It seems censoring of SMS messages are a trending topic as not only did Pakistan recently declare that their mobile phone telecommunications company will be clocking out words from text messages sent on the server end

Server side SMS censoring is dangerous

At the end of November however, following public outcry and world-wide ridicule, The Pakistan’s telecom companies said that they will now postpone the plans to block 1,695 offensive words and phrases in SMS messages.

News outlets all over the world have reported on Pakistan’s plans to declare 1,695 words or phrases as ‘obscene’ and block their use in SMS messages; with the actual blocking to be done at every telecommunications company in the country.

It appears that the list of words was secretly distributed by Pakistan’s telecommunications authority to all telcos in the country on November 14th with a seven day deadline for implementation.

DIY iPhone SMS censor

Additionally , there is now also a new Jailbreak cycia tweak has been launched which allows the blocking of sending SMS messages which contain certain words, but this tweak is directly on the phone, and prevents the user from sending the text before it goes out on the wire

SMS Censor also has an option which will pop up a prompt before each new SMS is sent, asking the writer whether they want to send it or not. This could definitely come in useful if you’re the kind of person who likes to fire off SMS messages after a few drinks of an evening. Are you really sure you want to tell your boss what you really think of them? No, probably not!

While we like the idea of SMS Censor tweak, and the option to require conformation before sending an SMS is welcome, we’re not really sure how useful the censoring part of the tweak would work. The settings for the tweak require no password to access, meaning that it can be turned on and off should anyone really want to. For an tweak that could come in useful for kids, it is all too easily bypassed.

We would also like to see it block incoming messages, or perhaps alter the message before it is shown to the recipient.

That said, SMS Censor does what its developer says it does, and if you’re looking for an app to censor outgoing messages, then this may just be it.

You will obviously need to have a jailbroken device to get it to work. For jailbreaking iOS 5 tethered using Redsn0w, you can follow our complete step by step guide posted here, or here if you want to use Sn0wbreeze on Windows. Since jailbreak on iOS 5 is currently limited to tethered boot only,

I think the client side censoring or warning that your message can be offensive is more useful than companies modifying your communication on the fly, just imagine what else they could end up doing with your message

Apps like these could potentially make it into the Apple Built in OS as a child safe setting, which could warn users to use better language… or possibly can be time activated, so that you don’t send horrible messages to work colleagues or your boss after a certain time at night