Starforce announced today that they are increasing the prize of their contest to $3000: "After ten days into the contest we’ve had a lot of visitors at our website and only one unconfirmed application. This makes us even more confident that the opinion about StarForce drivers damaging optical drives is nothing but a rumor." They are also making a special offer on some anti-spyware program to all owners of Starforce-protected applications. It's interesting to note that the contest has a new name: "Destroy your PC and receive $1000" has now changed to "Prove it! and receive $3000 from StarForce!". Again, check out the details here.

On the official forums, the Starforce thread has been closed after 21 pages, 418 posts and 18206 views (and that's exclusing the previous Starforce threads). There is an explanation by community manager Thunak followed by a reply by Fabrice, who wins the Salty Quote of the Day award: "I dont mind endless debate but I DO mind lies being spread out only for the sake of pushing an agenda. I would prefer this method to remain a monopoly of the current US government." Fabrice points out that some people who posted in the Starforce thread never posted elsewhere, and that the points that were brought were very redundant, something I won't disagree with.