how about using distributed computing for encryption

While encryption is pretty complex, maybe some of us can volunteer and do somethiing similar to this
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Main

We should do something like that, but instead of studying folding proteins, we can make a better encryption

I wouldn’t mind donating some of my (cpu cycles)

Lol. This is hilarious. Distributed computing defeats the purpose of encryption.
Better ask them to use decent crypto keys and algorithms and make use of existent local computing power (think about multi-core CPU’s and Fermi cores, available in just about any nvidia graphics card). Actual computers can easily implement (and ■■■■■) the primitive 128bit encryption algorithms used by CDE.