For my students
learning to manage IT: Why would any organization have 82,000 names
on a laptop?
Well, now maybe the
media will pay more attention to the Republic Services breach
I reported
the other day. The laptop stolen from the employee’s home held
the unencrypted names and Social Security numbers of 82,160
current and former employees.
This could be amusing. What caused the FTC to select LabMD out of
the hundreds (thousands) who also had security breaches? Perhaps
when they release redacted documents we may find out. Will we learn
anything new from this? Unlikely, but still worth watching.
The
Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against medical testing
laboratory LabMD, Inc. alleging that the company failed to reasonably
protect the security of consumers’ personal data, including medical
information. The complaint alleges that in two separate incidents,
LabMD collectively exposed the personal information of approximately
10,000 consumers.
… The Commission’s
complaint alleges that LabMD failed to take reasonable
and appropriate measures to prevent unauthorized
disclosure of sensitive consumer data – including health
information – it held. Among other things, the complaint alleges
that the company:
- did not implement or maintain a comprehensive data security program to protect this information;
- did not use readily available measures to identify commonly known or reasonably foreseeable security risks and vulnerabilities to this information;
- did not use adequate measures to prevent employees from accessing personal information not needed to perform their jobs;
- did not adequately train employees on basic security practices; and
- did not use readily available measures to prevent and detect unauthorized access to personal information.
… Because LabMD
has, in the course of the Commission’s investigation, broadly
asserted that documents provided to the Commission contain
confidential business information, the Commission is not publicly
releasing its complaint until the process for resolving any claims of
confidentiality is completed and items in the complaint deemed
confidential, if any, are redacted.
(Related)
The following statement
attributed to LabMD was sent to PHIprivacy.net:
LabMD
Responds to Federal Trade Commission’s Witch Hunt
FTC
action a clear example of federal government overreach
WASHINGTON
– Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint
against LabMD claiming a violation of the Federal Trade Commission
Act.
LabMD
responded:
“The
Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement action against LabMD based,
in part, on the alleged actions of Internet trolls, is yet another
example of the FTC’s pattern of abusing its authority to engage in
an ongoing witch hunt against private businesses. The allegations in
the FTC’s complaint are just that: allegations. LabMD looks
forward to vigorously fighting against the FTC’s overreach by
seeking recourse through the available legal processes.”
The
FTC has repeatedly overstepped its statutory authority under Section
5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the FTC does not have the
authority to bring this enforcement action.
LabMD
is a cancer detection facility that specializes in analysis and
diagnosis of blood, urine, and tissue specimens for cancers,
micro-organisms and tumor markers.
Another “settlement”
Facebook:
Actually, here's how we're using your data for ads
Facebook is making
changes to the two key documents that govern its service in part to
settle a two-year legal battle around its practice of using member
data in advertisements.
The social network is
proposing
updates, some of which have been court-ordered, to its Statement
of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy legal documents to
better inform members on how their data is used for advertising
purposes, and provide additional clarity on its data collection
practices.
Facebook is putting the
changes up for review -- but
not a vote -- and will collect feedback over the next
seven days.
… In 2011, Facebook
was accused of violating users' right to privacy by publicizing their
"likes" in advertisements without asking them or
compensating them. The case was finally settled
on Monday.
For my paranoid
students...
– With issues
cropping up regarding NSA surveillance in major search engines, some
people are turning to alternative sources to protect their search
activity. One of these is Zeekly, a new search engine that claims to
be completely private (i.e. they don’t store data on their users).
It pulls queries from different search engines anonymously and offers
strong SSL encryption (2048 bit).
I don't see this as really new, even though this may be a “first.”
Text
a driver in New Jersey, and you could see your day in court
… Now a New Jersey
state appeals court has an addendum: Don't knowingly text a driver --
or you could be held liable if he causes a crash.
… A court summary
of the times of texts and calls to and from Best's cell phone reflect
what happened next:
The teens were having a
text chat, volleying each other messages every few moments.
Seventeen seconds after
Best sent a text, he was calling a 911 operator.
His truck had drifted
across the double center line and hit the Kuberts head-on.
… The plaintiffs'
attorney, Stephen Weinstein, argued that the text sender was
electronically in the car with the driver receiving the text and
should be treated like someone sitting next to him willfully causing
a distraction, legal analyst Marc Saperstein told
CNN affiliate WPIX-TV.
The argument seemed to
work.
The ruling
On Tuesday, three
appeals court judges agreed with it -- in principle.
They ruled that if the
sender of text messages knows that the recipient is driving and
texting at the same time, a court may hold the sender responsible for
distraction and hold him or her liable for the accident.
For my Computer Science
(and Math) students
… Teaching
Tree is a platform for collecting and contributing
educational video content on computer science, math, and Ruby
programming among others. There are more than 1200 “concepts” on
the site so far. It is an open platform, so anyone can use it to
assimilate knowledge on the subjects it promotes.
The future. We can
ride into it, or be ground to dust under it.
The
Current MOOC Trends Worth Knowing About
… Currently,
there’s somewhat less buzz happening about MOOCs. But they’re
still out there, happening and evolving while we’re busy doing
other things. I do find it useful to regularly be able to take the
temperature, so to speak, of what people are thinking and what’s
actually happening with MOOC trends, which the
handy infographic below does
wonderfully.
For all my students
– Are you planning to purchase a tablet and want to see how the
different devices compare to each other? Check out TabletRocket.com.
It’s a new review website that compares all of the tablets on the
market based on different attributes. It will show you head-to-head
comparisons and summarize the pros and cons of each device, so that
you can find the device you need.
(Related)
For those of us who believe one size does not fit all...
9
Word Cloud Generators That Aren’t Wordle
… Wordle
is quite easily the most popular word cloud generator out there. It’s
free and easy to use.
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