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

IBM And Samsung Jointly Announce "Breakthrough" Semiconductor That Uses 85% Less Energy   BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, DEC 15, 2021 - 06:40 PM   If you're like us, you've been wondering  what the hell IBM has been doing for the last few years . Today, it looks like we may have part of an answer. Big Blue  revealed this morning in a press release  that it had been working jointly with Samsung and had achieved a "breakthrough" in semiconductor design that could reduce energy usage by 85%. The two companies announced jointly a "breakthrough in semiconductor design utilizing a new vertical transistor architecture that demonstrates a path to scaling beyond nanosheet, and has the potential to reduce energy usage by 85 percent compared to a scaled fin field-effect transistor". The announcement comes in the midst of a global semiconductor shortage which many believe may not end fully until 2023.  "The two companies' semiconductor innov...

"Internet's On Fire Right Now": Millions Of Devices At Risk Over New Software Vulnerability   BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, DEC 15, 2021 - 08:20 AM Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,   A newly discovered flaw in a common piece of open-source software is prompting researchers and companies to update their systems in a bid to prevent hacks and ransomware attacks. The vulnerability, known as  CVE-2021-44228 , was disclosed on Dec. 9, which allows remote access to servers and code execution,  some experts have said. Meanwhile, Log4j is used in a large number of enterprise systems, raising concerns that it may be easily exploited. Since the vulnerability, which some dubbed “Log4Shell,” so is widespread and is likely present in highly-trafficked websites and apps, users may also see their favorite websites and apps be impacted. Cybersecurity firms Mandiant and Crowdstrike said that hacking groups are trying to breach systems, and Mandiant descr...

Stunning: Facebook Court Filing Admits 'Fact Checks' Are Just A Matter Of 'Protected' Opinion   by Thomas Lifson via American Thinker  (emphasis ours), December 10, 2021 Surprisingly little attention is being paid to a bombshell admission made by the attorneys representing the corporation formerly known as Facebook, Inc., which has now transitioned into Meta Platforms, Inc. In a  court filing  responding to a  lawsuit filed by John Stossel  claiming that  he was defamed by a “fact check”  Facebook used to label a video by him as “misleading,”  Meta’s attorneys assert that the “fact check” was an “opinion,” not an actual check of facts and declaration of facts .  Under libel law, opinions are protected from liability  for libel. Anthony Watts of  Wattsupwiththat  explains: Opinions are not subject to defamation claims, while false assertions of fact can be subject to defamation. The quote in Facebook’s complaint i...

Rohingya Refugees Sue Facebook For $150 Billion Over Myanmar Genocide   BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, DEC 07, 2021 - 09:05 PM   A  class-action suit against  Meta, Facebook's parent company, was filed on behalf of a large group of Rohingya refugees who blame the social media company for contributing to the genocide violence against the Muslim minority in Myanmar.  The plaintiff, who is not named and labeled "Jane Doe," represents 10,000-plus Rohingya refugees who have resettled in the US over the past decade. They are seeking more than $150 billion in damages. The lawsuit alleges Facebook's algorithm promoted hate speech and helped incite violence against the Muslim minority.  "The last five years, and in fact just the last five months, have made it abundantly clear that Facebook's path to promote the very worst of humanity was not the result of a bug but rather a carefully designed feature," according to the complaint filed in San Mateo Coun...

Hundreds Of Mathematicians, Scientists, Sign Open-Letter Against Social-Justice-Based Curriculum   BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, DEC 07, 2021 - 06:45 PM Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,   More than 700 mathematicians and scientists have signed an  open letter  denouncing recent “trends” in K-12  mathematics  education that proponents argue will close achievement gaps and damage America’s global competitiveness. “We write to express our alarm over recent trends in K-12 mathematics education in the United States,”  the “  Open Letter on K-12 Mathematics ,” which has 746 signatories as of Dec. 6, says. Signatories include several public school math teachers from California, numerous professors at University of California schools, including UC-Davis and UC-Berkeley, and staff at leading U.S. universities for hard science, including Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech, and MIT. It comes after the California Department of Education t...

How Safe Is Your Password?   BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, DEC 06, 2021 - 04:15 AM   Password, 123456, qwerty... While passwords which appear  on the list of the most common passwords  should definitely be retired from use, as  Statista's Katharina Buchholz details  below that  even a more unique password can be easy to crack if a computer program is tasked with systematically breaking it . As seen in data by website Security.org ,  adding even one upper case letter to a password can already dramatically alter its potential.  In the case of an eight-character password, it can now be broken in 22 minutes instead of instantaneously in one second – an increase of more than 1000 percent. You will find more infographics at  Statista While the added time in this case is definitely not good enough to end up with a satisfactory password, the high security gains of using characters other than lower case letters can be multiplied.  When...

Why You Should Delete Google Chrome On Your Phone   Zak Doffman Contributor Cybersecurity Nov 6, 2021, 06:30am EDT I cover security and surveillance and co-host 'Straight Talking Cyber' A stark new warning for billions of Google Chrome users, as the browser is exposed harvesting very sensitive phone data without users realizing. This latest privacy nightmare should give you a reason to delete Chrome on your phone. Last month,  Facebook’s app was exposed tracking the movements of iPhone users , tapping into the device’s accelerometer at all times. Facebook is the world’s greediest data harvester, and this sensitive information can be used to monitor behaviors, linking with the extraordinary amount of data it collects. But Facebook  isn’t  the world’s most successful data harvester—that prize goes to Google. Unlike Facebook, which has been hit hard by Apple’s latest privacy measures, Google’s digital ad revenues continue to soar. The reality is that whil...

Goldman Partners With Amazon To Launch New Cloud Computing Platform BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, NOV 30, 2021 - 10:05 PM   Goldman Sachs and Amazon are launching their most ambitious collaboration yet:  a new cloud computing service geared toward Wall Street firms to help them with high-frequency trading and other practices. And all these firms need to do is agree to entrust their entire back-end IT setup to the Vampire Squid to access what Amazon is touting as one of the fastest and most useful back-end systems available to Wall Street firms looking to transition on to the cloud. The new product - the result of a two-year collaboration with Amazon - will allow buy-side and sell-side firms to access all of Goldman's tools for quickly analyzing market data while enabling clients to set up high-speed trading strategies. Instead of simply relying on Goldman for prime brokerage services, hedge funds could soon outsource most of their IT setup to Wall Street's most powerful inv...

How To Escape Google   Submitted by swprs.org, November 26, 2021   Do you belong to the 94% of Internet users who have no clue? Google Search has a US online search  market share  of about 70%, or even 94% if Google Images, Google Maps and Google-owned YouTube are added (see chart above). If you belong to these 94%, there is some bad news for you. As a well-known US podcaster recently  discovered ,  Google is indeed “hiding information” from its users . This has actually been known for  many years , but it has become especially obvious and serious during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, censorship by Google has become so bad that nowadays, advanced Internet users are using Google primarily to monitor the current extent of censorship, not to actually search for anything. US researcher Dr. Robert Epstein termed it the  Search Engine Manipulation Effect  (SEME). Of note, Google censorship affects not just search results, but eve...

Italy Fines Apple, Amazon $230M Over 'Secret' Deal To Limit Resellers   BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, NOV 24, 2021 - 04:15 AM   The European Union's top bureaucrats aren't the only officials on the continent focused on demanding fairness and accountability  from American big tech firms like Google, Apple and Amazon. This week, Italy fined tech giants Amazon and Apple roughly $230M, accusing the firms of anti-competitive activities by claiming  they secretly cooperated to restrict sales of Apple products in Italy on platforms run by Amazon.  The two tech giants allegedly struck a deal back in 2018, which allegedly enabled  only 'selected resellers' to sell Apple products and Beats electronic accessories on Amazon.it. Italy’s antitrust authority ruled that the firms acted in violation of EU laws and affected competition on prices. Apple and Amazon were ordered to scrap their deal and the restrictions it imposes, and give all retailers of Apple and Beats ...