[RussEfarmer]

In English terms, you would be allowing a group of people that you do not know access to your computer power. They do not do as much as Russ says here, they are mainly looking for prime numbers. This is not to say that they do other things that are not good in the sciences or math world but they would mainly be looking for prime numbers. In which they already have thousands of computers doing this very thing.

Why prime numbers? There is a cash reward for anyone that can find a proven prime number that has not yet been recorded. However, if you use their program, they get the money even though your computer, therefore time and power as well, to fund their research in most cases. This is especially true depending on which group you allow to use your computer to find a prime number. Yes, there are more than one.

Finding new prime numbers as a source of funding? Where did you get this information? The only two things I could find remotely close to that are challenges set by the EFF and GIMPS rewarding people for finding extremely difficult numbers. Finding a 100 million digit prime would be far past today's computing technology, and finding a new Mersenne prime is a task within itself.

Most BOINC projects are very transparent on what work they send, since in most cases, the software is open source and can be obtained (and viewed) directly by the user. These projects distribute programs at their core, and they must include the licensing for those programs, so it's pretty easy to see what's actually being sent to you.

A list of official projects can be found here, and their appropriate websites. If you're skeptical, SETI@Home has been running the longest, and is a project directly run by Berkley. It's the most well known.