All 17 of the missionaries kidnapped in Haiti two months ago have now been freed. Violence and kidnapping have spiked in Haiti following the assassination of its president in July.
Hackers reportedly obtained the personal details of a nurse in the French city of Nantes and used this data to create 54,000 working vaccine passes. Meanwhile, the French government says it’s detected 110,000 such fakes to date.
The nurse’s story was reported by Ouest-France on Thursday, with the news site claiming that all the fake passes are now in circulation.
France’s health pass system works similarly to vaccine pass setups in use throughout the EU. The system works by pairing a public key (contained in the QR code on a vaccinated person’s phone) with a private key (held by the hospital, pharmacy or healthcare provider that vaccinated them). Venues checking the validity of someone’s Covid pass scan the code and receive a green tick if it matches the private key and a red cross if it doesn’t.
One private key, such as the one held by the nurse in Nantes, can be used to generate an unlimited number of working vaccine passes, making this information highly valuable to hackers and scammers, some of whom then sell the fraudulent passes online.
Revoking the fake passes presents authorities with an additional problem. To cancel a fake vaccine pass, every pass generated from the same private key must be canceled, meaning new passes have to be created for those actually entitled to them.
The story from Nantes is the latest in a line of similar incidents in France. A pharmacist in nearby Angers said in September that his private key was hacked and used to create 2,700 false passes, which he discovered when he noticed an unusually high number of requests on the pharmacy computer to authenticate the new passes.
In the suburbs of Paris last month, a doctor was arrested after allegedly selling at least 220 fake passes for the princely sum of €1,000 ($1,132) each.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday that the government has detected 110,000 fake vaccine passes in circulation, and has arrested more than 100 people in connection with the forgeries. Penalties for using a fake pass can stretch to five years in prison, but Darmanin said that authorities will give amnesty to anyone who “recognizes their mistake and gets vaccinated.”
Introduced during the summer, France’s ‘health pass’ system requires citizens to present proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test to access bars, restaurants, shopping malls or public transport, among other locations. The system has proven controversial, and thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Paris and other major cities almost every weekend since its introduction. As of January, all adults in France will need a booster shot to keep their health pass valid.
Nairobi, Kenya, Dec 16 (IPS) – Rahab Munene’s shoe selling business crumbled at the height of COVID-19 in 2020. She traded the enterprise for a mobile grocery along the Thika Superhighway, Kiambu County.
With surging coronavirus infections and countries making it more difficult for the unvacccinated to travel, some vaccine skeptics are now coming around.
A group of Iranians suspected of smuggling hashish, heroin and other drugs off the coast of Oman have been handed to authorities by the US Navy, who say they rescued the suspects from their burning vessel.
Huge plumes of smoke apparently smelling of hashish were seen rising off the waters in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday. The suspected smugglers are believed to have set their ship on fire, after they noticed a US Navy vessel approaching them, the US 5th Fleet announced.
Aerial surveillance footage captured people on board a traditional ship, called a dhow, pouring a liquid, likely an accelerant, over their cargo. An explosion then rocked the vessel, emitting heavy smoke.
When the US Navy, which was conducting an anti-narcotics patrol in the area, reached the ship, it discovered a large stash of drugs. Over 1,745 kilograms (3,847 pounds) of hashish, 500kg of methamphetamine and 30kg of heroin were found on the burnt vessel.
The Navy valued what remained of the drug stash at $14.7 million. This was only half of the cargo that the dhow was originally carrying, with the rest having burnt or sunk, according to a spokesperson for the US fleet.
Five injured men who identified themselves as Iranians were rescued by sailors, while one man from the boat remains missing. Having been given medical treatment, the suspected smugglers were handed over to the Omani authorities.
