It was established by a group of computer scientists led by Rocke Verser[1] assisted by Justin Dolske and Matt Curtin and involved thousands of volunteers who ran software in the background on their own machines, connected by the Internet.
Rocke Verser already had an efficient algorithm that ran on a standard PC[2] and had the idea of involving the spare time on hundreds of other such machines that were connected to the internet.
Client software was rapidly written for a large variety of home machines and eventually some more powerful 64 bit systems.
The number of computers being used rose rapidly and in the end, a total of 78,000 different IP addresses had been recorded, with a maximum of 14,000 unique hosts in a 24-hour period.
The conclusion of the paper describing the project was "We have demonstrated that a brute-force search of DES keyspace is not only possible, but is also becoming practical for even modestly funded groups.