This is a very useful thread.

I just signed up today and I was asking myself this very question. I eventually found this thread.

This thread should be made much more prominent

Well, is it safe?

Perhaps you could mention that WCG's project sponsor is IBM, that it's a BOINC platform designed by USC and it performs research on behalf of universities all over the world. Does anyone really imagine that if there was anything insecure about the system, the full resources of these organisations wouldn't be brought to bear on the breach? These organisations have a reputation - and a research tool - to protect.

Any attempt to interfere with this system would be detected by the million pairs of eyes monitoring what it is doing 24/7, worldwide. Any hint of a problem would be instantly translated by the media into a "virus" allegation and draw the full attention of Microsoft and the AV manufacturers. They'd be drawn in because it would be easier to solve the problem than to distance themselves or deny its existence.

Of course, that's all IF....

And the problem with recruitment is really that everyone who has ever used a computer seems to define himself as an expert nowadays. "IT Managers" in commerce are largely board appointees with little IT knowledge installed to control the IT section aliens. They soon learn that if they say "Microsoft" often enough, they appear to their board to know what they are doing. They understand too little of the technicalities to be confident to authorise WCG. And regardless of the qualifications of those few managers who actually have IT skills, they are outranked by the sensationalist press scaremongers.

Ludditery lives!