By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

McAfee’s S.P.A.M. (Spammed Persistently All Month) experiment begins today. This is a global project, with 50 people, 5 from each of the 10 countries that McAfee does business in, selected from over 2,000 respondents via a Craiglist ad.

The entire month of April, participants will expose themselves to spam using a Dell laptop provided by McAfee - which they will keep - sans spam protection and with a fresh email address. As the month goes by, participants will blog about their experiences on http://www.mcafeespamexperiment.com/ (participants will blog in their native languages).

Participants won’t just be receiving spam; they’ll be responding to it, to prove just how harmful spam is. In a press release, Christopher Bolin, chief technology officer for McAfee said:

“Spam isn’t just a nuisance. It’s a tool used by cyber criminals to steal personal and business data. And, as scammers become more adept at writing spam in local languages it’s becoming more difficult for Internet users to detect spam. It’s vital that computer users understand the risks of leaving their computers unprotected.”

A good question would be just how many Nigerian / 419-type scams participants will enjoy.

Dave DeWalt, CEO for McAfee said:

“Cybercrime won’t go away without solving the problem of spam. McAfee is leading the fight against cybercrime and spam. This experiment will raise awareness of the problem by showing that a 30-day diet of spam is bad for your online health.”

Sounds a lot like a Super Size Me type experiment doesn’t it?

There’s no doubt that besides the annoyance of being buried under a mountain of spam, if you’re not wary you can become infected with viruses and trojans - or those who are the most careless can be tricked into giving away sensitive financial information.

At the end of the experiment McAfee’s Avert Labs will be analyzing the spam and writing a report. I assume they will also analyze just how many viruses were introduced to the laptops as well - as well as, since the participants are keeping the laptops, provided a fresh hard drive or formatting the old one.

We Say: It should be noted that McAfee provided both antivirus and antispam products, so it has a vested interest in this study.

Ready, set, start clicking on that spam!

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

In creating the original Xbox, Microsoft unwittingly helped create the single most affordable and feature packed media player of the Standard Definition age.
The free open source Xbox Media Centre (XBMC) software - when coupled with a modified Xbox - sets the standard for home theatre playback.
Is the Popcorn Hour A-100 the new High Definition equivalent, asks Paul Moons?

Read his in-depth and very balanced review here. 

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The need for security – often in the form of covert surveillance – is rapidly increasing in our modern world.
Our homes and businesses follow the trend set by governments and law enforcement agencies.

I was looking around for an unobtrusive recording device that would have motion activation and take reasonable good pictures at set intervals.
I think I’ve found exactly that when I came across the Swann Communications Digital Private Eye. And as a bonus it also functions as a webcam.
Let’s see what it is all about.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

And people wonder why I have doubts about the future of the human race. An attack by hackers occurred last weekend on the user forums of the Epilepsy Foundation of America (EFA), “the national voluntary agency solely dedicated to the welfare of the more than 3 million people with epilepsy in the U.S. and their families.”

Apparently hackers went into the forums and laced messages with first animated GIF images, and then Javascript in an attempt to trigger seizures in users.

It should be noted that the forum at the National Society of Epilepsy (NSE) in the U.K. was subjected an identical attack last weekend.

Of those diagnosed with epilepsy, 3 - 5% are of the photosensitive type, in which seizures can be triggered by visual stimuli.

Both sets of forums have since been cleaned up, but why would anyone do this? Messages on the forum indicate that some even wondered about ever coming back to the forums. In this EFA thread Bella2 said:

So, it really freaked me out, the events of last week. Disgusting, graphic pictures kept popping up and I got the worst headache ever. I’m sure all of you had the same. I’m sure there were some who had seizures, too. I force quit my computer and all was normal again. The next day, I asked my husband to check it and it seemed fine too but I have been avoiding this site because I didn’t know how long it would take to clean it up.

Here’s a “thank you” note for the hard work the EFA did in cleaning up the forums.

And here’s a general thread at the NSE about the problems of last weekend.

To make matters worse, the hackers laced the forums with viruses and trojans as well. It was noted by Southie in this thread, that her AV program caught the following:

Keylogger
Keystroke
Back-Door
JS/Popupper

Why would anyone do this? And who would do this? As I said previously, it just goes to show that there are some pretty evil people in the human race.

Wired seems to think it was the group Anonymous, which has been waging a cyberwar against Church of Scientology, but I see no reason why they would attack the EFA and NSE. Apparent members of Anonymous have posted on the EFA boards denying responsibility, and actually positing it was the Church of Scientology that attacked the sites, which makes no sense either.

In the end, while it does matter, we will probably never really know who attacked the sites. More importantly, the sites should take some steps to prevent the issues from occurring again: simply disabling Javascript and images in forums posts would be a good first step.

And let’s hope this sort of thing never happens again.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

I’m not a fan of in-game advertising, but in-game sales might be an idea that I can “buy” into.

The in-game radio of the Grand Theft Auto series has been a feature many have lauded, but now it will also be a way to monetize gameplay. By using a new technology called “ZiT,” a player, upon hearing a song they like, can call ZIT-555-0100 on their in-game cell phone. A player would then receive a text message with the song and artist names. If they happen to be registered at the Rockstar Games Social Club that I wrote about earlier, they’ll receive an e-mail with a direct link to a custom playlist on Amazon.com, where all songs tagged “ZiT” will be stored.

In a press release, it’s clear that the music industry is pretty happy about the possibility of monetizing in-game soundtracks. Ronn Werre, EVP, EMI Music’s Sales, Licensing and Synchronization unit, said:

“Music has long played an integral part of the game playing experience. We think giving players the ability to identify and buy their favorite tracks from Grand Theft Auto IV’s popular radio stations is a great new music discovery tool for fans and an innovative new revenue stream for artists.”

Wait, where’s the “innovative new revenue stream for us” sentence?

At any rate, it’s also cool that they choose Amazon MP3, since all their selections are DRM-free. But if this model really takes off, could we perhaps see it used to subsidize and thus lower the retail cost of games? Nah, I didn’t think so, either.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Despite the fact that it appeared Apple was pushing Safari via iTunes update, until today, it turns out you can’t install it at all, unless you wanted to violate the EULA and risk legal action (and we all know how Apple protects its interests).

As pictured above, you can see that the EULA for Safari (for Windows) says you can install and use the software on “a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.” Since Apple doesn’t make Windows PCs, this means you could only use the Windows version on a Mac running Boot Camp or some other software allowing you to run Windows on a Mac.

However, realizing it wouldn’t get much market share this way, Apple has since relented, changing the EULA (.PDF) posted on their website so that it says:

“This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on each computer owned or controlled by you.”

Unfortunately, if you happen to download the installer and run it, you still see the EULA above. So, here’s my suggestion: download the EULA and keep it around in case Apple chases you down for violating their EULA.

Alternatively, use Firefox.

We Say: BTW, I hope everyone realizes this post is totally tongue-in-cheek.

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The “multiuse” Jabra BT5020 headset and A7010 hub bundle are Bluetooth devices which can be used with multiple communication devices, allowing office professionals and “road warriors” to use a single headset with their mobile, desk phone and PC.

Thanks to Jabra, DigitalReviews got their hands on the BT5020 and A7010 bundle for evaluation.

Here’s Kevin Cheng’s report.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

AMD made a host of announcements on Thursday, including officially launching their triple-core Phenom X3 line, which we wrote about earlier, as well as high-performance quad-core Phenom X4 CPUs and an energy-efficient quad-core CPU that uses only 65 watts.
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