Stolen Laptop Could Cause Problems For Residents Forever !!

ACCOMAC -- At least two Northampton County residents received letters from Accomack County notifying them their personal information may have been subject to unauthorized access as a result of the theft of a county-owned laptop in Las Vegas earlier this month.

The two men, who are related, do not own personal property in Accomack County and have never paid personal property taxes to Accomack County, one said.

Accomack County Administrator Steve Miner said he has spoken to one other Northampton resident who also received a letter, and he thinks there were others.

"I saw the article in the Eastern Shore News, and I was thinking, 'Oh, those poor people in Accomack County,' " said Craig Richardson, who lives near Seaview in lower Northampton County and whose mailing address is in Cape Charles.

Then he received one of about 35,000 letters sent by Accomack County informing him that his name and driver's license number were on the stolen laptop. He called Accomack County the same day to ask why.

"I couldn't get a straight answer from them as to why they have this," said Richardson, who moved to Northampton County about five years ago from Fairfax. His father, Robert C. Richardson, a Northampton County native, also received a letter.

Someone in the Accomack County Attorney's Office took his phone call and after checking with an information technology employee told Richardson the county got the information from the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

Richardson said when he moved to the Eastern Shore he went to the DMV office in Onancock, in Accomack County, to register his two vehicles, but his registrations correctly stated the vehicles are located in Northampton County and he has never received a tax bill from Accomack County. His neighbor, who has never used the Onancock DMV office, did not get a letter from Accomack.

"That's what made me think, anybody from Northampton County who has ever gone up to that office in Onancock, they've got your records," he said.

DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes said it should not matter to which office an owner goes to register his vehicle. She said she was unfamiliar with the issue of Accomack County having information about Northampton residents.

"We weren't asked to look at this ... DMV was just told what the data was; we did not look at it," she said about discussions held between the agency and Accomack County officials about the theft.

Miner said Monday in an e-mail that the county "is working with the state DMV to understand this list better."

Miner said the county has received a number of calls from people who received a letter "and had no apparent reason to be on our list, since they have not ever lived here and, hence, had no reason to be taxed by us."

But he said the county's priority was to notify those potentially affected by the theft, whether they were properly on the list or not.

www.delmarvanow.com

This does not surprise me in the least! Keep those toll free telephone numbers nearby. You're going to need them for a long, long time. I made a phone call to the Accomack office to ask some questions and was told in so many words that calling the fraud hotline would be something the citizens would need to do every 92 days. Why every 92 days??....... so we don't have to pay for the service!

Virginia DMV Extends Licenses, And Hours After Computer Outage

Richmond, Va. --

Virginia expects to resume renewing driver's licenses today after a giant, weeklong computer failure. But that may not be reason to smile.

Because of continuing data headaches, the Department of Motor Vehicles still can't match thousands of photographs with driver information, potentially rendering 10,000 to 16,000 head shots unusable.

If the photos contained in giant electronic files can't be restored, affected Virginians would have to report to DMV offices to sit for fresh pictures.

"It's too early to say whether that next step is necessary," said Samuel A. Nixon Jr., the state's computer chief.

With officials saying Virginia's information-technology systems are fully operational again for the first time since the Aug. 25 crash that crippled 26 agencies, DMV -- the hardest-hit -- breathed 20 days' new life into most of the driver's licenses and identification cards that expired during the outage.

DMV said the 12,226 people whose licenses and ID cards became invalid during the outage will not have to prove their legal presence in the United States by producing additional documentation, such as a passport or birth certificate -- as the agency had advised earlier.

All told, 35,000 to 45,000 customers have been unable to get driver's licenses or ID cards during the service blackout.

The last of Virginia's stricken agencies were, for the most part, up and running yesterday.

That included the State Board of Elections and the departments of Social Services, Environmental Quality, and Taxation.

The tax agency, which handles millions of dollars a day, resumed issuing refunds and liens as well as processing returns via the Internet.

The tax department still has some gaps in its records, but, "we don't think it's as bad as we thought it might be," spokesman Joel Davison said.

Meantime, the state moved closer to opening an independent investigation of Virginia's biggest computer failure since the government hired Northrop Grumman in 2005 to run its IT networks.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, the Nixon-led Virginia Information Technologies Agency, and the General Assembly's investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, will select an outside expert -- who would be paid by Northrop Grumman -- to study the crisis and report within three months.

McDonnell initially wanted VITA to choose the investigator, but legislative leaders said that would raise questions about the probe's independence.

JLARC, under state law, has oversight responsibility for VITA and Northrop Grumman, which is being paid more than $2.3 billion under Virginia's largest privatization contract.

Calling the results of the outage an emergency, DMV also said it will lengthen service hours at its 74 offices to accommodate tens of thousands of inconvenienced people.

"We're trying to get every [service counter] window open," DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes said. "We are planning to be extremely busy."

With employees working overtime, DMV will extend hours today and tomorrow until 6 p.m. Offices, which generally open at 8 a.m., usually close at 5 p.m.

During the Labor Day holiday weekend, DMV will extend hours at 14 offices on Saturday. Rather than close at noon, most of the offices will remain open until 6 p.m.

Using the DMV's authority to extend their validity periods, the agency will add 20 days to most licenses and ID cards that lapsed during the disruption.

As an example, licenses that expired Aug. 25 will be good until Sept. 14, giving customers time to renew before the new expiration date.

DMV headquarters workers are being sent to field offices to help with the expected influx of customers.

DMV is paying for the increased costs from the crisis out of its regular operating budget, Stokes said.

The 20-day extension on expired licenses and ID cards will shorten the new ones' validity period by the same amount.

However, the grace period will not apply to limited-duration licenses, such as those issued to foreigners temporarily in the U.S. on a work visa.

www.timesdispatch.com

McDonnell Wants Independent Probe of Computer Outage

Richmond, Va. --
Gov. Bob McDonnell wants an "independent third party" to investigate the collapse of a Virginia government computer system nearly a week ago that continues to paralyze some agencies.

"I am not pleased that our employees and citizens have experienced this disruption in service," McDonnell said yesterday in ending his public silence on the crisis.

Six of 26 agencies hit by the outage Wednesday still were not fully up and running, despite a promise by state computer chief Samuel A. Nixon Jr. to have their service restored by yesterday at 8 a.m.

This includes the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which may not be able to resume issuing driver's licenses and identity cards at its 74 offices until tomorrow. The agency had expected such services would be available today.

Other agencies still limping: the state Department of Taxation, which could not make tax refunds or process tax payments; and the state Department of Juvenile Justice, unable to handle fully the intake and tracking of young offenders.

The state Department of Environmental Quality had continuing problems with a system it uses to develop computer programs. Voter files are being restored at the State Board of Elections.

McDonnell's directive to the agency that Nixon heads, the Virginia Information Technologies Agency, to open an inquiry potentially puts the Republican governor at odds with Northrop Grumman, which was hired in 2005 to provide communications and computer services under a $2.3 billion contract -- the state's largest-ever privatization program.

Christy Whitman, a Northrop Grumman spokeswoman, declined comment.

McDonnell, who collected more than $75,000 in campaign contributions from Northrop Grumman, had pledged to smooth relations with the embattled company, having lured its headquarters from California to Northern Virginia and having agreed to a new, longer contract that pays it an additional $236 million.

"I have directed an operational and performance review of the situation be conducted so we can determine the proper course of action to best protect the interests of the commonwealth," McDonnell said in a written statement.

His press secretary, Stacey Johnson, said VITA is expected to hire an "independent third party" to explore the cause of the blackout and, perhaps, recommend that the state recover from Northrop Grumman the dollars in lost business and productivity.

The company already is expected to be hit with fines for the latest service interruptions. Nixon said the penalties will be at least $100,000.

Nixon said he had yet to select a firm to conduct the investigation and is choosing for now to focus on restoring service.

Even VITA is having difficulties. Its accounting and billing programs are not working properly.

Contributing to the delays: restoring giant data files, a task that can take 18 hours or more. The episode -- it is the second major outage under VITA/Northrop Grumman since 2007 -- is calling attention to the adequacy of backup systems, for which agencies must pay the company extra.

The new contract with Northrop Grumman requires that the company strengthen and speed up its response to equipment failures and other emergencies.

At VITA/Northrop Grumman headquarters in Chester, more than 400 servers, which support clusters of state computers and their software, failed when two circuit boards crashed mid-afternoon last Wednesday. The boards were manufactured and installed by EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, Mass.

A company spokesman could not be reached for comment.

But VITA said it had been told by EMC that a dual failure was unprecedented. The company shipped backup equipment to Virginia during the weekend, but it has not been installed, Nixon said.

Before the outage, McDonnell had planned to meet with his Cabinet yesterday morning at the VITA-Northrop Grumman offices in Chester. But the session was held in Richmond instead.

Johnson said the meeting was conducted at the governor's office -- the usual venue -- because "the folks at VITA need to get everything back and running."

www.timesdispatch.com

DMV Computers Still Down - No Driver's License Can Be Processed

NORFOLK - A computer system meltdown has taken DMV offline across the state. 74 customer service centers cannot process driver's licenses or ID cards.

Chris from Virginia Beach wrote to NewsChannel 3 saying his driver's license will expire on 9-3-10. He said, "I have been trying to get it renewed for the last eight days. I am going out of town for the holiday weekend. What are we to do? Can't get anyone on the phone with the DMV, can you please help?"

Pat Davis tried to renew her driver's license online.

"They said I had to come to the DMV because I have to have my picture taken," she said. When she got to the DMV, she was faced with another issue, "I was told that I could not renew my driver's license because the computers are down," she says.

The trouble is, most folks didn't know about the computer problem until they showed up at the DMV.

"It's extremely inconvenient, 'cause I have to take off from work to come in here," Pat says.

Pat's license expires tomorrow. She says she will not have to miss work again she she can legally drive again.

Melanie Stokes with the DMV told NewsChannel 3, "DMV apologizes for the inconvenience this statewide Vita computer outage has caused and we can only imagine the frustration our customers are experiencing when they cannot get a drivers license.

Drivers are now faced with no licenses and no clear cut answer on when the computers will be up and running again.

All other DMV services are up and running and the DMV says the Vita agency in charge of the computers is working around the clock to repair the problem. Call ahead and make sure the system is fixed before you make the trip.

If your license expires, state police now say they're extending a grace period. People with expired licenses from August 25th through August 31st will get a pass. If you've already received a summons because of the problems, it will go through the court system, but troopers have been advised to work with the Commonwealth Attorney on those cases.
www.wtkr.com