Saturday, April 22, 2017

An everyday occurrence.  So why no encryption?
   Lifespan is investigating the theft of an employee’s laptop from a car that was broken into on February 25, 2017.  Several items were stolen, including a MacBook laptop used by the employee for work purposes.  Upon discovering the theft, the employee immediately contacted law enforcement and reported the incident to Lifespan.  Lifespan promptly began an investigation and changed the employee’s credentials used to access Lifespan system resources out of an abundance of caution.
   Lifespan is committed to protecting the security and confidentiality of our patients’ information, and we deeply regret this incident occurred.  In order to help prevent a similar incident from reoccurring, we are re-educating our employees and enhancing our policies and procedures related to the security of MacBooks.
SOURCE: Lifespan
According to local media who received a press release on the matter, Lifespan is notifying 20,000 patients.


You watch TV, TV watches you. 
WikiLeaks Details Samsung Smart TV Hacking Tool
WikiLeaks has released a document detailing yet another hacking tool allegedly used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  This time, the organization has published information on a tool designed to record audio via the built-in microphone of some Samsung smart TVs.
The tool, dubbed “Weeping Angel,” is apparently based on “Extending,” an implant allegedly developed by British security service MI5 – the agencies are said to have worked together on this project.
   The newly released guide, dated February 2014, describes an implant for Samsung F series smart TVs.  The implant can record audio from a device via the built-in microphone and either store or exfiltrate the recordings.
The Weeping Angel implant can be installed by connecting a USB device to the targeted TV, and data can be exfiltrated either via a USB stick or a compromised Wi-Fi hotspot.


“We are not covered by HIPAA but we act like we are?” 
HealthITSecurity reports:
Patient records from the New York Organ Donor Network are not liable to HIPAA regulations, according to a recent New York Supreme Court ruling.
A former network official claimed that four patients had not yet been declared legally dead before their organs were harvested, and had argued that the records in question were protected under HIPAA.
Plaintiff Patrick McMahon also claimed that he had been fired for being a whistleblower and stating that organs were being taken prematurely.
[…]
McMahon argued that the network was not a HIPAA covered entity and the four patients’ medical records should be turned over.  The records “are material and necessary because plaintiff insists that each person showed signs of brain activity when their organs were harvested.”
The network reportedly acknowledged that it is not a HIPAA covered entity, but said it still must maintain patient confidentiality
Read more about the case on HealthITSecurity.


It’s not stalking, it’s determining how your business is doing.  (You can’t turn it around if you don’t know where it’s heading.)
10 Easy Ways Small Businesses Should Track Competitors
One of the most important yet often unvalued requirements when running a small business is to track and monitor competition.  Having a clear understanding of competitors’ business operations, such as what they are charging, what clients they have, and what new products and services they are offering, can help a company develop their own successful business models and strategies.


Investigating with a view to a change or just to be able to say they are “doing something?” 
U.S. Homeland Security probes possible abuse in Twitter summons case
The U.S. Homeland Security Department's inspector general said on Friday he was investigating possible abuse of authority in a case that triggered a lawsuit against the department by Twitter Inc.
   In a lawsuit on April 6, Twitter disclosed that it received a summons in March from the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, an agency within Homeland Security, demanding records about an account on the social media platform identified by the handle @ALT_uscis.
The account has featured posts critical of President Donald Trump's immigration policies, leading Twitter to complain in its lawsuit that the summons was an unlawful attempt to suppress dissent.
The agency dropped its demand of Twitter the day after the suit was filed.
   "DHS OIG is also reviewing potential broader misuse of summons authority at the department," he added.


These two events could not possibly be related.  Unless someone was practicing to take everything down?
Power outage cripples San Francisco for seven hours
A massive power outage threw San Francisco into chaos for most of the work day on Friday, knocking out traffic signals, paralyzing businesses and halting the city's famed cable cars.

(Related).
Why a Midtown Power Failure Snarled Your Morning Subway Commute


Something my students will use, please!
Three Tools That Help Students Analyze What They Write
Probably every high school teacher since the dawn of time has asked his or her students to have someone else proofread their essays before turning them in for a grade.  Unfortunately, students don't always comply with that request.  And even when they do get someone to proofread, some items might go undetected.  That's why an online writing analysis tool can be helpful to students. Here are three free services that help students analyze their writing.
Slick Write is a free tool that helps you analyze your writing or that of others.  To use Slick Write you can write new text in the provided text editor or copy and paste chunks of existing text into Slick Write's text editor.  Either way Slick Write will provide you with an analysis of your writing.  That analysis will include typical things like a word count, a readability score, and an estimated reading time for your document.  Slick Write will also analyze your use of adverbs and prepositional phrases throughout your document.
The Hemingway App, found at Hemingwayapp.com, provides students with lots of helpful information about their text.  To use the service students just paste some text into the Hemingway editor and it will provide you with a bunch of information about that text.  Hemingway highlights the parts of your writing that use passive voice, adverbs, and overly complex sentences.  All of those factors are accounted for in generating a general readability score for your passage.  The short video embedded below shows how easy it is to use Hemingwayapp.com to analyze your writing.
Paste your text into Analyze My Writing and it will generate a ton of information about your writing.  Analyze My Writing will give you a break-down of the readability of your writing on five indices.  The analysis will include listings of the most common words and most common word pairs in your writing.  A listing of how frequently you use punctuation and punctuation types is included in the analysis provided by Analyze My Writing.  Finally, a word cloud is included at the end of the analysis of your writing.

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