[citation][nom]JasonAkkerman[/nom]Wouldn't multiple modern GPU's with hundreds of cores each be a more cost effective solution to brute force cracking?Who thought a $400 game system would be a good option? You don't need the graphics abilities, the blue tooth, the blu-ray, hell even the harddrive.[/citation]Hmm, buy a GPU and be locked into whatever changes Nvidia or ATI come up with for CUDA/STREAM or, buy a complete ~1.8 Teraflop Linux box for less (its $300 now btw) and continue using the code that was written in C decades ago...
Sony is losing money on the deal since they aren't buying games. They are taking a Risk because the new PS3s don't support alternate OS's, but knowing the government they put this requisition request in back when the PS3 was 20 gigs.
And with a GPU, your CPU would still be a bottleneck since it's the only thing that can ask, is this key right?, when you attach or virtually mount an encrypted hard drive you're trying to crack. With multiple CPUs, each CPU takes its turn asking while the others are processing the answer to the question.
I'd like to donate my CPU cycles to help too but that would put my PC under state and federal networking guidelines (no thanks).