An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A coalition of health and technology organizations are working to develop a digital COVID-19 vaccination passport to allow businesses, airlines and countries to check if people have received the vaccine. The Vaccination Credential Initiative, announced on Thursday, is formulating technology to confirm vaccinations in the likelihood that some governments will mandate people…
Tag: passport
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Has Applied To Become a Citizen of Cyprus
The former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is finalizing a plan to become a citizen of the island of Cyprus, Recode has learned, becoming one of the highest-profile Americans to take advantage of one of the world’s most controversial “passport-for-sale” programs. From the report: Schmidt, one of America’s wealthiest people, and his family have won approval to become citizens of the…
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott Hacked After Posting Boarding Pass on Instagram
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott had his phone number and passport details obtained by a hacker after posting a picture of his boarding pass on Instagram. From a report: Hacker Alex Hope said he uncovered Mr Abbott’s details from his Qantas boarding pass in just 45 minutes. He then spent months attempting to contact Mr Abbott to alert him of…
Biogen Conference Likely Led To 20,000 COVID-19 Cases In Boston Area
schwit1 shares a report from The Boston Globe: A new study estimates the Biogen conference held at Boston’s Marriott Long Wharf hotel in February played a far greater role in spreading the coronavirus than previously thought. The research team analyzed the genetic sequences of the virus that caused COVID-19 in the 772 patients, almost all from Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, and Suffolk…
NIST Study Finds That Masks Defeat Most Facial Recognition Algorithms
In a report published today by the National Institutes of Science and Technology (NIST), a physical sciences laboratory and non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, researchers attempted to evaluate the performance of facial recognition algorithms on faces partially covered by protective masks. They report that even the best of the 89 commercial facial recognition algorithms they tested had error…
UK Willing To Admit Nearly 3 Million From Hong Kong If China Adopts Security Law
schwit1 shares news that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would be willing to allow more than 2.8 million people from Hong Kong to live and work in the country if China implements a controversial proposed national security law on the former British colony. The law could take effect as soon as this month, and would expand mainland China’s control…
Germany Bans Digital Doppelganger Passport Photos
Germany will outlaw the morphing of passport photos, in which pictures of two people are digitally combined, making it possible to assign multiple identities to a single document. Reuters reports: Morphing can trick artificial intelligence used at passport control into recognizing different individuals. The government on Wednesday backed a law requiring people to either have their photo taken at a passport…
Michigan State University Network Breached In Ransomware Attack
Netwalker ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operators have reportedly breached Michigan State University’s network, threatening to leak private files to the public if they don’t pay a ransom in time. BleepingComputer reports: A countdown timer on the attacker’s website shows that the university has about six days to comply or “secret data” will become public. The site set up by the Netwalker ransomware gang…
Coronavirus genome like a shipping label that lets epidemiologists track where it’s been
Every time the virus copies itself it makes mistakes, creating a trail that researchers can use to build a family tree with information about where it’s traveled, and when. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/coronavirus-genome-epidemiologists-track…
Would a Post Office Bankruptcy Kill E-Commerce?
MountainLogic writes: With the U.S. Postal Service slated to run out of money this summer, a congressional bailout has become embroiled in the usual, critical and unusual political fights. Every day letter carriers deliver some of our web orders, there are many other functions the post office performs including providing an address validation API that is the core of many shipping…