I'm sorry to flame, but I'm getting sick of this.
The "you must report results only to the crack organizers" rule can be enforced if it's made into a contract. Even without a formal contract,
I don't want to sign a formal contract. I want to break the key. I don't care about the money. I can buy a lottery ticket if I want a small chance at winning a lot of money. I'll participate when I can download something, type make, run it, and forget about it. Invoving money money seems to be making it harder, not easier, to do this. I thought the reason to crack the key was to demonstrate how weak DES is. If the person who cracks the key collects the reward himself, so what? A good, public nail in the coffin of restrictions on crypto is worth the risk that someone steals the $10k, IMHO. I've got my idle cycles waiting.... Marc