(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The Meridian Township Police Department in Michigan arrested Eugene Yu, the CEO of software company Konnech, for allegedly storing personal data from American election workers on servers in the “People’s Republic of China,”
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, a Soros-backed prosecutor, has conducted the investigation into the Michigan-based company, and he asked Michigan authorities to extradite Yu to Los Angeles, the Post Millennial reported.
Los Angeles County used Konnech’s software, PollChief, to manage its poll workers.
Konnech provides the same software to the United States, Canada and Australia to help manage “poll workers, poll locations, campaigns, assets, and supplies,” Kanekoa News reported.
“Konnech allegedly violated its contract by storing critical information that the workers provided on servers in China,” Gascon said. “We intend to hold all those responsible for this breach accountable.”
Konnech, headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, denied the allegations against it and Yu, arguing that the company did not store any personal information that Los Angeles County did not provide to it.
While Michigan authorities arrested Yu, Los Angeles authorities seized hard drives and other electronic evidence. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Yu with stealing personal information.
“Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life,” Gascon said. “When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft. Otherwise, we are all victims.”
Gascon said the company’s decision to store information on Chinese servers violated its $2.9 million, five-year contract with Los Angeles County.
Gascon suggested that Konnech let the information fall into the hands of the Chinese, but two election investigators, Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht, argued that Konnech and Yu intentionally provided the personal information to the Chinese Communist Party.
Phillips said Konnech gave the CCP sensitive information, including names, addresses, bank accounts and children’s information, from about 2 million poll workers across the country.
Gascon said the breach “had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results.” Phillips and Engelbrecht of True the Vote did not claim that the security breach affected election results.
Only two days ago, New York Times reporter Stuart A. Thompson wrote a piece denouncing a “new conspiracy theory,” which he claimed had no evidence “at all,” about Konnech, the CCP, and the 2020 election.
The allegations, he argued, “demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”
While Thompson criticized the “election deniers,” Phillips and Engelbrecht helped the FBI with a “counter-intelligence operation” against Konnech.
Using his technological knowledge, Phillips traced several URLs connected to Konnech to China.
“We found that most of them resolve to one I.P. address and that I.P. address — the URL resolved in China,” Phillips said. “What we also learned in our review, apps.konnech.com [.net], resolved into this same URL in China, meaning that the application itself was residing in China.”
When Phillips and Engelbrecht discovered the “major national security risk,” they contacted the FBI.
