Re: zombie calculator, messaging without SMTP using identity brokers (Re: response to "proof of work proves not to work"?)

John Honan wrote:
>  
> There's one small piece I've been confused about for a while now, and 
> that's the definition of 'zombie' in this context. My understanding is 
> that a zombie is an internet-connected PC which is infected with a 
> trojan which allows a malicious 3rd party to access its resources. In 
> the case of Hashcash the 3rd party would be a spammer who wants to use 
> the zombie PC to generate stamps. Am I correct so far?
>  
> Or is the zombie PC used solely to send spam, without calculating the 
> stamps? Or both?
> 
> So in the case of a 'good zombie culture' the PCs are running a 
> legitimate background process which generates stamps both for the user 
> and others in their trusted group. Almost like the SETI approach to 
> distributed computing. Do I have that right?


a zombie in this context is a brain the (CPU) eating process that 
generates stamps.  A bad zombie generates stamps for a third-party 
without the consent of the owner of that machine.  A good zombie 
generates stamps for a third party with the consent of the owner of that 
machine.

overall, it's very much like your example of the SETI approach to 
distributed computing.

the big difference between good and bad zombies besides the permission 
of the owner is that the good zombies have an authentication system 
which allows the owner to control who requests stamps from them.

for example, on the first request from a site, there could be some sort 
of certificate or identity exchange like the one that Simon has been 
talking about.  Once the identity has been received, the user could be 
informed with the options of: burn one stamp, always burn stamps for 
this identity, no way, you can't have any of my CPU.  And little zombie 
can have its way with your CPU at whatever efficiency rating you have 
told to use (bwahahaha, okay I'll be nice just this once, Rick Van Winkle).

So the owner is always in control can always get the information they 
need in order to make an informed decision to do the right thing for 
themselves.