Patent ID: 7904908

Claim:
A method of distributed processing on a service provider network that includes a plurality of remotely located consumer devices, each of the remotely located consumer devices including a processing device, comprising: providing a service from the service provider network to the remotely located consumer devices; receiving one or more tasks for processing; breaking one of the one or more tasks into subtasks; causing by the service provider network, distribution of subtasks of differentiable tasks to at least some of the processing devices of the remotely located consumer devices, including distributing a first one of the subtasks to a first processing device and distributing a second one of the subtasks to a second processing device; and causing, by the service provider network, distributed processing of the subtasks of the differentiable tasks on the at least some of the processing devices of the remotely located consumer devices, the distributed processing and the distributed subtasks of the differentiable tasks being unrelated to the service provided to the consumer devices by the service provider network, the distributed processing occuring even when the processing devices are in use by the corresponding remotely located consumer devices.