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HP pulls sponsorship of hacking contest over Wassenaar Arrangement

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and its Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) team pulled their sponsorship of the Pwn2Own hacking competition in Japan this year over confusion about the Wassenaar Arrangement and difficulty in meeting its standards.

“Due to the complexity of obtaining real-time import/export licenses in countries that participate in the Wassenaar Arrangement, the ZDI has notified conference organizer, Dragos Ruiu, that it will not be holding the Pwn2Own contest at PacSecWest in November,” HP said in a statement to Ars Technica.

PacSec West is a security conference held in Japan. HP was said to have spent more than $1 million researching changes to Wassenaar and determined the risks were too high to pursue its hacking contest.

Although HP pointed to the agreement as its reason for withdrawal, Twitter users speculated that the company's rumored plans to sell its cybersecurity unit TippingPoint is the true reason, Ars noted.

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