Could they be the ones under https://www.youtube.com/@proctorexam7814? Although maybe those are not old enough.

I had treatment for Lyme disease in spring 2022, Doxyhexal - described as "a broad-spectrum tetracycline-class antibiotic". It was fairly effective, the symptoms faded and a blood test several weeks later showed that the offending bacteria were in retreat. Since a friend of mine had needed four courses of antibiotics before his Lyme was actually fixed, I asked them to check those values the next time I needed a blood test (maybe a year later). I'm back, baby.
The 2023 treatment was some other antibiotic being pumped directly into my bloodstream at the doctor's surgery for (I think) 6 days in a row - I think there was a weekend in there. Waiting a few weeks, a subsequent test showed the values had dropped again.
Fast forward to early 2025, I had another routine blood test (normal at my age) and I asked them to check those values again. Things are ok now.

I don't know why the Doxyhexal ultimately failed, but it did.

I'm roughly were you were.
No TV, just 350Mb internet via coax-cable. The price is competitive, it includes 3 land lines (I only use 2) and my mobile access.
Fibre would be more expensive, so why should I change?

Anyone who has read George Orwell's 1984 will be at best ambivalent about having such a device in their home, is "Big brother" AI?

That was the full sentence from the summary, either you stopped reading after five words (short attention span?) or the summary was changed after you read it.

The first four years were pretty easy to forecast, but Covid (along with various idiocies BoJo introduced) was not something people could realistically plan for.

Recent Democrat presidents have shown a marked reluctance to roll back weird decisions imposed by their predecessors, while Trump's first term in particular was characterised by a determination to roll back almost everything Obama had done. I may be underestimating the effect of control of the House and Senate there - Biden and Obama had obstacles placed in their way.

I'm wondering how this plays out in the EU. Are they even permitted to collect all this data (obviously SSNs don't apply there) and what happens if they have a breach? I'm pretty sure the VAG group (VW, Audi, Skoda, maybe SEAT as well) had a breach a year or two ago but I don't know what was stolen and what the consequences were.

Are they sure the hackers are state-sponsored (and Chinese)?
msn.com won't work for me - something I have no problems with - so I can't RTFA but this appears to be too blatant for them. Russia, yes, North Korea, yes.

So don't opt in, it's that fucking simple.
As for me, no way am I going to activate this.
Pale Moon probably won't bother either.

I use Firefox as my second (reserve) browser, and the primary is not Chrome based either.
Rewards Points are pretty useless to me anyway, I use Windows 10 (made the mistake of "upgrading" from Windows 7) maybe once a month on average, and not for browsing or email.

And just why should I trust this?

With the US becoming increasingly unfriendly towards academia, a few countries are trying to attract the disaffected. France went that way months ago, I'm a bit (ok, a lot) surprised that China is also trying that. A relative of mine worked in Beijing for a few years, returning home a year or two before Covid hit. If I was interested in this program I'd speak to him about his experiences and how much they fit popular beliefs.

The original Huawei ban in the US was because the company could have backdoors in their devices. Something like seven years later, there has simply been absolutely no proof that this is really the case - we are still in the "unsubstantiated allegations" phase. There have also been allegations - here and elsewhere - that comparable devices from the US have backdoors, has there been any confirmation of that? When the NSA were tapping Angela Merkel's phone, I know Denmark was involved but I don't know how it was done, although it did lead to Germany kicking an operative from the CIA out of the country.
Why is Huawei still being blacklisted?

Reading TFA would have shown you that Penchukov is Ukrainian and lived there most of the time. He lived in Donetsk until Russian missiles hit his apartment, if TFA then says when he moved to Switzerland then I missed that part. His problem - living in Ukraine - was that he was rich and had to bribe local officials more or less on a daily basis, eventually he had to start hacking again to pay the bribes, before he moved out of the country to escape that problem.
Some of his associates were Russian, and some (or all?) of these had FSB "handlers".