Testimony of a North Korean prison camp survivor
Testimony of Ms. Soon Ok Lee – North Korean prison camp survivor
I was a normal gullible North Korean citizen, loyal to Leader and Party, and believed that North Korea was a people’s paradise. I was the Director of the Government Supply Office for party cadres for 14 years when I was arrested in 1984 under the false charge of embezzlement of state property. I was subjected to severe torture during a 14 month preliminary investigation until I was forced to admit to the false charges against her. Eventually, I received a term of 13 years in prison at a kangaroo court. I had served 5 years and two months in prison when I was released in 1992 under a surprise amnesty. During the first six months in the prison, I had worked briefly at all of the factories in the prison before I was finally assigned accounting work due to my background as an accountant. My routine responsibilities included updating prisoners’ list by deleting the dead from it and adding new arrivals to it, allocation of meals and work quotas, updating work accomplished, collecting daily work reports, carrying new work instructions to all work sites, and so on.Thus, I had access to records of numbers of inmates and production plans, etc., and was privileged to daily visit all factories in the prison in both men’s and women’s sectors.
I survived her over five years of ordeal because of the opportunity to walk to all the work sites every day which other prisoners could not and because I had relatively easy work in an office as an accountant with the prison officials. I surrendered to South Korea in December 1995 with my son Dong chul Choi. I published a book, The Bright Eyes of the Tailless Beasts in Seoul in December 1996 to inform the world of these crimes against humanity by the North Korean government. With the help of a volunteer art student, I has produced the following illustrations to show the world the reality of the North Korean crimes against humanity.
Predicting Social Security Numbers from Public Data
Predicting Social Security Numbers from Public Data
Social Security numbers were created under the Social Security Act of 1935 as identifiers for accounts tracking individual earnings. However, over time, they started being used as sensitive authentication devices, becoming one of the pieces of information most often sought by identity thieves: knowledge of a person’s name, SSN, and data of birth, is often a sufficient condition to impersonate that individual and obtain access to a variety of services, leading to so-called identity theft.
The current public policy in the area of identity theft suggests that SSNs should be kept confidential: consumers are urged to protect their SSNs. However, we show that it is possible to predict individual SSNs simply from publicly available data.
Based on observation of issuance patterns in the “Death Master File” (a public database that contains SSNs of people who have died), we were able to use information about an individual’s date and state of birth to predict narrow ranges of values likely to contain that individual’s SSN. The predictions are particularly accurate for the SSNs of people who were born after 1988 (when the SSA initiated the Enumeration at Birth program, through which babies receive SSNs soon after birth) and in states with lower population. Since SSNs are predictable from public data, identity theft could occur even without events such as data breaches.
New climate strategy: track the world’s wealthiest
New climate strategy: track the world’s wealthiest
To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.
Since about half the planet’s climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries — including fast-growing economies China and India — are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.
Sperm, egg donors increase during recession
Sperm, egg donors increase during recession
Sperm banks and donor agencies say the recession is prompting a surge in calls from people who hope to make money by donating their sperm or eggs.
“We’ve seen a definite spike” of about 40% since February, says Kim Springfield, vice president of sales for Health News, an Irvine, Calif., company that operates a national referral service for donors.
Once prospective donors learn that medical and psychological screening can take weeks or months and eliminates most interested men and women, many opt out, Springfield says.
Wood Pellets Catch Fire as Renewable Energy Source
Wood Pellets Catch Fire as Renewable Energy Source
Some of the fastest growing sources of renewable energy in the world are the wind, the sun — and the lowly wood pellet.
European utilities are snapping up the small combustible pellets to burn alongside coal in existing power plants. As a global marketplace emerges to feed their growing appetite for pellets, the Southeastern U.S. is becoming a major exporter, with pellet factories sprouting in Florida, Alabama and Arkansas.
Wood pellets — cylinders of dried shredded wood that resemble large vitamins — are the least expensive way to meet European renewable-energy mandates, utility executives and industry consultants say.
US lurching towards debt explosion
US lurching towards ‘debt explosion’ with long-term interest rates on course to double
In a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve’s senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc.
The impact would be devastating by making it punitively expensive to finance national borrowings and leading to what Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called a “debt explosion”. Mr Laubach’s study has implications for the UK, too, as public debt is soaring. A US crisis would have implications for the rest of the world, in any case.
Using historical examples for his paper, New Evidence on the Interest Rate Effects of Budget Deficits and Debt, Mr Laubach came to the conclusion that “a percentage point increase in the projected deficit-to-GDP ratio raises the 10-year bond rate expected to prevail five years into the future by 20 to 40 basis points, a typical estimate is about 25 basis points”.
Extortionist holds eight million health records for $10 million ransom
Extortionist holds eight million health records for $10 million ransom
Sandra Whitley Ryals, Director of the Virginia Department of Health Professions (DHP) issued the following:
“A criminal investigation is currently underway regarding a potential security breach of the Virginia Department of Health Profession’s (DHP) Prescription Monitoring Program on Thursday, April 30. While DHP cannot comment directly on an ongoing investigation, we can assure the public that all precautions are being taken for DHP operations to continue safely and securely.”
“Since last week, when DHP recognized an unauthorized message was posted on the Prescription Monitoring Program website, we have been working very closely and cooperatively with federal and state law enforcement to resolve the situation. The entire DHP system has been shut down since Thursday to protect the security of the program data.”
