Free Republic

SEOUL, South Korea - A discredited South Korean cloning scientist admitted in court Tuesday to ordering subordinates to falsify stem cell data for a paper in a scientific journal, but he insisted he should not be the only one blamed in the scandal. Hwang Woo-suk, who falsely claimed breakthroughs in creating stem cells from cloned human embryos, testified at the second hearing of a trial in which he is accused of accepting funds under false pretenses, embezzlement and violating the bioethics law by purchasing eggs for research. For a 2005 paper in the journal Science, Hwang acknowledged that he told...

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - A stolen laptop computer containing sensitive information on more than 26 million U.S. military veterans and servicemembers has been recovered and a preliminary review indicated no data was taken, the FBI and Veterans Affairs Department said on Thursday. The laptop and the external hard drive taken in early May from a VA employee's residence in suburban Washington were recovered, authorities said. "A preliminary review of the equipment by computer forensic teams has determined that the data base remains intact and has not been accessed since it was stolen," the agencies said in a statement. "A...

Oh the irony... USDA Information Breach WASHINGTON, June 21, 2006- Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today directed that notifications be sent to Washington, D.C. area employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whose personal identity information might have been compromised when USDA computer systems were illegally accessed. Johanns also committed to providing one year of free credit monitoring services to potentially affected employees. Johanns was informed today of the possible breach during a briefing on the status of a forensic investigation into the incident. He was first notified of the incident on June 6, at which time he was assured...

We've spent years trying to secure our computers against online identity theft, but the clumsiness or incompetence of Big Government and Big Companies is going to leave us unguarded anyway.... That has nothing to do with tougher penalties for laptop thieves or database hackers (though those wouldn't hurt). It has everything to do with reducing the chances of a successful data theft -- and then limiting the damage when the inevitable mistakes happen.... Stay up to date with security. (Duh.) Install security patches when they're released; more important, use more secure software in the first place. Stop putting Windows 2000...

What Credit Monitoring Will VA Offer?NEW: How Will VA Provide Credit Monitoring?As part of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continuing efforts to protect and assist those potentially affected by the recent data theft that occurred at an employee's Maryland home, VA announced on June 21 that the agency will provide one year of free credit monitoring to individuals whose sensitive personal information - Social Security Number (SSN) - may have been stolen in the incident.VA also announced on June 21 the Department is soliciting bids to hire a company that provides data breach analysis, which will look for possible...

AP Exclusive: Federal, Local Police Bypassed Subpoenas, Got Phone Data From Brokers WASHINGTON (AP) -- Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers. These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press. The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department --...

Generally, when someone makes a teddy bear-themed gadget, his/her intention is to overwhelm bystanders with cuteness. But whoever created this little guy, whose head has to be removed in order to access the internal USB drive, must have watched one too many Tim Burton movies. No word on how much it holds or if there are any plans to make these available for purchase, but with your own bear, a thumb drive, some thread and a closet full of skeletons, you can probably make your own without too much effort.

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2006 – The Defense Department will inform servicemembers who could be affected by the May theft of personal data from the Department of Veterans Affairs through their monthly pay statements, a DoD spokesman said here today. DoD is in the middle of an analysis to determine how many active-duty, Reserve and National Guard servicemembers could be affected by the data loss, which occurred when a VA employee loaded personal data onto a laptop, which was then stolen from his home, Army Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin said. The VA initially reported that the data stolen included personal information...

Several weeks ago, an employee of the VA took home electronic data and his home was burglarized. (wonderful) The data included names, social security #'s and dates of birth (Fantastic!) Today I got a letter from the VA stating the problem and what they are doing about it. (That's good) The letter warned us if we notice any "suspicious activity" to notify the Federal Trade Commission (Oh boy!) Sigh. Only if the employee just followed the "established policies"! Anyway, here's to my SS#, my full name floating around the country/world for anybody to use as they see fit. Geesh. Here...

Veterans Affairs head says stolen data possibly erasedNicholson reports agency's security remains vulnerable. HOPE YEN Associated Press Writer June 09. 2006 6:59AM Veteran Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson testifies about the theft of personal information of military personnel and veterans Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington. AP Photo/PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS WASHINGTON -- Stolen personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel may have been erased by teenagers who sold the computer equipment, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said Thursday. In testimony to Congress, Nicholson accepted responsibility for the May 3 burglary at a VA data analyst's home. He said the...

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2006 – The Department of Veterans Affairs is revamping its data security procedures following last month's theft of a VA laptop computer that contained personal information of veterans and military personnel still in uniform, the secretary of the VA told a congressional committee today. "We will stay focused on these problems until they are fixed," said R. James Nicholson during hearings before the House Committee on Government Reform. "We will take direct and immediate action to address and alleviate affected people's concerns. We are accountable to our nations veterans and servicemembers." On May 3, the Montgomery County,...

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2006 – The Defense Department is working to determine exactly how many active duty and Reserve servicemembers could be affected by the recent theft of personal information from a Department of Veterans Affairs employee's home, a DoD official said here today. DoD is working equally hard to ensure servicemembers are informed about the issue and protected, said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy. "We're going to make it easy by working with VA for servicemembers," he said. "There's nothing that could be done for the military that the Defense Department won't do on...

Data on 2.2M Active Troops Stolen From VA By HOPE YEN ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly all active-duty military, Guard and Reserve members - about 2.2 million total - may be at risk for identity theft because their personal information was among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month. In a new disclosure Tuesday, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel were among the 26.5 million veterans whose names, birthdates and Social Security numbers were stolen on May 3. The...

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2006 – Active-duty servicemembers and members of the National Guard and Reserves may be affected by the recent personal data loss by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA announced today. The VA announced over the weekend that the records stolen from the home of a VA representative in May might include personal information of people currently in the military, according to a VA news release. Initial findings from VA indicated the personal information on about 50,000 active duty, National Guard and Reserve personnel may have been involved. As the two agencies compared electronic files, VA...

WASHINGTON - Personal data on more than 2.2 million active-duty military personnel — not just 50,000 as initially believed — were among those stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee last month, the government said Tuesday. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said the agency was mistaken when it said over the weekend that up to 50,000 Navy and National Guard personnel — and no other active-duty personnel — were affected by the May 3 burglary. In fact, names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of as many as 1.1 million active-duty personnel from all the armed forces, along with 430,000 members of...

Dear Military.com Member, As you may know, data was stolen from the Department of Veterans Affairs. This data contained identifying information on up to 26.5 million veterans and spouses, including names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and some disability ratings. At this time, we encourage you to be vigilant and monitor your financial accounts to protect yourself against identity theft. We have put together the following information to help you: Read the latest from the Department of Veteran Affairs Important FAQs What happened at VA and how does it affect me?How do I know if information on me was...

May 12, 2006 — Americans by nearly a 2-1 ratio call the surveillance of telephone records an acceptable way for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, expressing broad unconcern even if their own calling patterns are scrutinized. Lending support to the administration's defense of its anti-terrorism intelligence efforts, 63 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the secret program, disclosed Thursday by USA Today, is justified, while far fewer, 35 percent, call it unjustified. Indeed, 51 percent approve of the way President Bush is handling the protection of privacy rights, while 47 percent disapprove — hardly a...

BOSTON — If the National Security Agency (NSA) is indeed amassing a colossal database of Americans' phone records, one way to use all that information is in "social-network analysis," a data-mining method that aims to expose previously invisible connections among people. (snip) That level of cooperation confirmed the fears of many privacy analysts, who pointed out that AT&T is already being sued in federal court in San Francisco for allegedly giving the NSA access to contents of its phone and Internet networks. The suit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and based on documents from a former AT&T technician, says...

WASHINGTON - President Bush did not confirm or deny a newspaper report Thursday that the National Security Agency was collecting records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls. "Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaida and their known affiliates," Bush said. "We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans." USA Today, based on anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement, reported that AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. began turning over records of Americans' phone calls to the NSA shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Bush...

A push to require all convicted criminals in New York to submit their DNA to a central database is gaining crucial support in Albany, where officials say it could create the most comprehensive DNA collection system in the nation. If the proposal becomes law, it would make New York the only state to require collecting DNA from everyone convicted of felonies and misdemeanors, including youthful offenders convicted in criminal court, officials said. Currently, 43 states require that people convicted of all felonies submit DNA, but none require samples from those convicted of all misdemeanors, and New York has required those...

APRIL 10, 2006 (COMPUTERWORLD) - The Social Security numbers, driver's license information and bank account details belonging to potentially millions of current and former residents in Florida's Broward County are available to anyone on the Internet because sensitive information has not been redacted from public records being posted on the county's Web site. A county official said the information available on the Web is in full compliance with state statutes that require counties to post public documents on the Internet. The information has been available on the Internet for several years and poses a serious risk of identity theft and...

I received an email yesterday pointing me to a bill, introduced on March 27, that would require all Executive branch agencies in the state of Minnesota to "use open standards in situations where the other requirements of a project do not make it technically impossible to do this." The text of the bill is focused specifically on "open data formats," and would amend the existing statute that establishes the authority of the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET), and the duties of the states Chief Information Officer. While the amendment does not refer to open source software, the definition of "open...

3/28/2006 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- “I never thought I’d be doing anything like this,” said Airman 1st Class Kyle Bridges from his seat at an RQ-1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle ground control station. “I signed up to be an imagery analyst, which I thought was going to be a cool job. Instead I was offered the chance to be a sensor operator on the Predator.” Airman Bridges is with the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron here and controls the infrared and electro-optical sensors, the laser range designator and the laser target monitor. “I also have to back up...

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2006 – A high-tech Defense Department identification system has linked some captured terrorists to previous crimes and prevented their release from overseas detention facilities, senior defense officials said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing here March 10. A sample biometric ID card is checked at a stationary verification station during a DoD biometric identification system demonstration held in the Washington, D.C., area in May 2005. At the right is a fingerprint checker. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "I understand that the (defense) department is collecting biometric information from individuals...

Scientists have long wondered why organisms bother with sexual reproduction. It makes a whole lot more sense to just have a bunch of females that can clone themselves, which is how asexual reproduction works. Turns out sex might have evolved as a way to concentrate lots of harmful mutations into individual organisms so they could be easily weeded out by natural selection, a new computer model suggests. The classic explanation for the onset of whoopee, about 1 billion years ago, is that it provides a way for organisms to swap and shuffle genes and to create offspring with new gene...

China to launch 'alternative' internet The Chinese government has announced plans to introduce several Chinese-language internet domains. These should make the web more usable for Chinese speakers, who make up one-fifth of everyone on the planet. But, theoretically at least, the measures could create a separate part of the internet, under complete control of the Chinese government. This is sure to stir up worries over censorship and repression as China has not shied away from controlling internet usage within its borders before. Several US internet companies have also come under fire recently for helping the Chinese government keep an eye...

CHICAGO, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Last fall a controversy erupted when the details of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri were revealed in a United Nations report -- after a cunning reader spotted a "track changes" mistake in the layout of the document. That political controversy is one of the latest tempests to emerge over "metadata," or data about data, contained in Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF documents, easily accessible by millions of readers over public networks like the Internet, experts tell United Press International's Networking. By clicking on the "track changes" feature in Word, readers can...

A Norwegian researcher dreamed up the lives and lifestyles of some 900 people — and used them in a study on cancer. Then, last October, Jon Sudbø had his results published in The Lancet. ___ Last week, Sudbø, who is based at the Norwegian Radium Hospital in Oslo, admitted that the data had not come from that database or any other, but from thin air. Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, or to obtain a text description, please contact npg@nature.com Many details of this case still need...

A Norwegian cancer researcher has admitted fabricating data published in a renowned international medical journal, officials in Norway said Saturday. The researcher at Norway's Comprehensive Cancer Center, who was not identified, used faked patient data in an article on oral cancer published in the October 2005 issue of The Lancet, Britain's leading medical journal, said Stein Vaaler, strategy director for the cancer center. The article claimed that a certain kind of drug decreased the risk of getting oral cancer

STATS Sets The Record Straight on the Year's Biggest Science Reporting Flubs WASHINGTON, DC - America’s so-called methamphetamine epidemic was the worst example of media stressing shock over substance in 2005 science journalism, according to the annual “Dubious Data Awards,” issued by the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. STATS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to improving public understanding of science and statistics . Each December STATS issues a list of scientific studies that were mishandled by the media during the preceding year. This year’s “Dubious Data Awards” detailing the worst examples of shoddy science reporting...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday. The database, obtained by the network, lists 1,500 ''suspicious incidents'' across the United States over a 10-month period and includes four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting, NBC's Nightly News said. The network said the document was the first inside look at how the Pentagon has stepped up intelligence collection in the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks....

A Case Western Reserve University research team from physics and statistics has recently created innovative statistical techniques that improve the chances of detecting a signal in large data sets. The new techniques can not only search for the "needle in the haystack" in particle physics, but also have applications in discovering a new galaxy, monitoring transactions for fraud and security risk, identifying the carrier of a virulent disease among millions of people or detecting cancerous tissues in a mammogram.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran attempted to play down the importance of information it received from the black market on making the core of a nuclear weapon and said on Thursday the material was freely available on the Internet. Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that Iran had handed over several pages related to the production of key components of a nuclear weapon. The United States and European Union said the pages showed Iran's atomic ambitions may include a nuclear arsenal but Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Mohammad Mehdi Akhunzadeh, denied this. "The information contained...

In the latest Cato Tax and Budget Bulletin, Stephen Slivinski uses revised data released during the summer by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make side-by-side comparisons of the spending habits of each president during the last 40 years. While the data show that all presidents presided over net increases in spending, George W. Bush is shown to be one of the biggest spenders of them all, even outpacing Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending. An excerpt from the report: "The increase in discretionary spending - that is, all nonentitlement programs - in Bush's first term was 48.5...

A Spanish astronomer has admitted he accessed internet telescope logs of another astronomer's observations of a giant object orbiting beyond Neptune – but denies doing anything wrong. Jose-Luis Ortiz of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada told New Scientist that it was "perfectly legitimate" because he found the logs on a publicly available website via a Google search. But Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer whose logs Ortiz uncovered, claims that accessing the information was at least "unethical" and may, if Ortiz misused the data, have crossed the line into scientific fraud. The incident highlights two emerging controversies in...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Somewhere out in cyberspace there lies the Deep Web, a vast ocean of databases not generally accessible to users of the surface internet but containing as much as 550 times as many documents. According to the "Complete Planet" website, "[A]ll signs point to the Deep Web as the dominant paradigm for the next-generation internet." Somewhere out in the universe of economic data lies a much smaller but still impressive collection of trade figures that reveals what we might call the Deep Deficit. Lying beneath the trade figures issued monthly, quarterly, and...

/begin my translationSankei, "N. Korea to Provide Nuclear Warhead Info to a Mid-East Country" Tokyo, Yonhap News 2005/09/15N. Korean military is dead set against 6-party talks, and is still passing to a friendly Mid-East country (technical) information on (miniaturized) nuclear warhead for ballistic missiles, according to a report by Sankei Shimbun (of Japan,) dispatched from Beijing on Sept. 15 (2005.) Sankei quoted an intelligence source, which said that, for more than a year, a senior figure of N. Korean military has been passing data on their implosion device of nuclear warhead to a military attache at the embassy of the Mid-East country in Pyongyang.  The source claimed, "N. Korea would not (ordinarily) share...

Most published scientific research papers are wrong, according to a new analysis. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to...

WASHINGTON - The puzzling difference between warming temperatures on the ground and not-so-warm readings in the sky above may have been resolved. Atmospheric researchers studying global warming have sought for years to determine why readings taken from weather balloons didn't show the same increases as readings on the ground. The difference has fueled skeptics of global warming. Now, researchers at Yale University say exposed instruments on the balloons may be the problem. Weather balloons are sent up around the world twice a day — at local times equivalent to noon and midnight Greenwich mean time — and older versions of...

River of data decodes Nile cycles The Old Testament may seem like an unlikely source from which to draw inspiration for a modern-day climatology study. But a story from the book of Genesis — in which Joseph predicts seven years of abundant crops, followed by seven years of famine for Egypt — drove researchers to scour centuries of water-level data for the Nile River to determine if such a cycle actually exists, and if so, what causes it. This Byzantine-period mosaic from northern Israel shows a man carving on a “nilometer” the highest level the Nile reached in that year....

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Civil rights leaders Friday called for monthly psychological evaluations for police officers statewide and standardized collection of racial profiling data in a report aimed at curbing police brutality. The report, released by the California National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, comes out of a March hearing with community leaders and civil rights groups following the death of 13-year-old Devin Brown. Brown was shot by police after allegedly crashing a stolen car into a police car in South Los Angeles. California NAACP president Alice Huffman said abuse of power among California police was widespread and persistent....

A review of medical studies published from 1990 to 2003 in three prestigious journals -- the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Lancet -- has called the validity of approximately one-third of them into severe question. This is not a mere academic matter. Inaccurate studies become entrenched in laws that govern our daily lives. Using VAWA as an example again, the Act incorrectly assumes that women, and not men, are the victims of domestic violence, and it has been influential in denying men access to shelters. This denial often extends to the older male children of women who seek...

IRS probing possible data security breaches By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent 32 minutes ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether unauthorized people gained access to sensitive taxpayer and bank account information but has not yet exposed any privacy breaches, an official said on Friday. The U.S. tax agency -- whose databases include suspicious activity reports from banks about possible terrorist or criminal transactions -- launched the probe after the Government Accountability Office said in April that the IRS "routinely permitted excessive access" to the computer files. The GAO team was able to tap into the data...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal agency collected extensive personal information about airline passengers although Congress told it not to and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press. A Transportation Security Administration contractor used three data brokers to collect detailed information about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 in order to test a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, according to documents that will be published in the Federal Register this week. The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on those passengers, called passenger name records, in November....

LOS ANGELES - Bobby Shriver, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and brother of California first lady Maria Shriver, married his fiancee Malissa Feruzzi Saturday in Los Angeles. The two wed at a Catholic church in the city's upscale Brentwood area during an afternoon ceremony attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Shriver, along with their 7-year-old son Christopher. Shriver, 51, is an attorney who heads the foundation DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), which seeks to reduce Third World debt, poverty and illness. He was elected to his first public office last year as a city councilman in Santa Monica....

WASHINGTON - It was a long day's work for Bono, lead singer for the rock band U2 and dedicated lobbyist for the world's poor and AIDS-stricken. In Boston's FleetCenter on a Tuesday night, Bono and his band - Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton and the Edge - performed for a sold-out crowd, part of their 10-month, multicity tour of Europe and North America. Bono then rushed to the airport, arrived in Washington at 2 a.m. and five hours later set off on a busy schedule, his ubiquitous wraparound shades firmly in place. The musician joined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for...

data NEW YORK - CitiFinancial, the consumer finance division of Citigroup Inc., said Monday it has begun notifying some 3.9 million U.S. customers that computer tapes containing information about their accounts - including Social Security numbers and payment histories - have been lost. Go here for the story: http://l.azcentral.com/trk/click?ref=zo9600vgt_0-3c82x1ac38x13113

The tantalising prospect of DVDs capable of holding almost a terabyte of data - or several hundred movies - has been presented in a patent issued to US storage company Iomega. The US patent describes a disc that could store 40 to 100 times more information that a conventional DVD, using more nanometre-scale sloped ridges to diffract light. US patent number 6879556 - entitled "Method and Apparatus for Optical Data Storage" - was issued to Iomega on April 12 2005. Conventional DVDs store information in the form of ridges and depressions, each several hundred nanometres wide. These correspond to bits...

SACRAMENTO — A coalition of media companies and government watchdog groups, reacting to rumors of losses at some big hedge funds, are clamoring to get two of California's biggest public pension funds to disclose more details of their holdings in exotic investments. The California First Amendment Coalition on Tuesday filed requests under the state public records law with the $182-billion California Public Employees' Retirement System and the $63-billion University of California pension and endowment fund, seeking information about debt levels at the hedge funds they invest in. They also ask for data on management fees and types of hedge funds...

Booming economic growth in 2005 flies in the face of economic “soft patch” WASHINGTON, D.C. – Another good piece of economic news came today as the Commerce Department reported retail sales grew at a torrid 1.4 percent pace in April. The gains far outpaced analyst’s expectations of 0.8 percent growth and continue to paint a picture of long term, sustained economic growth. Many left-leaning pundits and journalists have claimed in recent weeks that the U.S. economy was slowing down, but reality sharply contradicts this pessimistic outlook. “I have to question the intellectual credentials of anyone who looks at this economy...