Saturday, March 15, 2008

Understandable. We are a nation of snoops... (It could have been worse. They could have videoed the file and put it on Youtube)

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=96

UCLA workers snooped in Spears’ medical records

Charles Ornstein reports in the Los Angeles Times:

UCLA Medical Center is taking steps to fire at least 13 employees and has suspended at least six others for snooping in the confidential medical records of pop star Britney Spears, who was recently hospitalized in its psychiatric ward, a person familiar with the matter said today.

An additional six physicians also face discipline for peeking at her computerized records, the person said.



Wholesale snooping?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080314082902511

UT: Laptop with patient information stolen from University Health Care

Friday, March 14 2008 @ 08:29 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Thousands of people are being cautioned to keep their eyes on their credit reports tonight. A laptop with names, Social Security numbers and personal health information was stolen from University Health Care in Salt Lake City.

The laptop was reported missing Feb. 25. University Health Care began mailing out letters to people affected by it this week.

... Some 4,800 patients are feeling that frustration tonight because their personal information was on a laptop stolen from a locked office. "In some cases, there were names and addresses of patients. In some cases, names and Social Security numbers, [and] in some cases, names and health policy information," Nelson said.

Source - KSL



Interesting (Look at about 12:45 on the video)

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=100

Mar-15-2008

IOM Project Survey Findings on Health Research and Privacy

From the 15th National HIPAA Summit, Dr. Alan Westin’s talk is now online for free viewing.



So perhaps there is a (peta)bit of disagreement?

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/law-checking-wsj-article-domestic-spying

Law-Checking WSJ Article on Domestic Spying

Posted by Kurt Opsahl March 10th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal's detailed article on domestic spying (Wall Street Journal, NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data (March 10, 2008), p. A1) provides critical detail and confirmation of the NSA's wholesale acquisition of domestic communications, and helps us understand the Administration's word games. It also shows that the Administration is relying upon erroneous views of electronic communications privacy law, including some that contradict the Department of Justice's own published interpretations.

The article contains an infobox listing material that "the NSA can look at without a judicial warrant." Contrary to the NSA's claim, information like email subject lines, internet searches and cellphone location information all require a warrant under law. Moreover, even where a "probable cause" warrant is not necessary, the NSA still needs to obtain an appropriate court order.



Couple this with the ban on drug testing student athletes and perhaps the pendulum is swinging back?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080314194904158

Court ruling limits employment drug testing

Friday, March 14 2008 @ 07:49 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Workplace Privacy

A city can't require all job applicants to be tested for narcotics and must instead show why drug use in a particular job would be dangerous, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the city of Woodburn, Ore., which argued it was entitled to maintain a drug-free workplace by requiring job candidates to be screened for drugs and alcohol.

The city was sued by Janet Lanier, whose job offer as a part-time page at the city library was withdrawn in 2004 when she refused a drug and alcohol test. A federal judge ruled the policy unconstitutional and awarded Lanier $12,400 in damages and $44,000 in legal fees, her lawyer said.

Source - San Francisco Chronicle Related - Court Opinion [pdf] h/t, The Canadian Privacy Law Blog



Forward this one to your CIO. (I may need to suspend my programmed trading)

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/14/Just-patched-Excel-makes-calculation-mistakes_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/14/Just-patched-Excel-makes-calculation-mistakes_1.html

Just-patched Excel makes calculation mistakes

One of the patches issued Tuesday causes Excel to make incorrect calculations when a Real Time Data source is used

By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld March 14, 2008

... In a warning posted Thursday, Bill Sisk, security response communications manager, said that the fixes outlined in the MS08-014 bulletin "causes Microsoft Excel 2003 calculations to return an incorrect result when a Real Time Data source is used."



Tools & Techniques: For my Security class...

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/15/1242252&from=rss

Man-in-the-Middle Attack on MySpace with Cain

Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday March 15, @09:00AM from the caught-with-yer-pants-down dept. Security The Internet IT

Slimjim100 writes

"Last year at ChicagoCon 2007, Brian Wilson gave a great talk entitled "Cain & Abel: Windows Can Hack, Too!" Although the presentation and audio recording of the talk can be downloaded from the ChicagoCon site at Library, I had totally forgotten to publish his videos. Just in case things didn't go as planned during the live event or his laptop crapped out on him, Brian made a video of the MITM attack he demonstrated using Cain. You get to see how Myspace and other social networking sites are not designed with security in mind."


For my graphic arts students. Import this, remove all the “Specimen” junk, and print me a few thousand copies...

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/newmoney/files/5_Materials/5_Glossy%20FRONT.pdf



A most interesting area. Encrypting your backups should keep them secure, so the big question is: How quickly do you need to recover when things head south?

http://www.midmarket.eweek.com/c/a/News/Online-Backup-by-the-Numbers/

Online Backup by the Numbers

DATE: 2008-03-14 By Karen D. Schwartz

Backing up data online can mean less hassle, more reliability and lower costs. Here are some things to consider when looking at online backup options.

... Good candidates are companies with RTOs (Recovery Time Objectives) of less than one day for a full recovery, little or no backup infrastructure, little or no IT staff to manage backup operations, and compliance or litigation support requirements that can't be easily met with the current set-up.

... Data protection—the very reason to consider online backup in the first place—also should be examined closely.

"You would think every online backup vendor keeps more than one backup of customers' data, but that's not always the case," Taneja said. "They have a backup of your data at their location, but do they have a system that backs their environment up as well? That's an important question to ask."



Youtube isn't surprising, but Fox is #2???

http://venturebeat.com/2008/03/14/comscore-youtube-dominance-grows/

Comscore: YouTube dominance grows

Anthony Ha March 14th, 2008

... Google (which owns YouTube) accounted for 34.3 percent of the online videos watched in January, up 1.7 percent from December, according to ComScore. Not surprisingly, YouTube videos made up almost all of that viewership — 96 percent, to be exact.

Google’s closest competitor was Fox Interactive Media, which accounted for 6 percent of videos watched. (See the the chart below.)



Of course I am bias free... No matter what those ignorant liberal democrats say...

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/14/2048236&from=rss

Microsoft Developing News Sorting Based On Political Bias

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 14, @09:21PM from the next-measure-the-magnitude-of-political-affiliation dept. Microsoft Politics

wiredog writes

"The Washington Post is reporting that Microsoft is developing a program that classifies news stories according to whether liberal or conservative bloggers are linking to them and also measures the 'emotional intensity' based on the frequency of keywords in the blog posts."

If you would like to jump right to the tool you can check out "Blews" on the Microsoft site.



Economics: Why does the UK have the lead?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/017812.html

March 14, 2008

The Knowledge Economy: How Knowledge is Reshaping the Economic Life of Nations

News release: "The Work Foundation today publishes a report outlining its research thus far into the knowledge economy, 18 months into a three-year, £1.5 million research programme which will conclude in April 2009. The Knowledge Economy: How Knowledge is Reshaping the Economic Life of Nations argues that the phenomenon of the knowledge economy is driven by the demand for higher value-added goods and services created by more sophisticated, more discerning and better educated consumers and businesses. These pressures have interacted with both technology and globalisation, accelerating the process of change and enabling new and disruptive patterns of supplying consumers. The report covers:

  • Work: knowledge-based industries and knowledge-related occupations have provided most of the new jobs over the past decade

  • Trade: The UK has emerged as a world leader in trade in knowledge services with the biggest trade surplus of the major OECD economies. While the City of London and financial services remain important, two thirds of this trade comes from business services, high tech, and education and cultural services.

  • Innovation: innovation in the knowledge economy comes from both the successful exploitation of R&D undertaken in the UK and overseas and from wider forms of innovation design and development, marketing and organisational change.

  • Small firms: Provisional findings show that in the decade between 1995 and 2005, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have become much more concentrated in ‘knowledge intensive sectors’ - high skill, high tech sectors, such as accountancy, legal and consultancy services, architectural, engineering and technical services, and advertising. They have increased the numbers of people they employ by 17 per cent or 445,000 people.

  • Offshore Outsourcing: Thus far, offshoring has had no measureable impact on knowledge economy jobs. Occupations theoretically at risk from offshore outsourcing continue to add numbers overall in the UK. Meanwhile, the trade in knowledge services remains overwhelmingly with richer countries, rather than developing nations such as India."


Related?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/017810.html

March 14, 2008

Celebrating James Madison and the Freedom of Information Act

DOJ Office of Information and Privacy: "On March 16 we celebrate the anniversary of James Madison's birthday. Madison, traditionally viewed as the Father of the United States Constitution, is also seen by many as a defender of open government. He once wrote, "[a] popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." In a similar vein, he asserted that "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge" is "the only Guardian of true liberty." ... With Madison's views on the importance of an informed citizenry in mind, the occasion of James Madison's birthday is an excellent opportunity for federal agencies to review their FOIA operations to ensure that this vital government function is receiving the attention it deserves."



How to sound like you did the research?

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/LexiSumcom---Browse-Wikipedia-as-you-Type/

LexiSum.com - Browse Wikipedia as you Type

Lexisum is a innovative new site that does something oddly useful. It browses Wikipedia as you type. So, let’s say you’re writing an article on fungus. Type in the word, ‘’Fungus’, and the wikipedia entry of fugus immediately pops up. It’s helpful if you’re writing a paper and need a little extra help. If you happened to forget a term, or didn’t fully understand what your professor meant by suzerainty, type it in and Wikipedia will help you out. Only a partial imprint of the article appears. If you want to read the full thing, click on a link below the article to bring you to the actual Wikipedia page.

... and it’s also available in nine languages.

http://www.lexisum.com/



...or perhaps Hustler is simply using the media hype for publicity?

http://www.accesshollywood.com/article/8771/prostitute-in-spitzer-scandal-scores-million-dollar-offer-to-bare-all/

Prostitute In Spitzer Scandal Scores Million Dollar Offer To Bare All

Mar 14, 2008 NEW YORK, New York -- ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Mar 14, 2008 14:34 PM

As her instant celebrity status continues to climb in the wake of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, Ashley Alexandra Dupre has now received a $1 million offer to bare it all.


Virgin clearly is...

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893529-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Virgin Mobile turns Spitzer woes into ad copy

Posted by Leslie Katz March 13, 2008 1:35 PM PDT

Virgin Mobile Canada knows how frustrated people can get with the lack of personalized service these days. Faster than Eliot Spitzer could say, "Um, oops," the company came out with a print ad that features the newly former New York governor, aka Client #9, musing as follows under a thought bubble: "I'm tired of being treated like a number..."


Of course, a lawyer would never stoop so low...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080315074610407

A Lawyer's Call for Privacy

Saturday, March 15 2008 @ 07:46 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Other Privacy News

.... Don D. Buchwald, working for $100 an hour as a court-appointed attorney for Ashley Dupré, the prostitute linked with Gov. Eliot Spitzer, defended his client’s privacy in this letter sent to the media. He says that Dupré was “thrust into the public glare at age 22 without her consent” and that “some publications, in violation of journalistic norms, have used the occasion as an excuse to exploit Dupré’s persona for commercial purposes by, among other things, displaying a montage of suggestive photographs of Ms. Dupré that has nothing to do with the Spitzer story,” and in “violation of her privacy rights and federal copyright law.”

Source - innovationnewspapers.com

Note -- copy of press release by lawyer to media reproduced in story.

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