spi

Two researchers say they have found a way to exploit weaknesses in the mobile telecom system to legally spy on people by figuring out the private cell phone number of anyone they want, tracking their whereabouts, and listening to their voice mail.

Independent security researcher Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey, a security consultant with iSec Partners, planned to provide details in a talk entitled "We Found Carmen San Diego" at the Source Boston security conference on Wednesday.

"There are a lot of fragile eggs in the telecom industry and they can be broken," Bailey said in … Read more

A new motion in the Lower Merion School School District Webcam-spying case has presented extraordinary suggestions as to the frequency and intimate nature of the photographs allegedly taken remotely by the cameras on school-issued laptops.

On Thursday, lawyers for 15-year-old Blake Robbins and his family claimed that thousands of images were taken by the laptop Webcams. Included in these were, according to the motion, "pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping." In addition, images of Web sites visited and snapshots of their instant messages were also allegedly captured.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, lawyers claim that … Read more

Your significant other's asleep in the bedroom and you spot his or her phone lying on the couch. Would you take a peep at the text messages? According to a recent survey from consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo, there's a 38 percent chance you would if you're 25 or younger (or, one assumes, married to Tiger Woods).

Whether it's due to innocent curiosity or a serious lack of trust, there will always be those who want to spy on their mates. (I am not, of course, talking about myself, any past girlfriends, or anyone else I … Read more

Researchers have uncovered a spy network that stole classified and other sensitive documents from the Indian government, the Dalai Lama's office, the United Nations, and compromised computers elsewhere, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The operation, dubbed "Shadow Network," is detailed in a report that also cites evidence it says links the Shadow network to two people living in Chengdu, China, and the underground hacking community in that country.

The report is based on research from volunteers at the U.S.-based Shadow Server Foundation and Information Warfare Monitor, which includes researchers from the Citizen Lab … Read more

We test hundreds of programs each month. While we protect our PC with several security programs, threats like spyware slip through the cracks. SpyDLLRemover Portable is a small utility that claims to catch these threats.

The program's user interface is pretty basic, but it does the job. Three tabs at the top of the window let you view the scan results, running processes, and any traceable DLLs. There's also a color-coded key for identifying spyware threat levels. The program doesn't have a viable Help feature for getting started or answering questions, and a link to the publisher'… Read more

Since March 2007, when Viacom first accused Google in a $1 billion lawsuit of profiting off thousands of unauthorized copyrighted clips that once appeared on YouTube, most of the conflict had smoldered out of public view.

Once the case documents were unsealed on Thursday, all the spite roared into the open. Google attacked Viacom for chopping up e-mails from YouTube's founders in an obvious attempt to invent sinister-sounding messages. In Viacom's motion for summary judgment, the parent company of Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures railed against Google and YouTube for developing "serial amnesia" during depositions and … Read more

Two IT employees at Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District have been put on administrative leave, and pictures taken from Webcams on school-issued computers have been turned over to the local police department, according to the attorney of one of the employees now on leave.

Attorney Charles Mandracchia, who represents school district information coordinator Carol Cafiero, told Philadelphia TV station Fox 29 that that "they had a private Web site for some of these pictures for the Lower Marion Police Department to view and they were the only ones who could view it."

In February, the family of … Read more

Porn lovers or those who, you know, just read the articles, might want to take notice: a device from Paraben can be plugged into a computer's USB port and detect pornographic images on a hard drive.

The Porn Detection Stick is an interesting--and for some, worrisome--device. A porn investigator can pick up this handy device for about $100, plug it into the USB drive of any Windows-based PC, and run the Porn Detection program.

The software searches the hard drive using "advanced image analyzing algorithms that categorize images as potentially harmful by identifying facial features, flesh tone colors, … Read more

This week, we follow new developments in the system-wide PS3 meltdown, which knocked PS3 gamers off the grid for most of Monday. Then, we find out that a New York school administrator coincidentally named "Dan Ackerman" is spying on kids' laptops. Does this mean Dan now officially has an evil doppelganger?

HD video on a Netbook is something of a misnomer, but as we demonstrate, equiped with the right hardware and the latest beta Flash player from Adobe, you can play and stream HD video to a Netbook (with varying degrees of success). Finally, we engage in a … Read more