Computer files from South Shore Hospital that contain personal information for about 800,000 people may have been lost when they were shipped to a contractor to be destroyed, hospital officials announced yesterday. The officials declined to identify the contractor, but said that an independent information security consulting firm has determined that specialized software, hardware, and technical knowledge would be required to open and decipher information in the files. They also said they had no evidence that the information in those files had been improperly used by anyone.
