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McAfee Digests Spam Experiment
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-05-02
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The 30-day challenge to run an unprotected computer and surf the Internet while filling out every form and answering every spam ended with the reinforcement of a lesson: nothing comes for free.
 | | McAfee Digests Spam Experiment |  |
Participants in the McAfee Spam Experiment may put their security software back in place, and stop leafing through spam. They discovered what security pros long knew, that no one gives away something without wanting something in return.
Whether that would be cash or personal information depended on who was making the offer. The participants in the experiment sought out websites of all kinds. They filled out forms, and when the inevitable spam arrived, they responded to that as well.
The security vendor said in the thirty days their participants from around the world opened the computers and email addresses provided by McAfee to the dark and dirty Internet, they received over 126,000 spams, with over 27,000 of them hitting the five US participants.
One participant said part of the experiment had them looking for free music downloads. "Our final verdict is that there really is no free commercial music. Either you pay for the listening, or you run the risk of the FBI knocking on your door," they said.
Other promises of free money or other stuff also failed to bear fruit, to no one's surprise. Spam serves as a conduit to criminals seeking profits. Anyone thinking otherwise of the next spam is a fool, but the world is full of them, and spam won't ever end because of that.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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