http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12238
Personal data accessed on Blue Cross website
June 23, 2010 by admin
Courtney Perkes reports:
More than 200,000 Anthem Blue Cross customers this week received letters informing them that their personal information might have been accessed during a security breach of the company’s Web site.
Only customers who had pending insurance applications in the system are being contacted because information was viewed through an on-line tool that allows users to track the status of their application.
Cathy Luckett of San Juan Capistrano was dismayed to learn that Social Security and credit card numbers were potentially viewed.
[...]
Anthem spokeswoman Cynthia Sanders said the confidential information was briefly accessed, [Just long enough to copy it? Bob] primarily by attorneys [Lawyers got hacking skills? Go figure! Bob] seeking information for a class action lawsuit against the insurer. She said it’s unclear how many customers’ information was viewed, but that letters were sent to 230,000 Californians out of an “abundance of caution.
Read more in the Orange County Register. The company reports that an upgrade was not really secure, despite them having been assured it was. [They taught me that I had to test security rather than rely on the word of a salesman... Bob]
I could not find any notice on Anthem’s web site at the time of this posting. Nor is the incident reported on HHS/OCR’s web site yet.
Old breaches never die...
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12242
TX: Cases of identity theft reported
June 24, 2010 by admin
Thayer Evans has a report on fraud reports out of Texas that reminds us that sometimes fraud may not occur until years after a compromise or breach:
League City police have received 15 to 20 reports of identity theft in the last two to three weeks, League City Police Lt. Bruce Whitten said.
[...]
The thieves used the victims’ personal information obtained through a subsidiary of a local bank and obtained the credit or debit cards in their names without their knowledge, Whitten said.
[...]
Whitten declined to provide the name of the area bank, citing an ongoing investigation, but said the personal information was compromised by the subsidiary years ago. The bank is aware of the breach and is working to address it, he said.
Several months ago, the bank had a rash of League City victims in the same type of identity theft, but the unauthorized charges were then made in Illinois, Whitten said.
Read more on Ultimate Clear Lake.
So…. if the breach occurred years ago, was the subsidiary aware of it at that time? If so, what did they do? And if they first became aware of it several months ago after the fraud reports from Illinois, what did they do then? Was the compromise a matter of insider theft of personal info that is first being used now, or was the compromise a key logger that has sat on their system undetected for years, or….? We need more information on this one.
What would Plato do?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11818
Does Surveillance Make Us Morally Better?
June 24, 2010 by Dissent
Philosophy professor Emrys Westacott has an essay on surveillance on Philosophy Now. One snippet:
But there is another perspective – the one informed by Kantian ethics. On this view, increased surveillance may carry certain utilitarian benefits, but the price we pay is a diminution of our moral character. Yes, we do the wrong thing less often; in that sense, surveillance might seem to make us better. But it also stunts our growth as moral individuals.
[From the essay:
These musings are intended to frame a set of questions: What is the likely impact of ubiquitous surveillance on our moral personalities? How might the advent of the surveillance society affect a person’s moral education and development? How does it alter the opportunities for moral growth? Does it render obsolete the Kantian emphasis on acting from a sense of duty as opposed to acting out of self-interest? Such questions fall under the rubric of a new field of research called Surveillance Impact Assessment.
(Related) I don't see how it improves the quality of care, but it certainly documents a variety of failures including under-staffing and failure to respond in a timely manner.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11822
RFID Tags for Nurses, then Everybody?
June 24, 2010 by Dissent
Frank Pasquale writes:
As an opinion piece by Theresa Brown explains, maintaining proper staffing levels in hospitals is becoming increasingly difficult. Surveillance systems are offering one way to address the problem; work can be performed more intensively and efficiently as it is recorded and studied. But such monitoring has many troubling implications, according to Torin Monahan (in his excellent book, Surveillance in a Time of Insecurity):
The tracking of people [via Radio Frequency Identification Tags] represents a . . . mechanism of surveillance and social control in hospital settings. This includes the tagging of patients and hospital staff. . . . When administrators demand the tagging of nurses themselves, the level of surveillance can become oppressive. . . . [because nurses face] labor intensification, job insecurity, undesired scrutiny, and privacy loss. . . . To date, such efforts at top-down micromanagement of staff by means of RFID have met with resistance. . . . One desired feature for nurses and others is an ‘off’ switch on each RFID badge so that they can take breaks without subjecting themselves to remote tracking. (122)
Read more on Concurring Opinions.
(Related)
http://www.docuticker.com/?p=36048
Improving the Quality and Cost of Healthcare Delivery: The Potential of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology
General background on political thinking?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11807
Live from the House: Conversation with Reps. Boucher and Stearns about the Boucher Bill
June 23, 2010 by Dissent
Danielle Citron writes:
On the Hill today, Chris Wolf and Jules Polonetsky, co-chairs of the think tank The Future of Privacy, moderated a discussion about the notice-and-choice Boucher bill (see my post here) with its co-sponsors Representatives Rick Boucher and Cliff Stearns. Of note, the Representatives shared what motivated them to write the bill. Both seemingly saw the bill as honoring the American ethos of the “lone-rights bearer” (in the words of Mary Ann Glendon’s brilliant Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse). Boucher underscored that Americans are “exceptional” in their interest in individual rights, that we differ from other countries’ more “community-centered” ethos. As Boucher explained, the notice-and-choice privacy bill would empower individuals to make meaningful choices about their privacy tastes. [Privacy is a matter of “taste?” Bob] This, in turn, would inspire greater trust in e-commerce providers and encourage business. Stearns warned of the “disturbing” profiling that online (and presumably offline) companies do. He noted that with such profiles, online providers and advertisers could manipulate our behavior. [Horrible! They could convince you to vote for a Democrat? Bob] For Stearns, these practices risked the “mathematical modeling of humanity.” As Stearns explained, the bill would empower Americans to learn about these practices and make educated choices about the collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information.
Read more on Concurring Opinions.
(Related) Is this an opposite opinion?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11820
Article: Fulfilling Government 2.0’s Promise with Robust Privacy Protections
June 24, 2010 by Dissent
Danielle Citron has an article in the George Washington Law Review that is available online: Fulfilling Government 2.0’s Promise with Robust Privacy Protections, 78 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 822 (2010). Here’s the abstract:
The public can now friend the White House and scores of agencies on social networks, virtual worlds, and video-sharing sites. The Obama Administration sees this trend as crucial to enhancing governmental transparency, public participation, and collaboration. As the President has underscored, government needs to tap into the public’s expertise because it does not have all of the answers.
To be sure, Government 2.0 might improve civic engagement. But it also might produce privacy vulnerabilities because agencies often gain access to individuals’ social-network profiles, photographs, videos, and contact lists when interacting with them online. Little would prevent agencies from using and sharing individuals’ social-media data for more than policymaking, including law-enforcement, immigration, tax, and benefits matters. Although people may be prepared to share their views on health care and the environment with agencies and executive departments, they may be dismayed to learn that such policy collaborations carry a risk of government surveillance.
This Essay argues that government should refrain from accessing individuals’ social-media data on Government 2.0 sites. Agencies should treat these sites as one-way mirrors, where individuals can see government’s activities and engage in policy discussions but where government cannot use, collect, or distribute individuals’ social-media information. A one-way mirror policy would facilitate democratic discourse, enhance government accountability, and protect privacy.
...no doubt because of the “Do no evil” motto. Beats Rupert Murdock's “give me your money” motto.
Study Finds Google Is More Trusted Than Traditional Media
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 24, @05:06AM
According to a study by market research company Zogby International, people trust Google, Apple, and Microsoft more than the traditional media. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter scored lowest on the trust scale, but still soundly beat the media. From the article: "The traditional media received little sympathy from the public, with only eight percent of all adults and six percent of young adults saying they trusted them."
Imagine what they could do if all the work was outsourced to India...
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/024552.html
June 23, 2010
Law Firms in Transition 2010 - An Altman Weil Flash Survey
"The newly released Altman Weil Flash Survey, Law Firms in Transition 2010 found a clear consensus emerging among US law firms on changes in the profession. Over 75% of firms surveyed indicate that they believe that more price competition, more non-hourly billing and the use of project management to improve efficiency of service delivery will be permanent changes in the legal landscape."
[From the survey:
The majority of law firms do not expect the changes to negatively affect their bottom line. In fact, only 27% of those surveyed believe that lower profits per partner will result.
[How could this be, you ask? Bob]
Partnership in US law firms is now harder to attain and will remain so according to the survey.
This is interesting. I'll probably integrate it into several of my classes.
http://egotvonline.com/2010/06/22/9-types-of-websites-that-encapsulate-the-internet/
9 Types of Websites That Encapsulate the Internet
[Also has a couple of pithy quotes:
A decade of internet phenomenon has demonstrated to us that the dumber and less important the thing being shared is, the faster it will spread. Isn’t that right, keyboard cat?
In 2006 (dated, I know) online porn took in $97 billion. That was more than Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix raked in combined.
Geeky stuff for non-geeks
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/knowledgewebb-net-getting-acquainted-with-technology
Knowledgewebb.net - Getting Acquainted With Technology
It is unfortunate, but getting acquainted with technology does not lie within everybody’s grasp. There are people who can’t understand social media tools no matter how hard they try. Rather, they do get the concepts but they fail to see how tools of such nature could have a positive impact in their lives. And the same goes for most applications that you could think of. Grasping what they do is one thing. Putting that knowledge into practice is another.
And showing people how to put that knowledge into practice is the objective of Knowledgewebb. We could define it as a training site that explains in layman’s terms how to best use different digital media tools. At the same time, it comes complete with an ever-updated section that is dedicated to tech news and trends.
The site is wrapped up by a section that lets you chat live with an expert, and another in which community discussions take place. And you would be glad to know that live chats can be replayed as many times as you want.
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