Abstract
Reliable communication on the Internet is guaranteed
by a standard set of protocols, used by all computers.
Here we show that these protocols can be exploited to
compute with the communication infrastructure,
transforming the Internet into a distributed computer
in which servers unwittingly perform computation on
behalf of a remote node. In this model, which we call
'parasitic computing', one machine forces target
computers to solve a piece of a complex computational
problem merely by engaging them in standard
communication. Consequently, the target computers are
unaware that they have performed computation for the
benefit of a commanding node. As experimental evidence
of the principle of parasitic computing, we harness the
power of several web servers across the globe, which
unknown to them work together to solve an NP complete
problem
