http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/health-breaches/
New Law Floods California With Medical Data Breach Reports
By Kim Zetter July 9, 2009 3:24 pm
California officials have received more than 800 reports of health data breaches in the first five months after a new state law went into effect January 1.
The law requires health care organizations in California to report suspected incidents of intentional and unintentional unauthorized breaches of a patient’s personally identifiable health information to the California Department of Public Health.
The agency, however, says it was surprised by the large number of reports it received in such a short period, according to the Journal of the American Health Information Management Association, and expects that number to increase dramatically as organizations become more familiar with the reporting procedures.
Follow-up
Johnson, et al. v Microsoft: Court Docs on Motion Ruling IP Address Does Not Equal PII
Posted on July 9th, 2009 by David Navetta Filed under: IP address, PII, personally identifiable information, priavcy
For those interested in digging deeper into the recent ruling in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE DIVISION that IP addresses do not constitute “personally identifiable information,” I have complied all of the relevant pleadings, motions, and response/reply/surreply briefs for your viewing pleasure….
Everyone does it, but unless they publish how would we know?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=1652
UK police won’t reopen phonetap case
July 9, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Businesses, Non-U.S.
British police said on Thursday they would not reopen investigations into the interception of celebrities’ mobile phone voicemails by journalists, despite new allegations against a Rupert Murdoch newspaper.
[...]
Assistant Commissioner John Yates of the Metropolitan Police said the original probe had concluded that phone tapping had occurred in only a minority of cases. All those victims had been informed, he said.
‘Their potential targets may have run into hundreds of people, but our inquiries showed that they only used the tactic against a far smaller number of individuals,’ Yates said.
‘No additional evidence has come to light since this case has concluded. I therefore consider that no further investigation is required.’
Source: LSE.co.uk
Times Online has the full text of John Yates’ statement.
(Related) We call it “pretexting”
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=1668
ICO statement about media blagging
July 10, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Non-U.S.
This is the full text of the statement by Mick Gorrill, Assistant Information Commissioner, yesterday:
“People care about their personal privacy and have a right to expect that their personal details remain confidential. Who they are, where they live, who their friends and family are, how they run their lives: these are all private matters. Individuals may choose to divulge such information to others, but information about them held confidentially should not be available to anyone prepared to pay the right price.
“The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) exposed the widespread media involvement in illegally obtaining personal information in its reports What Price Privacy? and What Price Privacy Now? The ICO named some of the UK’s newspapers and magazines which bought people’s personal information in search of a story.
“Following a court order in 2008 we made available a copy of some information, from our investigation into the buying and selling of personal information, to lawyers acting on behalf of Gordon Taylor. This included material that showed that 31 journalists working for The News of the World and The Sun had acquired people’s personal information through blagging.”
The links below take you to two reports, What Price Privacy? and What Price Privacy Now? which set out more information.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/corporate/research_and_reports/what_price_privacy_low_resolution.pdf
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/corporate/research_and_reports/ico-wppnow-0602.pdf
All politicians lie.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=1627#respond
Jewel v. NSA back in court next week
July 9, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Govt, Surveillance, U.S.
… EFF brought the suit on behalf of Carolyn Jewel, a California database administrator who is an AT&T customer, and other AT&T customers.
… To the disappointment of most privacy advocates and civil libertarians, despite President Obama’s statements during his campaign about his views of the warrantless surveillance program, his administration adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program. In April, the administration filed a motion to dismiss (pdf) Jewel v. NSA [background and documents], arguing that the litigation would require it to disclose “state secrets.”
Fortunately, politicians know nothing about technology (and can't understand/won't listen to those who do.) Be Warned: It will happen here!
http://torrentfreak.com/hackers-undermine-piracy-evidence-with-hadopi-router-090709/
Hackers Undermine Piracy Evidence With Hadopi Router
Written by enigmax on July 09, 2009
Yesterday we reported that a provision in the revamped French “3 strikes” bill will allow for the punishment of ISP account holders for the copyright infringing actions of others. Now a group of hackers has set out to compromise WiFi routers en masse, in order to create an environment of plausible deniability.
,,, Aside from punishing actual file-sharers, the bill allows the courts to take measures against people who have done no sharing, but are accused simply because they are the one paying the ISP bill. If the court decides that an account holder is guilty of “negligence” - by somehow allowing others to file-share on their connection - it is within a judge’s power to issue a fine up to 1,500 euros along with a 4 week disconnection.
… A hacker known only as ‘N’ says he has developed some software known as ‘Hadopi Router’
… “It locates Wi-Fi networks in the neighborhood, then begins to crack all their passwords,” says ‘N’. “Once we have the keys, we can create a virtual access point,” which in basic terms means using the Internet connection without the account holder’s knowledge.
… An IP address does not necessarily identify an individual, in fact one could argue that in many instances these days it doesn’t even identify a computer but merely a gateway to a sub network, behind which could be any number of individuals not linked in any way to a bill payer.
For the first time, 50% of Americans use the Internet every day.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data/Daily-Internet-Activities-20002009.aspx
Daily Internet Activities, 2000-2009
When the government screws up provides health care, numbers like these will become part of premium calculation, which will cause mass migration from fatter states to Colorado, which will cause our premiums to rise. We need to control our borders!
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021772.html
July 09, 2009
CDC: U.S. Obesity Trends 1985–2008
U.S. Obesity Trends 1985–2008: "Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater. BMI is calculated from a person’s weight and height and provides a reasonable indicator of body fatness and weight categories that may lead to health problems. Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and type 2 diabetes. During the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States. In 2008, only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. Thirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia) had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%."
Perhaps they will use this database to “prove” how much they have reduced crime?
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lapd-crimemap9-2009jul09,0,909582.story
LAPD's public database omits nearly 40% of this year's crimes
The map, touted as a way for residents to monitor the safety of their neighborhoods, doesn't include about 19,000 serious crimes reported in other LAPD data. Officials say they're looking into it.
By Ben Welsh and Doug Smith July 9, 2009
The Los Angeles Police Department's online crime map intended for public use has failed to include nearly 40% of serious crimes reported in the city, a Times analysis has found.
The omissions, which date back at least six months, include thousands of crimes known to LAPD officials and are included in their official crime statistics.
We're the government. We have no idea how to give money away...
US Seeks Volunteers To Review Broadband Grant Applications
Posted by timothy on Thursday July 09, @04:07PM from the low-expertise-worries-me-less-than-poor-incentives dept.
BobB-nw writes with this excerpt from Network World:
"The US National Telecommunications and Information Administration, scheduled to distribute $4.7 billion in broadband deployment grants over the next 15 months, will count on volunteers to review grant applications. The NTIA, in a document released this week, asks for people to apply to become volunteer reviewers of the broadband grants. The NTIA's broadband grant program is part of $7.2 billion that the US Congress approved for broadband in a huge economic stimulus package approved earlier this year. ... It's 'a little scary' that volunteers will have the power to accept and reject broadband applications, said Craig Settles, an analyst and president of consulting firm Successful.com. Volunteers may have limited expertise, or they may have biases that aren't evident to the NTIA, he said."
Do you have something to add or are you content to let me help define Global Computing Policy for the next few years?
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/07/cloud-computing-perspectives-a.html
Cloud computing perspectives and questions at the World Economic Forum
by Andy Oram| @praxagora
The World Economic Forum started a research project at Davos 2009 concerning cloud computing, which they broadly define to include all kinds of remote services, from Software as a Service to virtual machines.
I was asked to provide some ideas on the implications of cloud computing for business as well as its future operating environment. To allow my colleagues and the O'Reilly community to help define the issues and provide references, I've put up a discussion forum as a wiki. Anyone with relevant and valid ideas can suggest points. I don't even mind people listing their businesses and information sources, so long as the information is relevant and is directed toward the larger educational goal of the wiki.
Tools & Techniques If most of your search results are in PDFs, this might be useful.
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/pdfind-pdf-document-search-engine/
PDFind: PDF Document Search Engine
… This site is in many ways similar to previously profiled PDF search tools (PDFgeni, PDFand Ebook Search Engine and Data-Sheet)
You can also check out our related article “3 Excellent Sites to Get Free Document Templates” profiling more resources for finding documents.
Tools & Techniques For those of you who hate reading online?
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/pdfnewspaper-web-page-to-pdf-converter/
PDFNewspaper: Web Page To PDF Converter
… The application can extract text content from provided URLs and RSS feeds and present it in an easy to read printable format.
To use PDFNewspaper you can either go to the site and create PDF by entering the URL or use provided bookmarklet that allows you convert any webpage you are on with a single click.
www.fivefilters.org/pdf-newspaper
Similar websites: HTML 2 PDF and HTML to PDF Converter.
Geeks use chainsaws to open those heavy-plastic-encased packages of parts & accessories.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/style_council/weird/usb-powered-chainsaw/
Meet the USB Powered Chainsaw: Cut Wood While Updating Your Facebook
Thursday, Jul. 9 2009 @ 1:00PM By Alexia Tsotsis in Tech, Weird
Boss got you thirsty for blood? Need a way to cut trees while still remaining active on Digg? Really into bringing weapons to the office? Attention Dwight Shrute -- we know what you're getting for Christmas...
Meet the iSaw, the world's first USB powered chainsaw. Yes, you read that right. Lamenting that "current materials used on bodies of chainsaws are too heavy for office use" the vanguards of innovation over at http://www.usbchainsaw.com/ figured out how to get a USB 2.0 port to power sharp chains for all your office-based wood cutting needs.
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