and Citizen Cyber-Science David P. Anderson Space Sciences Laboratory U.C. Berkeley

Citizen Cyber-Science The use of Internet and computer technology to involve the public in scientific research Volunteer computing Volunteer thinking GalaxyZoo, FoldIt!

Classic Volunteer PC server Internet client download, install

Classic Volunteer PC server Internet client server request a job

Classic Volunteer PC server Internet client server send data database get job

Classic Volunteer PC server Internet client (process data)

Classic Volunteer PC server Internet server return results, request new job database store results get job client

Problems with Classic Hard to deploy new applications or versions Wasteful replication – “Always have work” policy No result validation Monolithic, inflexible server

Problems with Classic Client only downloads 1 job at a time Client uses only 1 CPU Unit of credit is “job” Hard to participate in >1 project (e.g. and

BOINC General-purpose “middleware” for volunteer computing Funded by NSF, present Open-source (LGPL)

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client download, install

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client “attach” to project server

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client request jobs type of computer RAM, CPU speed connection interval server scheduler BOINC DB get jobs

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client job descriptions list of application files list of input files list of output files server scheduler

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client download program, input files server data servers

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client server program (run applications)

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client upload output files server data servers

Volunteer PC Internet BOINC client report completed jobs server scheduler BOINC DB Science DB assimilate validate

Problems solved Easy to deploy new apps Efficient replication – 2-fold, adaptive Errors, cheating are detected immediately Server is scalable, fail-soft Credit is based on FLOPS, not jobs Client can queue lots of jobs, use >1 CPU

Painful transition to BOINC (2005) Awkward registration process “techie” GUI Classic credit didn’t carry over User base: 500K -> 200K

The volunteer computing ecosystem projects CPDN WCG attachments volunteers

Climateprediction.net

Gravitational waves

Other projects IBM World Community Grid Etc. – epidemiology, plant ecology, genetic linkage, phylogenetics, graph theory, number theory, cognitive modeling, fluid dynamics, galactic structure, quantum chemistry, nanotechnology, quantum computing, cosmology

History of volunteer computing Applications Middleware distributed.net, GIMPS Commercial: Entropia, United Devices,... BOINC Climateprediction.net IBM World Community Grid now Academic: Bayanihan, Javelin,... Applications

Performance Current – 500K people, 1M computers – 6.5 PetaFLOPS (3 from GPUs, 1.4 from PS3s) Potential – 1 billion PCs today, 2 billion in 2015 – GPU: approaching 1 TFLOPS – 1 ExaFLOPS: 4M GPUs * 0.25 availability – Freescale i.MX51: 2 GFLOPS, 200mw

Organizational models Umbrella projects Institutional – Lattice, Corporate – IBM World Community Grid Community – AlmereGrid Research community – MindModeling.org Project publicity web development sysadmin

The Stardust mission Where’s the dust? – 23K volunteers – 43M viewings – 64 tracks found

jobs middleware people or computers identity accounting queuing assignment validation

What’s different? People vary Jobs may not be well-defined aptitude training

Bossa Open-source PHP-based middleware for volunteer thinking – Policies – replication, volunteer assessment, job assignment – Bossa doesn’t provide policies, but makes it easy to implement a wide range of policies

Projects in development – Collect photos of Middle Awash (Ethiopia) – Look for hominid and other fossils AfricaMap

Conclusion Citizen Cyber-Science – volunteer computing – volunteer thinking Benefits to science Benefits to society