Free Republic

Fox News’s Bill Melugin has broken a big and very disturbing story about COVID testing in Los Angeles County. It turns out that the county gave all COVID vaccination data rights to a company that has links to China and that freely admits that it saves and disseminates personal information it obtains through its work. The LA County Sheriff is refusing to let his employees participate, but the County isn’t backing down. Instead, it insists that everything is under control.Los Angeles County employs more than 100,000 people. On August 4, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors mandated that all...

South Korea will now require places like nightclubs and bars to use QR codes to log customers’ visits as part of its coronavirus contact tracing efforts. Starting next month, those types of establishments, which the government deems high risk, will be required to use the app-based register in order make it easier to track down potential COVID-19-infected patients.

Chinese hackers breached the computer system of the Office of Personnel Management in December, officials said Thursday, and the agency will notify some 4 million current and former federal employees that their personal data may have been compromised. The hack was the second major intrusion of the agency by China in less than a year. OPM, using new tools, discovered the breach in April, said officials at the agency who declined to comment on who was behind the hack. Other U.S. officials, who spoke on conditions of anonymity because it is an ongoing investigation, identified the hackers as being from...

(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Google Inc's bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of violating federal wiretap law when it accidentally collected emails and other personal data while building its popular Street View program. The justices left intact a September 2013 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to exempt Google from liability under the federal Wiretap Act for having inadvertently intercepted emails, user names, passwords and other data from private Wi-Fi networks to create Street View, which provides panoramic views of city streets. The lawsuit arose soon after the Mountain...

A woman says she got a box of papers [medical records] she should not have gotten. The company on the return label says it didn't send the documents. The shipping company says they do what the label says. Still, somebody must have sent the box. But who? And why?

Our earwax could help prove our identity and even reveal what we’ve eaten and where we’ve been, researchers have discovered. Scientists from the Monell Center say the substance could even reveal information about our sexual orientation and health. They say new tests could be developed to prove people’s ID—and their ethnicity could be determined simply by looking in their ear. “Our previous research has shown that underarm odors can convey a great deal of information about an individual, including personal identity, gender, sexual orientation, and health status,” said study senior author George Preti, Ph.D, an organic chemist at Monell. “We...

Christmas shoppers were stunned to learn last Thursday that computer hackers had made off with the names and other personal info of some 40 million Target customers. Some of the pilfered information is reportedly being sold on the black market, prompting JP Morgan Chase to limit purchases and cash withdrawals on debit cards owned by recent Target shoppers. But at least Target informed its customers of the security breach, as it is required by federal law to do. HealthCare.gov faces no such requirement; it need never notify customers that their personal information has been hacked or possibly compromised. The Department...

Cyber security experts told Congress today that the Obama administration should take Healthcare.gov offline until privacy vulnerabilities are addressed and detection capabilities are improved. David Kennedy, a so-called “white hat hacker” who tests security flaws by hacking online systems to help identify weaknesses, warned that there are critical flaws and exposures “currently on the website that hackers could use to extract sensitive information.” “The purpose of security isn’t to say, ‘Hey, we’re 100 percent impenetrable all the time,’ but can we detect the hackers in the very early stages of the life cycle of the attack, monitor that, and prevent...

Maryland's Health Connection, the state's Obamacare marketplace, has been plagued by delays in the first days of open enrollment. If users are able to endure long page-loading delays, they are presented with the website's privacy policy, a ubiquitous fine-print feature on websites that often go unread. Nevertheless, users are asked to check off a box that they agree to the terms. [snip] .......Any information that you provide to us in your application will be used only to carry out the functions of Maryland Health Connection. The only exception to this policy is that we may share information provided in your...

Beginning Friday, shoppers in search of toothpaste, deodorant and laxatives at more than 6,000 drugstores across the nation will be able to pick up something new: a test to scan their genes for a propensity for Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, diabetes and other ailments. The test also claims to offer a window into the chances of becoming obese, developing psoriasis and going blind. For those thinking of starting a family, it could alert them to their risk of having a baby with cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and other genetic disorders. The test also promises users insights into how caffeine, cholesterol-lowering drugs...

A U.S. financial crime agency's plan to let foreign police seek information from American banks is drawing opposition from groups representing U.S. financial institutions. The proposed rule by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Treasury Department, would also permit U.S. state and local law enforcement authorities to make similar information-sharing requests of banks. Regulations adopted after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 allow only federal law enforcement agencies, through FinCEN, to request such information. FinCEN can require U.S. financial institutions to search their records to determine whether they have done business with individuals suspected, based on credible...

Harvard student database hacked, posted on BitTorrent By Robert Vamosi, CNET News.com Friday, March 14, 2008 12:03 PM Harvard University says about 10,000 of last year's applicants may have had their personal information compromised. At least 6,600 Social Security numbers were exposed. Worse, a compressed 125 M-byte file containing the stolen student data is currently available via BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer network. In a statement published Monday night Harvard officials said the database containing summaries of GSAS applicant data for entry to the Fall 2007 academic year, summaries of GSAS housing applicant data for the 2007-08 and 2006-07 academic years, and...

We received a call from friends working in Shanghai warning us we might receive an email containing an input form dressed up as an online address book.  The email bears a request to complete OUR FRIEND'S NAME address book.  Information requests name, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, just the sort of information you might expect to find in an address book.  It also included an option authorizing the collector (something called Ringo) to use the information.Our friends had not requested nor authorized the email to be sent nor the information collected.  They believe their home computer was hacked and the...