Yesterday it was the New York Times; today it’s the Washington Post. An in-depth story on the Secret Service’s use of distributed computing.

The gist:

Taking a cue from scientists searching for signs of extraterrestrial life and mathematicians trying to identify very large prime numbers, the agency best known for protecting presidents and other high officials is tying together its employees’ desktop computers in a network designed to crack passwords that alleged criminals have used to scramble evidence of their crimes — everything from lists of stolen credit card numbers and Social Security numbers to records of bank transfers and e-mail communications with victims and accomplices. To date, the Secret Service has linked 4,000 of its employees’ computers into the “Distributed Networking Attack” program.

Turns out they’re working to keep the “secret” in Secret Service: “DNA works silently in the background, completely hidden from the user. Lewis said the Secret Service chose not to call attention to the program, concerned that employees might remove it.”

(Hat tip to geeknewscentral.)