hack

Google has plugged a hole hackers used Sunday morning to festoon YouTube videos with off-color pop-ups and adult-site redirects, according to a news outlet.

Hackers took advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability that enabled them to insert code onto the popular video site's viewer-comments pages, IDG News Service said in a report. The hackers apparently had it in for Justin Bieber, focusing on clips related to the teen pop star, who's set to appear Sunday night on an NBC television celebration of the Fourth of July and who's reportedly one of the most popular attractions on YouTube. … Read more

In the near future, you may be more worried about a hacker attack on your car than on your PC.

A group of researchers from two universities tested their hacking skills on two cars and found that they could remotely lock the brakes, the engine, and windows on a car; turn on the radio, heat, and windshield wipers; honk the horn; and change the speedometer display.

They were able to do all of that in tests on two cars of unnamed make and model by connecting a laptop to the electronic control system and controlling that computer wirelessly using a … Read more

When I first saw this Canon AE-1 Program SLR hack, I was totally blown away. A clever shutterbug gutted the film camera innards and made space for the Canon Digital Ixus 870 IS to be placed inside.

That's not all. The hacker also managed to wire the controls (presumably via hardware) so the shutter button on the SLR would trigger the shutter on the compact. If that's not enough, a "popup" flash was also made to complement the contraption. Last but not least, the start-up screen on the point-and-shoot would display "AE-1 Program Digital." … Read more

A Tennessee jury on Friday convicted the 22-year-old son of a Democratic politician of hacking into Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account when she was a U.S. vice presidential candidate in 2008.

The federal jury found David Kernell guilty of unauthorized access to a computer and destroying records to obstruct justice. Kernell, the son of a state legislator, was acquitted on a wire fraud charge, and the jury deadlocked on an identity theft charge.

It's unclear when Kernell's sentencing will happen. U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips has not yet set a date.

In a statement after … Read more

As a tech blogger who gets to see cool stuff daily, I may be a bit jaded. On Monday, my editor asked if I felt like writing about a mind-controlled networked miniature spy robot and my initial reaction was "meh." But then I thought about what she'd just typed and it hit me that it's a mind-controlled networked miniature spy robot. Of course I felt like writing about it!

It's a homemade bash using WowWee's Rovio Wi-Fi robotic Web camera and Emotiv Systems' EPOC gaming headset, which lets players manipulate a game environment with … Read more

There are matches made in heaven, and on the other side of the spectrum, there is David Wang's accomplishment: booting Google's Android operating system on Apple's iPhone

Wang, the "planetbeing" member of the a group called the iPhone Dev Team devoted to hacking iPhones, on Wednesday posted a video demonstrating Android on an iPhone.

The demo shows the boot process--complete with the Tux Linux mascot--and Wang using Android for browsing, receiving a text message, answering a phone call, and playing music. The phone is set up with a dual-boot configuration and indeed the video begins … Read more

This week, the MP3 Insiders discuss the rumored next-gen iPhone, which appears to be the most legit report on an unannounced Apple product in recent memory. Also, hackers break into the Zune; Apple admits to faulty Shuffle headphones; and ZDNet offers an excellent comparison of popular online music stores.

Subscribe in iTunes audio |  Subscribe in iTunes video | Subscribe in RSS audio |  Subscribe in RSS video… Read more

Sony PlayStation 3 owners who held off on updating their systems in order to keep from losing the option to install alternate operating systems have a new glimmer of hope. Hacker George Hotz (a.k.a Geohot) has released a video of a new hack that promises to keep the alternate OS install feature, even with the 3.21 firmware update that was released last week.

Hotz says the hack is nothing more than a custom system software update that can be installed without having to do any hardware modifications, but users need to be on version 3.15 of … Read more

Attention, jailbreak fans: two competing tools might be released in the next couple of days to jailbreak iPhones running 3.1.3--and they might also work on the iPad, which launches Saturday.

Jailbreaking is the practice of hacking an iPhone or iPod Touch to install non-Apple-approved programs and run system hacks. It allows for things like tethering, interface tweaks, and other changes Apple doesn't approve of. Many people don't like being locked in to the "ecosystem" Apple forces its iDevice users to inhabit, and jailbreaking is seen as the cure.

The hacks have been demonstrated and … Read more