Tsunamis pose a serious life threat, which can, however, be significantly alleviated by reliable warning systems. Unfortunately many states cannot afford such a facility, because it requires expensive maintenance. The Tsunami Harddisk Detector is available for free, because it is distributed as a software application and does not need any special hardware. It utilizes the existing standard office computer infrastructure to detect earthquakes and other events, which may trigger tsunamis.

The computers participating in the project are connected via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network, thereby establishing a distributed computing platform with high reliability. The network consists of many computers acting as nodes as well as a few supernodes. The nodes located worldwide take the role of sensors. The supernodes, however, perform data analysis on their connected nodes. In case of emergency, the nodes are instantly informed by the supernodes. Consequently users are highly motivated to install the software because it directly protects them against tsunamis.