Comment by oefrha
5 days ago
I had a brief look at the network traffic and code. The network communication is very simple:
To request a new batch:
POST https://jqarehgzwnyelidzmhrn.supabase.co/rest/v1/rpc/get_job
apikey: ...
authorization: Bearer ...
{"_client_hash":"..."}
returns something like
{
"jobId": 755344,
"message": "get_job() succeeded, got jobId: 755344 as a new one"
}
which means the client should check 4000075534400000000-4000075534500000000.
Once done:
POST https://jqarehgzwnyelidzmhrn.supabase.co/rest/v1/rpc/put_job
apiKey: ...
authorization: Bearer ...
{"_client_hash": "...","_job_id": 755344,"_status": 1,"_elapsed_time": 19.54,"_p": 3463,"_q": "4000075534448687929"}
Here, _client_hash is generated by wasmHash(`{"method":"Hash"}`) in /js/worker.js (yes, the payload is a fixed string), and while I didn't try to disassemble the wasm, one can pause execution and repeatedly call wasmHash() to observe it's basically a TOTP that changes every 10s, so it doesn't carry any mathematical information.
Therefore, all the info that can be used for verification on the server is a single pair of _p and _q adding up to one number in the entire range. That's the extent of the verification.
One can of course patch the code to check a single number before reporting that the entire range has been checked. Pretty sure it's impossible for the server to detect that.
Correct me if I made a mistake somewhere.
Edit: On second thought, maybe the specific number reported back is deterministically chosen in a way that relies on finishing all the checks in the range, and thus can be compared with other reported results for the same range?
Even in that case, the server can't verify the work without repeating it. mersenne.org hands out a double checking job about 8 years later presumably to thwart determined attackers.[1]
Yeah, I mean what OP doing is statistically searching for counterexample at worst, but without verification about the completeness of the range. Only if we assign jobs randomly and multiple times, we may believe in the truth about the whole range, at least under the assumption, that there is enough people and no big enough attacker.
[flagged]
But you posted this to a site that is literally called Hacker News... To be clear, I am not supporting any attempt at undermining your project, but people are pointing out to you that your results will be called into question if your only defence against "hacking" is "I hope people don't figure out how to do that".
> jay_gridbach: @oefrha I am afraid I had to flag your comment.
OP! This isn't cool. @oefrha basically did a free security audit for you and instead of being grateful for that, you get defensive and flag them? How is this cool?
I also had the same question as tromp about how you're validating that clients aren't cheating. @oefrha's analysis shows you aren't validating. How can we be 100% sure that none of the clients cheated? What if there is a counterexample to the conjecture but one of your clients didn't report it because they cheated? Math results require rigor and without rigor the bold claim is only a "claim" right now, not a fact!
That is understandable, but counterproductive. Tou can’t walk away from this by pretending it doesn’t exist. It only takes one troll to ruin the achievement.
Hope everyone can enjoy the application.
Note: The parent comment accused me of giving clues to hack the application, but that part was later edited out, making my response a bit strange.
---
This is basically a free security audit, even though I only spent like five minutes. If your application can be "hacked" so easily, it's very irresponsible to say you're "verifying" the conjecture. Removing the comment doesn't make your application any more secure.
Btw, I even helpfully pointed to prior art which you can learn from. A butthurt response is pretty sad.
At this point, I am not capable with addressing the thing you pointed out. I didn't want to make the system closed-network nor login required. Technically, I think it is impossible to prevent reporting fake result as long as it is open network system - which means my design doesn't fit to seeking rigor.
I hope this comment answers to your question.
I will continue my project to seek meaningful purpose in some extent.
The most foolproof way to verify the results would be to have the client return all the 100 million values back to the server. This may be a bit much though, so alternatively, after submission, send a random selection of numbers in the range back to the client, which will have to return the prime summands* for those. Possibly with a time limit to prevent it from doing the calculation for only those numbers. So it probably also needs to be a fairly large selection.
*I had to look up that word
Respectfully, you have put in an amazing amount of work. Unfortunately life is not so kind in other parts of the world, and people are just not nice on the Internet, and they will try and break your project just for the fun of it. It is very sad, but that is the reality of the Internet today.
> people are just not nice on the Internet
That's not what's happening here. People in this thread are simply asking in good faith how the server-side verifies the results submitted by the client. It’s a fair question. And an important one. In fact, it might be the most important question when making such a bold claim.
If this isn't addressed, there's no way to know that a client didn't cheat by withholding a valid counterexample. And if even one client cheats, the entire claim made in this 'Show HN' thread falls apart.
2 replies →
Thank you. I will do my best to make my project sustainable.