May 5, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Louis Helm
         Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
         Email: lhelm@seventeenorbust.com

Austin, Tx. -- The ``Seventeen or Bust'' distributed computing project
today announced the discovery of a massive prime number. The new prime is 3.9 
million digits long and stands as the largest non-Mersenne prime ever
discovered. It is the seventh largest-known prime overall and the tenth such 
discovery for the project in its five year history.

The project, which utilizes the spare power of thousands of personal computers,
is attempting to solve a 50-year-old math challenge known as the Sierpinski
Problem. The project relies on volunteers who install special software on their
PCs. The software crunches numbers for the project when the computer is idle
and coordinates with a central server over the Internet.

The latest discovery was uncovered by Konstantin Agafonov, a systems
administrator for a construction company in Korolev, Russia.  Upon hearing that 
one of his computers had made the discovery, Konstantin expressed that he was 
"shocked" but also "very happy [to have] helped move fundamental science 
forward".  Konstantin hopes his discovery encourages others to participate in 
distributed computing projects like Seventeen or Bust to help push the 
fronteirs of biology, physics, and math.

In addition to the thousands of users worldwide who donate their computers'
spare time, several other organizations have contributed to Seventeen or Bust's
success. George Woltman, the founder of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime
Search, or ``GIMPS,'' provided the fast number-crunching code used to search
for primes. Earlier this year, Woltman's project announced its discovery of a
record-breaking prime number and received national media attention. Seventeen
or Bust's central server and website are hosted by Voxel Dot Net Inc., a
major provider of managed hosting services.

Seventeen or Bust was founded as a personal project by three software engineers
hailing from St. Joseph, Mich. Since its April 2002 inception, Seventeen or
Bust has uncovered ten massive primes and will need to find seven more in
order to solve the Sierpinski problem.

The project's website is available at http://www.seventeenorbust.com/.

----