Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas, ho ho ho! (Old is relative)
Security Loophole In Facebook’s Camera App Allowed Hackers To Hijack Accounts Over WiFi [Confirmed]
PSA to all Facebook Camera users on iOS: If you haven’t update you app in the past few days, update it now. The older version of the app, pre-1.1.2 and released before December 21, has a security loophole. When used over WiFi networks, malicious hackers can tap the network and hijack Camera users’ accounts, picking up information like email addresses and passwords in the process.
… As he puts it, “The problem is the app accepts any SSL certification from any source, even evil SSL certifications and this enables any attacker to perform Man in The Middle Attack against anyone uses Facebook Camera App for IPhone. This means that the application doesn’t warn the user if someone in the same [WiFi network] trying to hijack his Facebook account.”


One of the drivers for the BYOD movement has been the ability to do things on a personal device that have not yet been added to the organization's toolkit. It has always been so. The first “personal” computers in corporations were Apple IIs running VisiCalc spreadsheets in accounting departments.
By Dissent, December 24, 2012 10:41 am
John Cox reports:
A new study finds that more than two-thirds of nurses are using their personal smartphones for clinical communications. Yet 95% of nurses in the sample say hospital IT departments don’t support that use for fear of security risks.
The report, “Healthcare without Bounds: Point of Care Computing for Nursing 2012,” by Spyglass Consulting Group, points to the collision of healthcare information demands on nurses, and the limits of mobile and wireless technology, at the point of care — typically the patient’s bedside. Nurses in the survey decry the lack of IT support; and IT staff are frustrated by the unsanctioned and often explicitly banned use of personal devices for clinical communications.
Read more on Network World.
This is really cause for concern on so many levels. If available and IT-sanctioned technology is not meeting the needs of nurses, their needs must be addressed. But a cowboy approach of ignoring policies on tech and security is not a solution.  Using smartphones puts patient data at risk, particularly as we’ve seen so many apps that are not truly secure nor privacy-protective.
The issue that “meaningful use” requirements are adding a burden to nursing care that does not translate into more efficient or better quality nursing also needs to be addressed, but it’s related if the nurses are under pressure to enter more data yet don’t have technology that facilitates productivity and compliance.
[For your e-Stocking:
The original VisiCalc program is available for download in a zip file. Download the zip file by clicking here

(Related) Once prices reach a “certain point” (unique to each user) it makes sense to buy a device for each purpose. For instance, I will buy a tablet for teaching, including Apps and resources that I use in class and keep my laptop for managing my finances and the desktop for writing my Blog.
"In August 2011, Acer Chairman JT Wang declared that the consumer affection for tablets had already begun to cool, basically labeling it a fad. What a difference a year (and a half) makes. Acer now plans to introduce a 'category killer' $99 tablet. 'In the past few months, we've made project roadmap changes in response to big changes in the tablet market,' according to a source at the Wall Street Journal. 'The launch of the Nexus 10 has changed the outlook for what makes competitive pricing.' Acer is aiming the new tablet at emerging markets, competing with Chinese 'white box' tablets (already available in Shenzhen at $45 each)."


Law in the Age of the Internet OR “Stupid is, as hundreds of millions of users say it is”
Instagram Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Related To Last Week’s Change Of Service Terms
Instagram just got a lump of coal in its stocking: a class action lawsuit, which was filed in response to its change of service terms last week. Reuters reports that a California Instagram user has leveled breach of contract and other claims against Instagram owner Facebook. In response, Facebook told Reuters “we believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously.”
… Although Instagram almost immediately changed some of the terms of service, it still kept language indicating “that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.” Instagram also kept wording that gives it the ability to place ads related to user content, as well as a new a new mandatory arbitration clause that means users waive their rights to participate in class action lawsuits under almost all circumstances (the lawsuit comes before the new TOS goes in effect on January 19).
The lawsuit filed by San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk alleges that even if users delete their Instagram account, they forfeit rights to photos they have already uploaded.
“In short, Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us,’” the lawsuit says.


Introducing “To whom it may concern” tickets! OR “Want your car back buddy? We'll remove the Denver Boot when you pay the ticket.” OR One of the Commenters asks, “Can the car hire its own lawyer?”
"New Scientist asks a Bryant Walker Smith, from the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, whether the law is able to keep up with recent advances in automated vehicles. Even states which have allowed self-driving cars require the vehicles to have a 'driver,' who is nominally in control and who must comply with the same restrictions as any driver such as not being drunk. What's the point of having a robot car if it can't drive you home from the pub while you go to sleep in the back?"


From a guy interested in the authenticity of electronic information. (I was able to find this in a library in Wyoming)
"When the IBM PC first came out 31 years ago, it supported a maximum of 256KB RAM. You can buy an equivalent computer today with substantially more CPU power at a fraction of the price. But in those 31 years, the information security functionality in which the PC operates has not progressed accordingly. In Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents, author Jean-François Blanchette observes that the move to a paperless society means that paper-based evidence needs to be recreated in the digital world. It also requires an underlying security functionality to flow seamlessly across organizations, government agencies and the like. While the computing power is there, the ability to create a seamless cryptographic culture is much slower in coming."
… The book details the many challenges that businesses and governments face in moving from a paper-based record society and the underlying trust mechanisms that go along with it, to a new digital-based record system, and how a new framework is needed for such a method. The book details part of that new framework.
The book opens with an observation on the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. While Blanchette is not a birther, he does note that if the moral authority of paper records has diminished, then the electronic documents replacing them, which are what the Obama administration provided, appear to be even more malleable. And that is precisely the issue that he addresses.


Might be fun for my students...
… All work on Tinder happens in the cloud, so you can get access to your coworkers in real-time. One of the main hooks for Tinder is how flexible the structure is. It gives you the ability to tweak it for the needs of your organization. If the needs of your company change, you can change the structure on the fly.
Users can use this service to communicate with co-workers and share files. It saves document revisions, so if you need to go back in time to a previous version of a file because one of your people made a mistake, Tinder has you covered. The layout is very friendly to anyone who has used a social network, so it should be easy for your team to adopt the program. Best of all, it’s free for up to five people.


I have been looking for at least ONE Well worth a peek...
People in general, hold onto beliefs that are shaped by early experiences, the media, and faulty influences. The following list is a compilation of research that may surprise you. Video games, e-books, playtime, and music are all a part of an educator’s repertoire.


I plan on trying more Apps next year... Started as an iPad only list, but most run on multiple platforms.


A geeky stocking stuffer – FREE from Microsoft!
… Even on Windows 8, where it’s much-improved, the task manager can’t come close to the power of Process Explorer. It’s part of the Sysinternals set of tools that Microsoft purchased – and for good reason. They’re among the most powerful system utilities for Windows.
In addition to its power, Process Explorer is also flexible. It’s available from Microsoft as a single .exe file. That makes it a portable app you can throw on a USB drive and run on any computer.

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