According to a report released on Wednesday (PDF) by Canadian researchers; the Skype joint-venture in China, TOM-Skype, is recording customer text chats and then censoring them if it contains certain keywords related to topics that the Chinese government deemed objectionable.

Sensitive words include the Falun Gong, Taiwan independence and earthquake. The group also found that there logs of intercepted messages, where if one person types the word “fuck” into the program, it sends the message to a remote location – and it also found that the directories were accessible by using a web browser.

“While Skype specifically stated that censored messages are ’simply discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere,’ this report demonstrates that not only are filtered messages transmitted to and stored on TOM-Skype servers located in China, but also that the servers themselves are configured with such poor security that it is possible to retrieve and decrypt these logs,” according to the report.

Also found were logs of IP addresses, usernames and the content of the text messages which have been filtered, recordings of Skype voice conversations with their names and their phone numbers. However, this is locked away in a directory that has been encrypted and each sub-directory inside of that is also encrypted.

It also found that it has been used for piracy, and it is obvious when you type a search query in Google. We tested it, and it does seem to work.

A pair of alleged scammers who made millions from the infamous fullreleases.com, a “service” that sold monthly subscriptions to unsuspecting web users for standard search results from popular torrent sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay, have now gotten their identity exposed across the web.

As well, users’ credit cards were also being used for subscription payments that were used for other, mysterious charges; and don’t try cancelling since it was near impossible, with many different stories detailing about the experience.

The identity of the owners, Matt and Jake Dylewski, were revealed by FileClub.info; who also had photos, their addresses, their ICQ numbers, date of births and their girlfriend’s information posted on the page. As well, the site also lists more than 20 sites that are owned by them, including billinghlp.com, xboxreactor.com, blazingebooks.com, adultreactor.net, moviereactor.net and releases.ws.

Also, they managed to turn their scam into a fulltime business, after having scamming users out of “millions of dollars” over the years and have been evading taxes in Canda (where Jake resides), Malta (where Matt resides) and Poland (their home country). As well, their ‘office’ is listed in Malta.

According to TorrentFreak, most of the websites have been taken down, including fullreleases.com, but those who had been victims are more likely to never get their money back. If you have been scammed by these people, FileClub.info is suggesting that you file a report with the Malta Police.

An exploit, according to Gizmodo, has been found in Adobe’s software that can be used to download free copies of movies and television shows from Amazon’s Video on Demand service (and other services as well).

In tests using the Replay Media Catcher, Reuters successfully downloaded the movies that utilised software from Adobe to deliver media, including Amazon – though they say that their shows and movies cannot be pirated using the software. It seems that the “security feature” was dropped in order to increase download speeds. That feature allowed protection between the software and its players.

Members of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous have taken turned their attention to Sarah Palin, the vice presidential candidate for the Republicans and the governor of Alaska, by hacking into her Yahoo email account. According to The Register, “activists loosely affiliated” with the group gained access to the account at around midnight.

It is unknown how the group managed to get into her account, but screenshots have been posted to Wikileaks with the address “gov.palin@yahoo.com”. One screenshot shows an email from Amy McCorkell, a member for Palin’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. Other screenshots include the inbox and contact lists.

Apple has released the latest version of updates for its Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” operating system. The update, which includes bug fixes and security updates, is the fifth to the operating system - which launched nearly a year ago.

The two notable updates are the video playback problems in some MacBook Air and a puzzling bug in “which some Macs could unexpectedly power on at the same time each day.” Never heard it before? Me either. The update should be up on Apple’s website and Software Update.

If you already fearing that the Large Hadron Collider will bring the end to the world, it may be a bit more perilous than we thought. A team of hackers have successfully hacked one of CERN’s systems that is "one step away" from the main computer systems that controls the massive detectors.

According to the Telegraph, the group, calling themselves the "Greek Security Team", left half a dozen files on the system and damaged one file. It also displayed a message on cmsmon.cern.ch, which remains remains inaccessible.

The message was in Greek, and you can view the full screenshot of the message here.

Your iPhone is pretty much watching what you temporarily store as a screenshot, which can be used by hackers or forensic experts if they can recover it, according to a renowned iPhone hacker who exposed the flaw in a webcast.

Jonathan Zdziarski explained that the popular handset snaps a screenshot of your most recent action - may it be sending a text message, e-mailing or just browsing the web - in order to cache it. Apparently that screenshot is needed when you tap the Home button to have the application shrink and disappear, creating the effect.

While it "deletes" the file after closing the application - it is technically not deleted. It is still on the hard drive, until some files overwrite that space.

As well, Zdziarski also says that this is one of many ways that forensic experts can collect evidence about you, including your keyboard cache, Safari cache and lookups on Google maps. They can also recover deleted photos and e-mails from months ago.

Ironically, the only secure way is using the Pwnage tool to create a custom fireware bundle. Wired has the full story about it, and once the video about the hacks for your iPhone is up, we will posted here.

Remember when people said that don’t believe everything on the Internet? No? Well, you should start listening, especially since Barack Obama is not a terrorist … or a porn star.

A malicious e-mail is spreading that claims to have a link to an Obama sex video. However, this contains spyware which steals sensitive data from the computer, according to Sophos on Wednesday. The subject line would say "Obama sex video!!!" with the e-mail coming from infonews@obama.com.

The link contains an executable file that plays an amateur porn video, but Obama is not present in the video. The trojan is known as Mal/Hupig-D, and this targets Windows machines and steal passwords and bank data.

The US Department of Justice has hired its old anti-trust boss Sandy Litvack to head up its probe into Google’s advertising practises. Litvack served as the head of the antitrust division under President Jimmy Carter before leaving in early 1981; he is now working as a partner at a private law firm.

It is unknown if the probe will investigate anything beyond Google’s advertising partnership with Yahoo, as it is already unusual as the DoJ launches an investigation if there was a full merger.

Source : The Register

After years of saying that its e-voting machines were not faulty, Diebold (now called Premier Election Solutions) has said that there is a fault on its machines that was in the software for the past ten years. This means that the faulty software was used during the 2000 and 2004 US presedential elections.

While Christ Riggall, the spokesperson for the company, has said that ‘logic error’ probably didn’t ruin any elections, the president is said to be distressed about the ordeal.

The faulty machines were the subject of a documentary called Hacking Democracy. We have selected a clip from that documentary to show you an example of a hack in the system, also known as the Hursti Hack. Enjoy!