1. Maybe. Sooner or later. Tons of benefits, few dangers, but big dangers.
2. We already have, it's called radio.
3. I think it's cool. I would like to know if any of the work my computer or group has done has helped identify anything "interesting".
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.