http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2380
BCBS of Tennessee still notifying individuals of breach
By Dissent, April 2, 2010 5:44 pm
Almost six months after the theft of 57 hard drives from their Chattanooga facility, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is still in the process of notifying individuals of the breach, according to an update to the new Hampshire Attorney General’s Office dated March 31 (pdf).
Possibly Related Posts
December 4, 2009 -- BCBS of TN issues breach notification for stolen hard drive
October 6, 2009 -- TN: 68 Blue Cross Blue Shield hard drives stolen (update 1)
You can't be an AG in a conservative state without your own lawsuit.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8729
First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi
April 3, 2010 by Dissent
A privacy-themed lawsuit.
K. Douglas Lee writes:
Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.
From the complaint:
Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.
Read more of his blog entry on Big Government.
Related: Walters v. Holder.
Technically, having all the records already converted to electronic format does make it easier. Also the article says they won't work on “standards,” but you don't need standards to copy databases.
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2351
Blumenthal: NHIN Will Not Share Data With Government Agencies
By Dissent, March 31, 2010 6:58 pm
iHealthBeat reports:
During a recent Health IT Standards Committee meeting, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal denied allegations that a framework for the proposed national health information network would make it easier for data to be transmitted to government agencies, such as the CIA or Department of Justice, Modern Healthcare reports.
Blumenthal said that rumors have been circulating in the blogosphere that the National Information Exchange Model, “because it is a government-developed mechanism for generating standards and implementation specifications, might make it easier for health information to be transmitted, or might make it inevitable that it is transmittable to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the [National Security Agency] — I don’t know where else.”
Read more on iHealthBeat
[From the article:
He added that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT would not participate in a standards development process that led to such an occurence.
(Related)
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2383
EDITORIAL: Obamacare’s secret surveillance
By Dissent, April 3, 2010 9:28 am
From the editors of the Washington Times:
Blog sites have been buzzing about the National Medical Device Registry, a new office in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that was created in the Obamacare reconciliation package. Concern centers on the registry’s authority to conduct “postmarket device surveillance activities on implantable medical devices,” including those that feature radio-frequency identification. The word “surveillance” conjures ominous images of government tracking and reporting. Some have suggested the law lays the groundwork for compulsory microchip implantation so the state can keep tabs on everyone – for their own good, naturally.
But there is no compulsory microchipping in the new law, and “postmarket surveillance” is a term of art in the medical community that in this case refers to monitoring devices to make sure they do what they are supposed to do, and do not pose a health risk. The FDA has been involved in this for more than a decade. The innovation in the new law is to federalize and centralize what used to be a public-private partnership.
Read more in the Washington Times.
Here's how the handle patient records in the UK.
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2388
UK: NHS sends confidential patient records to India
By Dissent, April 3, 2010 5:26 pm
Jon Ungoed-Thomas reports:
The NHS is sending millions of patient records and confidential medical notes to India for processing — despite a pledge by Labour that personal information would not be sent overseas.
It is the first time that databases of names, addresses and NHS numbers of patients have been sent abroad, along with private information about medical appointments.
NHS managers, under pressure to cut costs, are implementing the changes despite warnings about poor security in some offshore centres.
Read more on TimesOnline.
So much for privacy awareness...
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2342
National Health Information Privacy & Security Week
By Dissent, March 31, 2010 7:36 am
National Health Information Privacy & Security Week is April 11-17. AHIMA, has some free resources available, here. [ http://www.ahima.org/hipsweek/ ] Unfortunately, a Google search for the event turns up more hits for merchandise than actual substance.
I normally don't post articles about laws that didn't make it, but I'm curious about the background here – why was this law “needed” in South Carolina?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8725
South Carolina Governor vetoes bill to allow warrantless searches
April 3, 2010 by Dissent
Yvonne Wenger reports:
Gov. Mark Sanford has vetoed legislation that would allow law enforcement officers to search criminals on probation and parole without a warrant, an action that Charleston Mayor Joe Riley called “outrageous.”
The House and Senate passed the bill by wide margins, so Riley said he hopes that support will be in place to override the veto. But that can’t happen before the Legislature reconvenes April 13.
Sanford wrote in his veto message that the bill went too far in eroding personal liberty and freedom.
Read more in the Post and Courier.
Unfortunately, I think this is one consequence of the changes in publishing. Knowing how to search and how to “interpret” search results will become increasingly important.
Print-On-Demand Publisher VDM Infects Amazon
Posted by kdawson on Saturday April 03, @05:56PM
erich666 writes
"In recent months a flood of so-called books have been appearing in Amazon's catalog. VDM Publishing's imprints Alphascript and Betascript Publishing have listed over 57,000 titles, adding at least 10,000 in the previous month alone. These books are simply collections of linked Wikipedia articles put into paperback form, at a cost of 40 cents a page or more. These books seem to be computer-generated, which explains the peculiar titles noted such as 'Vreni Schneider: Annemarie Moser-Pröll, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Slalom Skiing, Giant Slalom Skiing, Half Man Half Biscuit.' Such titles do have the marketing effect of turning up in many different searches. There is debate on Wikipedia about whether their 'VDM Publishing' page should contain the words 'fraud' or 'scam.' VDM Publishing's practice of reselling Wikipedia articles appears to be legal, but is ethically questionable. Amazon customers have begun to post 1-star reviews and complain. Amazon's response to date has been, 'As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking.' The words 'and pay us' were left out. Amazon carries, as a Googled guess, 2 million different book titles, so VDM Publishing is currently 1/35th of their catalog, and rapidly growing."
Useful tools when you are trying to show students how to use technology.
http://www.geekersmagazine.com/2010/04/top-11-free-screen-recorders-to-record.html
Top 13 Screen Recorders to Record Your Screen Activities
For my hackers...
Taking Apart the Energizer Trojan
Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 29, @04:10PM
iago-vL writes
"Researchers at SkullSecurity have written a tutorial on how they reverse engineered the Energizer Trojan and generated an Nmap probe to remotely detect infections. The Energizer Trojan is a great educational tool because its inner workings are very simplistic, and it makes minimal efforts to hide itself or conceal its purpose; it even lists what appears to be the author's name — 'liuhong' — in the source! The article provides an introduction to malware analysis, from infecting a test machine to debugging and disassembling the Trojan to writing the actual probe."
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