Distributed Computing - Anonymous Proxy Idea

As you all know, anonymous proxies are networks that act as the middle man in information exchange by processing all your IO through their computers in some foreign location, masking your IP and making you effectively invisible. And as you all know, good anonymous proxies cost money. The best ones cost, you guessed it, MORE money. So heres an idea I had:

1. The anonymous proxy owners contacts the owners of large distributed computing projects.
2. The proxy makes a deal with the DCO (Distributed Computing organization) to be paid a certain amount of money for each megabyte (Very small increments for this type of operation).
The DCO provides the anonymous proxy with data that needs to be processed.
3. Anonymous proxy develops a client to download to use their proxy. Each user has an account username and password when they register via the client.

Now, in the operation of a proxy, users may download/send a gigabyte or more daily on the proxy. This adds up to huge costs for the proxy owners. So, instead of paying money, the user pays in computing cycles. If the user thinks he/she will exchange 400mbs, she must download and process 1.5 that much. This would be 600mbs in this case. After processing the user must then upload the data back to the anon.proxy.

I like this idea, but sometimes the cost of using computer cycles, plus the uploading and downloading, can sometimes add up to more then the amount of money you would have to pay to use an anonymous proxy. Also, sorry if this doesnt truly fit into computer security.

Warning: I went into LONG explanation/talk mode.

IMHO, one involving money is a bad "Anonymous" Proxy. The problem with running something that is anonymous, such as mail relays or proxies, is that it must remain anonymous. The moment money changes hands, you are no longer fully invisible and anonymous. For corporate customers, money may buy the anonymonity they are looking for (but someone will know who they are), but for average users it can defeat the purpose.

I like Distributed Computing projects myself, such as Folding@Home. Some times I think that converting CPU cycles into currency on the Internet is a good idea, but that some sort of Internet currency is inhertely flawed and would result in hideous inflation. For the most part, Distributed Computing is only worth something to the orginazation that runs it. But unlike money, I think it is only worth something in time. IE, instead of solving the problem several years down the road, the more people you have, the sooner you can solve it. It can't really be converted into money, since idle CPU time is being used, it isn't like they went and bought more computers. They just use current resources more effeciently. So there aren't real monetary benefits to Distributed Computing, just the saving of this "time" through more effecient use of idle CPU power.

I don't use proxies, but I do do some distributed computing. I'd rather donate spare CPU time than bandwidth, since bandwidth acturally costs money each month or GB. The two things can't readily be converted, since one (bandwidth) is acturally costing something and the other (CPU) has already been paid for. Unless distributed computing projects could make an income (I think they also donate resources, ie no income) and could pay people who run proxies for CPU time, they won't work together. While your idea could bring more people into distributed computing to save time and discover things sooner, the two groups can't really comphensate each other. Since there aren't benefits to working together that involve money to pay for the bandwidth, I'd think that they would not work together.

Of course, if some R&D section of a big company decides that time is money, they might be willing to spend money on bandwidth to research something to be ahead of the competition. And in that sort of case, distributed computing to solve a problem that means money to them. And then the two things (CPU time for other resouces like bandwidth) could work together. But I would think stuff like that is an exception, since there are already a lot of free proxies we could use instead of installing something to benefit one specific company...

I hope this makes some sense, as it is my conciousness being delivered through those horrible things known as keyboards. :P

Kinda sounds like bittorrent to me.

I understand you fully. There is no true monetary value to a megabyte. I just figured that some business require the power of something equivilent to a supercomputer but lack the money to buy one, so the proxy would offer to process the data cheaper then it would be to buy a supercomputer to process the data.
I also figured that if you didnt have to give away your payment information that you could be more anonymous and harder to find in the case that some law organization obtained the proxy servers and analyzed the files, which in another case would reveal your credit card number and log file making you very un-anonymous.

I think I see the direction of this Forum's members. Some future script kiddie asks a question about wordlists and gets 9 replies. I introduce a possibly revolutionary idea in anonminity and get three replies. Not even any actual conceptualizing, either. Sounds like the "I feel superior" attitude dominates this place.

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Originally posted here by Kronos2k4
I think I see the direction of this Forum's members. Some future script kiddie asks a question about wordlists and gets 9 replies. I introduce a possibly revolutionary idea in anonminity and get three replies. Not even any actual conceptualizing, either. Sounds like the "I feel superior" attitude dominates this place.

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First off stop your whining. If members do not respond to your post it is normally due to 1 of 3 reasons.

1. Doesn't understand what you are discussing. (lack of a knowledgebase by the reader or a bad communication of concept by the poster.)
2. Determined that a previous post asnwered the question.
3. Didn't have time to read/respond. (Too busy at work, out of town)

As for my take, when you look at mainframe industries that create income by selling cycles (as in Banking), you soon discover that cycles are not cheap. In fact I am positive that customers belonging to my company would be glad to pay a flat bandwidth fees as oppossed to paying for cycles to process their work. :) It takes significantly longer period of time to process the information than it does to only transfer the data.

I think you need to realistically look at who would be using this type of service. It seems to me that if you really want to make money, then the target audience for this project is going to be small businesses that fall under the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, where a major concern of security and privacy are ever present. Don't mix up privacy with anonymity. The privacy I am referring to is concerning the privacy of their customers data. That being said I do not see many businesses giving their clients information to a distributed computing networking, where security cannot be verified or depended upon.

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"I also figured that if you didnt have to give away your payment information that you could be more anonymous and harder to find in the case that some law organization obtained the proxy servers and analyzed the files, which in another case would reveal your credit card number and log file making you very un-anonymous."

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You hit the nail on the head but you tacked your thumb to the wall in the process. You propose this as a pay service, that means that the company, by law, will have to track your usage, and the company providing the service will have to povided this data and other records when directed to by a court order. Face it - there is no such creature as true anonymity on the Internet.