Four young Toronto men have launched a potential computer-user revolution for anyone who objects to Microsoft's domination of the marketplace -- and they want to recruit your idle computer to help them fight it.

By harnessing the collective power of individual computers around the world, the Neo Project is designed to break the code that Microsoft has erected around its game-playing computer called Xbox.

The code allows the U.S. computer giant to prevent consumers from running anything but Microsoft games and other applications on the machine.

The group is partly motivated by a $100,000 (U.S) prize for anyone who cracks the code. The prize money was put up last year by Michael Robertson, founder of the MP3.com Web site which allowed people to download unlimited music free off the Internet.

Mr. Robertson has said that he started the contest because: "I thought people should have the choice to run the software they want on the hardware of their choice. . . . I don't think when you buy a car, they should be able to tell you what brand of gas to put in it."

Since the contest was launched, attention has shifted to Neo Project because it may have a winnable approach by bringing together a host of computers to focus on the job. Indeed, Neo Project has become a cause célèbre in the techie world: the number of participants has grown to 15,000 and it now has access to 35,000 computers.

If Neo Project wins, the group plans to donate 80 per cent of the windfall to charity. "We have charities in mind, but we are going to leave the final decision to our users," said Michael Curry, a programmer who came up with the original thrust of the program last summer.

(The Neo Project will give 10 per cent of its winnings to the person whose computer breaks the code.)

Despite the lure of the prize money, the main driver in the project appears to be a groundswell of collective antagonism toward Microsoft, Mr. Curry said.

By way of comparison, this summer a cross-Canada link-up of computers, billed as creating the most powerful computer in the country for a day, harnessed only the power of about 1,300 computers.

Participants must download a program onto their computer. It operates only when the computer is not being used for other purposes. When the user is busy elsewhere, the computer sets about cracking what is called the RSA code used by Microsoft to identify and run only its own products.

The code consists of a public key known to everyone -- essentially a string of 617 numbers -- and a private key known only to Microsoft. It is another impossibly long set of numbers, which can be divided only by itself and 1. When an application is put in the Xbox, its software communicates the private key number to the machine where it divides the public key number.

In essence, the idle computers, joined in what is called a distributed computing network, will collectively try one possible private key after another until they find one that fits.

The server computer gives numbers to the linked computers to try to unlock the code. They then report back to the main computer whether this has been successful. It records this and then gives them more numbers to try.

The group is using various tricks to narrow the number down, but finding the private key also depends on the number of computers that can be harnessed to try out different possible numbers in their spare time.

"You have lots of people who are willing to contribute and participate for this project who wouldn't just do it for an academic enterprise," said Joseph Beckman, a Florida-based lawyer who is advising the group.

The need for legal advice arose after the Toronto men noticed a large number of hits on their Web site from Microsoft addresses -- something they immediately interpreted as a sign that they could be hit with a lawsuit.

But, according to Mr. Beckman, "there is nothing illegal about the search for a decrypting private key number."

Distributing that key is another matter.

"That might create problems down the road," said Mr. Beckman, or it may not, because of the still-confused state of U.S. copyright law.
The Web site for The Neo project is http://www.theneoproject.com