my ISP ;) I've had no issues. I didn't even know this thread existed until I was linked to it today. I did have a free-dc forum acct already however...probably from the F@H client stuff.

I'm actally considering on dropping out of this race for an unrelated personal reason.

[Shish]

Not worried about your ISP at all, just stating what the project people have said and I know my ISP and several others have active "abuse" teams and regularly scan their networks for various things as I also did when I was responsible for a large network. Not too difficult a task and then depends on what they`re filtering for on ports and packets. Also makes a lot of sense when there are so many "zombie networks and machines" around.

As to the argument about whether the hack works or not, unless you`ve recompiled the prog, there are hard coded limits in the prog itself which don`t show up in that script. The easiest way to check is to look at the log cos I checked mine after trying 3 different ways on different machines and it was still showing 4 pings or queries a minute.