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

'We didn't mean to track you' says Facebook as social network giant admits to 'bugs' in new privacy row By DANIEL BATES Last updated at 4:35 PM on 28th September 2011 Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out. In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites. The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake - that software automatically downloaded to users' computers when they logged in to Facebook 'inadvertently' sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time. Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case. In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers – data that could be...

By GREG KUMPARAK Head down into the bunkers and lock the door, friends - there be flamewars a comin'. Nielsen released a new mobile research report this morning, with at least one big landmark stat within: over the past 3 months, Android has pulled in twice as many new smartphone buyers as the iPhone. The new-buyers breakdown, over the past 3 months: 56% of those buying a new smartphone bought an Android device 28% bought an iPhone 9% bought BlackBerry 6% bought "Other" (which contains Windows Phone, amongst others) Of course, these stats really should have a little asterisk tucked somewhere inside. The iPhone is one phone (or two, counting the 3GS), by one manufacturer. Android is, at this point, hundreds of models, across dozens of manufacturers. That's not said to knock Android in any way - but it's worth noting that when the pie is split so many ways across so many manufacturers and models within, the iPhone is probably making exponentially more money ...

22 September 2011 Last updated at 13:28 ET Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light. Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early. The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists. In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims. "We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration. "We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News. "When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forc...

Posted at 01:00 AM ET, 09/20/2011 U.S. companies playing by Chinese cyber-rules By Ellen Nakashima U.S.-based tech firms seeking access to China's exploding population of computer users bend too easily to China's rules of censorship and surveillance, according to a new report by SecDev Group, a think tank focused on regions at risk from violence and insecurity. And though the United States is at the forefront of nations supporting freedom of expression online, the report says that voluntary codes of ethical conduct so far have not worked. In "Collusion and Collision: Searching for guidance in Chinese cyberspace," SecDev researchers criticized search engine firms for "conforming to China's censorship and surveillance policies" as the price of doing business in a market with 450 million Internet users. "Internet companies operate in a narrow space between collusion and collision with the Chinese government," said the Ottawa-based group, w...

Congress contemplates draconian punishment for Internet lies By ORIN S. KERR Imagine that President Obama could order the arrest of anyone who broke a promise on the Internet. So you could be jailed for lying about your age or weight on an Internet dating site. Or you could be sent to federal prison if your boss told you to work but you used the company's computer to check sports scores online. Imagine that Eric Holder's Justice Department urged Congress to raise penalties for violations, making them felonies allowing three years in jail for each broken promise. Fanciful, right? Think again. Congress is now poised to grant the Obama administration's wishes in the name of "cybersecurity." The little-known law at issue is called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was enacted in 1986 to punish computer hacking. But Congress has broadened the law every few years, and today it extends far beyond hacking. The law now criminalizes computer use that "exceeds ...

By: Stephen Shankland SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 9:06 AM PDT The first big blow to Flash was Apple's iOS. Now Adobe Systems' browser plug-in faces another major threat to its relevance: Microsoft has banned it and all other plug-ins from the "Metro" version of Internet Explorer 10. Metro is the modern "touch-first" interface that plays a starring role in the radically new look of Windows 8, which Microsoft plans to release in 2012. Microsoft will ship the new OS with two versions of IE10, one for Metro and one a brushed-up version of the current Windows 7 interface. While the legacy version of IE10 will accommodate plug-ins, the Metro won't, IE team leader Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post last night during the company's Build conference. His words should be music to the ears of those who are critical of Flash and those who are fans of a new swath of Web standards often designed to replace Flash. Dean wrote: Running Metro-style IE plug-in free im...