Canadian activist group Citizen Lab, with the help of an article in the New York Times, has blown the lid off the newest Chinese censorship scandal: the government of China is eavesdropping on, and in some cases intercepting, text messages sent via the Skype network.

Imagine our shock to discover that VoIP provider Vonage has turned to comment spamming. Oh, they will probably deny it, but what else can you call it when their Online Marketing Manager, Costas Kariolis, shows up at an article about Skype on the Internet Patrol, and posts a comment about the Vonage offerings, with an SEO-formatted link back to the Vonage site? and also posts the exact same comment to articles about Skype on other sites?

Skype, eBay’s internet telephone service, has just announced a great Skype dela – an unlimited international calling plan for a mere $9.95 monthly fee, allowing Skype telephone conversations to 34 countries including the U.S., Canada, much of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea and others. That’s right, for the price of two skinny no-whip double-decaf mochaccinos you can make a Skype phone call to over a third of the world’s population, as long as it’s to a land-line phone.

The FBI is warning of an increase in what have come to be known as “vishing attacks” – where scammers call someone on the telephone, but make the call using VoIP, which not only is much more difficult to trace, but allows the scammer to spoof the phone number from which they are calling (making the number which shows up on the caller I.D. appear to be from someone else).

A new Skype worm, known alternately as Ramex, Pykspa, or Skipi (technical names w32/Ramex.A, W32.Pykspa.D, and W32/Skipi.A, respectively), is threatening all Skype users who are running Windows. The worm replicates itself by sending a Skype instant message from the infected user’s machine to everybody in the user’s Skype address book.

If you were affected by last week’s Skype outage, you’ll be happy to know that Skype has spontaneously offered seven free extra days Skype usage to make up for the Skype problems that their users were experiencing. This bonus applies to all Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail users who were affected by the Skype outage.

Right now, using the free Skype download of either their Skype for PCs or Skype for Mac, you can use your computer to make unlimited calls to any phone in the U.S. or Canada, using the Skype phone service (the Skype Internet phone system), for only $29.95 a year. Unlimited! So if you have been wondering “what is Skype”, this is the perfect time to find out, because this is the most fantastic of Skype deals!

With the announcement of Yahoo Voice Phone Out and Yahoo Voice Phone In, Yahoo has launched their VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services.

Skype uses your computer’s resources to handle Skype traffic which has absolutely nothing to do with you, and it’s all completely legal because you agreed to it.

Tufone and MobileLime allow you to make international VoIP calls from your cell phone, and to use your cellular phone in place of your credit card or debit card.

Rumours abound that Yahoo is about to roll out its own VoIP service. And soon. The most recent rumours started when Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy said that in his estimation Yahoo was set to roll out a VoIP service within the next two weeks. Said Rashtchy, “VoIP is fast…

Yep, now Aunty has pretty much heard of everything. VoIP provider Vonage is inviting you participate in a “Pimp that Phone” (i.e. mod that telephone) event. Watch four contestants pimp out their ordinary landline (but Vonage-adapted) telephones in an effort to win prizes by turning them into..cough.. “works of art”….

Cisco Systems is reporting that there have been several security flaws found in their CallManager VoIP system, the most serious being with their Aupair.exe component. The flaws, which cause vulnerabilities in CallManager in its default settings, can allow someone to eavesdrop on calls, and even reroute VoIP calls to another…

Pretty soon you will be able to use a standard cordless house phone with Vonage in your home! Vonage has entered a partnership with Uniden to adapt one of Uniden’s cordless phones, the UIP1869V, to plug directly into an Internet connection, to take advantage of VOIP services without requiring an…

MCLEAN, Va., May 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Lingo, the U.S. Internet phone service provider, today became the first VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) provider to offer unlimited phone calling to Mexico. The new Lingo “Unlimited Mexico” VoIP plan provides members of the U.S. Mexican community, among others, the opportunity to use…