SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. A group of researchers at UC Berkley have been analyzing radio telescope data for a number of years, looking for any signals that might seem "artificial" indicating that they might have originated from an intelligent source, sufficiently advanced to posess radio broadcasting technology. (we've been broadcasting into outer space since the 1920's)
They have more raw telescope data than they can possibly analyze with their in-house computers, so they invented a clever scheme to divide the telescope data up into little packets, which they send to individual PC's over the internet, which analyze the data and send it back. The SETI client uses spare clock cycles, when your computer is on, but not being used.
Whether or not it's a worthwhile idea is up to you to decide, but they have cool graphics on their screen saver, and every member has a stats page on their website, which lists how many units you've processed, and what your overall ranking is compared to other members. Of course, if you discover the Klingons, you'll get credit as well.
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