NFSNet

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For the National Science Foundation network, see NSFNet.

NFSNet is a distributed computing project that factors very, very large numbers that have hundreds of digits, particularly those from the Cunningham project. As of mid-2005, it was factoring one number approximately every month.

The name comes from the number field sieve, a relatively fast algorithm used to determine possible combinations of integers that can be multiplied together to make the number in question.