[RussEfarmer]

BOINC (Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) is an open source program that allows you to contribute to fields of math and science with nothing but the spare processing power of your computer. Anyone with nearly any computer on the planet can download this software, select a project to participate in, make an account on that project, and have their computer crunch numbers on behalf of that project.

First of all, how does it do this? To boil it down, you have a central server machine representing that project that hosts the project website, accounts, and most importantly, project work. When you register with that project (for example, The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence at home, AKA SETI@Home), your BOINC client software will request workunits from the project, download them, and start running them based on the preferences you set in the software. Once your computer completes the workunit (which will range from a couple of minutes to several hours depending on the project), your computer will send the result back to the project server, and you will receive project credit. That's all that happens behind the scenes: you get work, you crunch the work, and you send the result back.

Second of all, why would people want your computing power? Well, a lot of science comes down to crunching numbers, and crunching numbers takes computing power. Unfortunately, scientists are NOT made of money, and supercomputers are really expensive. So what do they do? They turn to you! Normal computer users usually leave their personal computers on throughout the day, and they usually do not do anything very intensive while someone is off at work or school. The idea is BOINC harvests the latent computer power that is normally wasted when you're away from the computer, and uses it for scientific research. This very easy, volunteered service both gives scientists the computing power they desperately need to advance science faster, and gives the end user a hobby to pursue in the field of computing by working towards a tangible, scientific goal.

Third of all, why would YOU do it? I understand that their is nearly no incentive for actually doing this other than a virtual score that keeps track on how much you've processed. Most of you won't care about this, but maybe some will. Personally, crunching numbers using BOINC has given me an insane respect for fields of science and computing, and you're able to live up to that respect by actually give resources sitting in your own house to those fields at no cost (bar electricity). Additionally, the communities of people that crunch BOINC projects is thriving and strong, with many users in fields of science, mathematics, and computing always trying to find a way to do better with their fellow users as a team effort, and the best part of this is that you feel like you're a part of that team, without having to become an entire scientist yourself.

Finally. what has BOINC given me? The BOINC project I run, PrimeGrid, has given me a large amount of respect and education in fields of both computing and mathematics. The amount of regular, working folks that have a hobby in finding prime numbers and solving mathematical conjectures is an amazing sight to see, and with field as niche as prime numbers, they have been very eager to assist and teach their peers on the topic. This policy of trying to share and spread knowledge on niche topics instead of playing people down for not knowing them has rubbed off on me and my writing, and is a large inspiration for me to do things like write guides for these forums or help people on this server. On top of this, the possibility of regular, ordinary people being attributed to major discoveries in science and mathematics is amazing. A great example would be Szabolcs Peter, a Hungarian resident that ran the PrimeGrid project on his home computer for only 8 months, and in October 2016, was attributed to the discovery of the worlds largest non-Mersenne prime number as well as disproving a candidate of the Sierpinski problem. This wasn't some scientist with some magic system, or some fortune 500 company with a massive datacenter that made this discovery, it was a normal dude with his gaming computer that did this.

If you have some minor technical knowledge, some spare computers, and some patience, I believe someone here could make at least some contribution to science by running this program. Many people here won't care, but maybe someone will.

A small word of warning: please do not run this program on laptop computers. Melting your laptop does not contribute to science.

[TheUltraFish]

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.

I heard about this more than once in college and even though it would not slow down your computer by much if noticeably at all, I do not suggest you do this unless you have a pretty nice setup. Most cases you would not notice this program running but if you have a crap computer, for sure do not do it. There is nothing to be gained by doing this on your part.

However, I want to make it clear that this is NOT a scam. I have not heard of any case of anybody's stuff breaking or having their personal information taken. It would just be another thing running in the background of your computer that you would soon forget about.

[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.