(Reuters) – A California technology consultant cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in the government’s widening probe of researchers suspected of tipping hedge funds with inside information on companies, according to court documents released on Thursday.
The independent consultant, Karl Motey, of Coda Group Inc in Los Altos, made phone calls to gather evidence for prosecutors, including confidential information from sources at Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
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People grumbling to friends about their health or waiting times at hospitals is nothing new. But as more choose to do so on internet forums and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, they may be surprised to learn that hospitals and healthcare professionals are “listening in”.
Organisations such as the Care Quality Commission, the health and social care regulator, and several NHS hospitals are starting to trawl the web for clues about where they need to investigate low standards or direct extra resources.
Social-media monitoring is becoming common in the private sector, as companies listen out for complaints about their own services, or those of competitors, to help poach customers.
In the public sector, where the pace of technological change is often glacial, “eavesdropping” on online conversations can tap opinions from people who may not want to fill in a formal survey form.
The commission has been working with Qinetiq, the defence technology company and former government agency, to help it scan and automatically categorise internet comments. Similar technology is used by security services to look for terrorist “chatter” online.
The commission plans to pilot the service early next year, initially looking at comments on hospital websites, local news reports and health forums – all with the intention of helping its inspectors to prioritise the sites they need to investigate more closely.
The system, which builds on its existing information gathering and management technology, could then be extended to Twitter and Facebook, said Richard Hamblin, the commission’s director of intelligence.
From next spring, the commission will regulate 45,000 nursing homes, GP surgeries, dental practices and other healthcare outfits, up from 27,000 today – although it will not have new funds to increase its team of inspectors in proportion.
“We are being forced to think about how to do more with less,” said Mr Hamblin. “Even if you quadrupled [staffing], you would not get round as many as you would want to, so you need to get smarter about where the biggest risks are and concentrate resources there.”
The agency uses a team of four to categorise manually about 1,000 comments from 15 different sources every month. It is testing cutting-edge linguistic technology developed by a team at Oxford University to categorise automatically more qualitative information.
That will allow new data to be processed from a greater number of sources from around the web, and the same team can move into more sophisticated tasks, analysing the results. The project is likely to cost less than half that of processing the information manually over its first year.
Within the NHS, many hospitals – including London’s St George’s Trust, West Middlesex and Barts – and primary care trusts have created Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Although most use social networks only to share information and health tips, some are used to scan for patients tweeting about their ailments or treatment, mentioning the hospital’s name.
A group of NHS social media enthusiasts hold a virtual meeting on Twitter every Monday to discuss how best to use the new channels.
Samuel Ridge, senior communications manager for St George’s Trust, said the hospital had picked up on concerns tweeted by a kidney patient and photographs posted of damaged facilities.
“[Patients] speak openly and honestly in what is a friendly but public environment. These informal forums don’t exist within the NHS,” he said.It’s quite early days but we have quite comprehensive monitoring in place. It gives us a clear impression about what people feel about us as a hospital and the NHS.”
Mr Ridge admits that this “eavesdropping” could raise questions about patient confidentiality. His team is careful not to reveal personal information by replying to patients in public; individual follow-ups are always made by phone, e-mail or private message.
“We are not playing big brother,” Mr Ridge says. “If we can provide support to patients via that medium, it’s a brave step to make but there might be some strong patient benefits.”
Lebanese Armed Forces dismantled hi-tech and complex Israeli spying devices in the Bekaa Valley, a Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.
The discovery comes as earlier last weekend, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry lodged a complaint with the UN through its mission in New York.
The ministry denounced the act of espionage as a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, international law and the UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
The UN resolution ended Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon that killed about 1,200 Lebanese people — mostly civilians.
Israeli espionage “is in clear violation of resolution 1701,” Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said earlier in December.
The Lebanese army, acting on an alert coming from the resistance movement of Hezbollah, has discovered and dismantled several Israeli espionage devices over the course of the past month.
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(CNN) — Two German journalists charged with espionage in Iran for interviewing the son and lawyer of a woman condemned to die by stoning have met with family members, Iranian officials said Tuesday.
The meeting took place Monday night in the northwest city of Tabriz — where the German nationals were arrested, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters at his weekly news conference.
“On the basis of humanitarian grounds, this meeting has been made possible,” Mehmanparast said.
The families also met with Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister.
The relatives traveled to Iran on Friday accompanied by Brand Erbel, the German Ambassador to Tehran, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
“The status of their case depends on the legal proceedings and the judiciary officials proceeding. If they have not committed a crime, then they will be released. And if they have, then they will be dealt with properly,” Mehmanparast said Tuesday.
The two men, identified only as a reporter and photojournalist, were arrested in October after they interviewed the son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was convicted of adultery in 2006 and sentenced to death by stoning.
“Their reports and propaganda in Tabriz proved that they are in the country for spying,” Malek Ajdar Shafiee, the head of the Justice Department of East Azarbaijan, was quoted as saying by Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency.
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“This spy, whose identity will be announced after the verdict is approved, has been sentenced to death,” Jafari-Dolatabadi said on Sunday.
“This person who worked as a spy for Israel has been sentenced to death. The sentence will be carried out after judicial and executive processes,” he added.
He went on to say that other cases of espionage were being investigated by the prosecutor’s office, IRNA reported.
In October, Iran arrested seven individuals, who had collaborated with Israeli intelligence services, on charges of espionage.
Iranian officials say one of the spies was involved in counterrevolutionary activities, and one was working on issues pertaining to the country’s domestic affairs.
Five others were arrested for infiltrating the country’s administrative institutions and passing classified data to foreign countries.
These spies supplied the enemy with information on Iran’s judiciary, military and space agencies, among other things, prior to their arrest.
Israel runs spy cells in many countries around the world. It is also the only Washington ally to openly spy on the United States.
In recent years many Tel Aviv-linked individual have been arrested in countries like Egypt, Lebanon and Syria on espionage charges.
US-born Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life on charges of spying for Tel Aviv 25 years ago, and his case has been a source of tension between the United States and Israel.
More than 100 people have been arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of spying for Israel since April 2009. Among them are telecom employees, members of the security forces and active duty troops.
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