Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

German software firm warns researcher who disclosed a vulnerability in its software and offered his help Apr 27, 2011 | 02:38 PM By Kelly Jackson Higgins Darkreading   Another security researcher is facing possible legal action based on the 3-year-old "hacker clause" in a German law that basically forbids anyone from selling and distributing hacking tools. An independent researcher who goes by "Acidgen" was recently threatened with a lawsuit by a German software company that he alerted about a buffer overflow vulnerability he discovered in the vendor's music application. Acidgen, who is based in Sweden, found a stack buffer overflow bug in Magix AG's Music Maker 16 software (version 16.0.2.4) and promptly passed the information to Magix. After several friendly email exchanges with the vendor in which Acidgen also provided Magix with what he describes as a "nonharmful" proof-of-concept (PoC) to demonstrate how the flaw could be exploited and h...

APRIL 28, 2011 By YUKARI IWATANI KANE And JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES Apple Inc. is scaling back how much information its iPhones store about where they have been and said it will stop collecting such data when consumers request it, as the company tries to quell concerns it was tracking iPhone owners. But Apple's statements, after a week of silence on the growing controversy, raised new questions and criticism about its data-handling practices. Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas) said Apple apparently "lied" to him and another lawmaker last year when it said its phones don't collect and transmit location-based data when location services such as mapping are turned off. Apple defended the process it uses to gather location information via the iPhone and unveiled a software update to scale back such practices. Apple said Wednesday it would fix software "bugs" that let each phone build a database of locations stretching back months, even when related services are...

Online retailer cancels contracts, job postings for Cayce site By TIM FLACH -   tflach@thestate.com Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands. Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce. "As a result of today's unfortunate House vote, we've canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site," said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy. The decision came shortly after state representatives rejected the tax break 71-47. "People who think this is a bluff don't know Amazon," Lexington County Councilman Bill Banning said. "Too many other states want them....