“Yes, this does sound
like one of Hitler's justifications. But, Hitler failed when he ran
into Russia. We don't have that problem because we ARE Russia!”
Ukraine
crisis: Russia 'to respond if its interests' attacked
Speaking to Russian
state TV channel RT, Mr Lavrov also accused the US of "running
the show" in Ukraine.
It was "quite
telling" that Kiev had re-launched its "anti-terrorist"
operation during a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden, he said.
… "If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests
of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South
Ossetia for example, I do not see any other way but to respond in
full accordance with international law."
The
Russian foreign minister did not specify what interests he was
referring to. Thousands of Russian troops have massed
along Ukraine's borders in recent weeks.
Russian fought a brief
war with Georgia in the summer of 2008 after Tbilisi sent troops into
the breakaway region of South Ossetia to regain control from the
Russian-backed rebels.
Very interesting
article. Perhaps the NSA likes it this way? Perhaps it's “Good
enough for government work?” Perhaps nothing serious enough to get
our attention has happened yet.
The Heartbleed
computer security bug is many things: a catastrophic
tech failure, an open invitation to criminal
hackers, and yet another reason to upgrade our passwords on
dozens
of websites. But more than anything else, Heartbleed
reveals our neglect of Internet security.
The
United States spends more than $50
billion a year on spying and intelligence, while the folks who
build important defense software—in this case a program called
OpenSSL that ensures that your connection to a website is
encrypted—are four
core programmers, only one of whom calls it a full-time job.
In a typical year, the
foundation that supports OpenSSL receives just $2,000
in donations.
Why
I want my Ethical Hackers to program these systems. “What works is
not always what's best.”
Introducing
AISight: The slightly scary CCTV network completely run by AI
Imagine
a major city completely covered by a video surveillance system
designed to monitor the every move of its citizens. Now imagine that
the system is run by a fast-learning machine intelligence, that's
designed to spot crimes before they even happen.
… Behavioral
Recognition Systems, Inc. (BRS Labs) is a software development
company based out of a nondescript office block in Houston Texas,
with the motto: "New World. New security."
Headed by former Secret
Service special agent John Frazzini, the company brings a crack team
of security gurus to bear on its ambitious artificial intelligence
projects.
Sometimes
whacking a politician with the proverbial 2X4 will get their
attention. (If not, you still got to whack them.) I
can't find a link to the bill, yet.
Brazil
Passes Trailblazing Internet Privacy Law
Brazil's
Congress on Tuesday passed comprehensive legislation on Internet
privacy in what some have likened to a web-user's bill of rights,
after stunning revelations its
own president was targeted
by US cyber-snooping.
… Still,
Brazilian authorities do not control what happens outside their
country; the government-backed law stopped short of requiring
companies such as Google and Facebook to store local users' data in
Brazilian data centers.
I
don't think we reached quite so dismal a conclusion in the last
PrivacyFoundation.org seminar, but we did have some real concerns.
Erin
McCann reports:
The
new 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report [see
yesterday's blog Bob] highlights a concerning
carelessness regarding privacy and security, specific to the
healthcare industry.
“They
seem to be somewhat behind the curve as far as implementing the kinds
of controls we see other industries already implemented,” said
Suzanne Widup, senior analyst on the Verizon RISK team, in an
interview with Healthcare IT News discussing report findings.
Read more on Healthcare
IT News.
(Related) Perhaps the
cost of “failure to encrypt” is going up? ($250,000 / 148 =
$1,689.19)
QCA
Health Plan, Inc.,
of Arkansas, has agreed to settle potential violations of the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy
and Security Rules, agreeing to a $250,000 monetary settlement and to
correct deficiencies in its HIPAA compliance program.
… On
May 3, 2012, HHS notified QCA of its investigation, which found:
A.
QCA did not implement policies and procedures to prevent, detect,
contain, and correct security violations, including conducting an
accurate and thorough assessment of the potential risks and
vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability
of ePHI it held, and implementing security measures sufficient to
reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate
level to comply with 45 C.F.R. § 164.306 from the compliance date of
the Security Rule to June 18, 2012.
B.
QCA did not implement physical safeguards for all workstations that
access ePHI to restrict access to authorized users on October 8,
2011.
C.
QCA impermissibly disclosed the ePHI of 148
individuals on October 8, 2011.
If
this breach comes as a surprise to you, it’s a surprise to me, too.
Note that because this breach affected less than 500, it never
appeared on HHS’s public breach tool, and this is the first I’m
hearing about this incident.
… A
copy of the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) can be found here
(pdf).
(Related) ($1,725,220
/ 870 = $1,983.01)
Concentra
Health Services (Concentra) has agreed to pay OCR
$1,725,220 to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and
Security Rules, and will adopt a corrective action plan to evidence
their remediation of these findings.
The settlement stems
from an incident on November 30, 2011 (previously reported here)
in which a laptop with unencrypted PHI of 870 patients was stolen
from Concentra’s physical therapy office in Springfield, Missouri.
… A copy of the
corrective action plan (CAP) can be found here
(pdf).
Ah man, now every
patient will want to “accidentally” leave their phone on record!
(Unless this is a violation of the doctor's privacy and he
counter-sues.)
Ever wonder what your
doctors are saying about you while you’re knocked out under
anesthesia? One patient found out after he accidentally
left his cellphone in record mode during a colonoscopy.
Now he’s suing.
I can explain the raw
data to my Statistics students, but how do I explain that – no
matter how often the WSJ reports what appears to be insider trading,
is ignored by the SEC.
Flurry
of Allergan Trading Preceded Offer
Investors
made outsize bets on Allergan
Inc. stock in the 10 days during which activist hedge-fund manager
William
Ackman was privately accumulating a stake in the Botox maker,
according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Mr.
Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management LP said Monday after the
close of trading that it had bought a 9.7% stake in Allergan and had
joined with Valeant
Pharmaceuticals International Inc. to buy Allergan. Mr. Ackman
and Valeant unveiled the offer, valued at roughly $46 billion, on
Tuesday, and Allergan's stock surged 15%.
Even
after stripping out Mr. Ackman's buying, the volume of
stock trading in Allergan during the 10-day period before Monday's
announcement was 86% higher than its
average over the previous year, according to the Journal analysis,
based on trading data provided by research firm S&P Capital IQ.
There
is no indication investors were tipped off about
Pershing's and Valeant's offer. And other traders could have bought
based on the higher volume. But such a significant surge in trading
suggests that information about the potential buyout
bid could have leaked to other investors, analysts said.
Perhaps Facebook made a
good purchase?
WhatsApp, the world's
most popular instant messaging service, has reached a new milestone
of 500 million monthly active users despite the
Facebook backlash. The $19 billion deal with Facebook may
not have been welcoming news for several users, raising concerns over
data privacy, but WhatsApp seems unaffected as it continues to grow
at a rapid pace. The cross-platform messaging service added 50
million users since February, when Facebook announced
the acquisition.
Perspective. The
question it raises in my mind is, why slow an effective therapy/cure?
Gilead’s
Medicine Sovaldi Beats Estimates by $1 Billion (1)
Gilead Sciences Inc.
overwhelmed sales estimates for its new blockbuster hepatitis C pill
in what analysts called the biggest drug start ever, raising
questions about insurers’ ability to slow the use of the costly
therapy.
… Sovaldi sells for
$84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment. That cost has attracted
scrutiny from health insurers and lawmakers.
Perspective. Seems
like another “we can make everyone equal right now!” gambit.
Another view might be to make it easier for (even encourage) everyone
to make capital investments. Of course, what do I know?
Piketty’s
book on capitalism presents policy challenge
American progressives
continue to celebrate Thomas
Piketty’s new book on capitalism, which says that under present
trends the inequality in society will grow inexorably with negative
implications for growth and prosperity.
The French economist’s
analysis of trends over three centuries in “Capital in the
Twenty-First Century” leads him to predict that wealth in the U.S.
and other developed countries will continue to grow more
concentrated, increasing its share of new wealth, eventually
producing a rentier society like that in Europe in the 19th century.
… But there is a
hitch. Piketty’s solution, which he defended as the only effective
solution in some recent appearances in Washington, is a progressive
tax on wealth.
… Schmitt relates
how Piketty, in book presentations at the Economic Policy Institute
and the Urban Institute in Washington, described other efforts to
reduce the return on capital or boost growth as all very worthy but
ultimately only “complements” to the solution that gets at the
core of the problem — namely, the global progressive wealth tax
that he proposes. Watch
a video of the EPI event.
Perspective. Colorado
likes to legalize stuff. Perhaps we could even bring amateurs into
the mix; similar to Uber or Airbnb.
There
Is Now an App for Prostitution
The new app, Peppr,
is similar to a dating site, but it’s for connecting prostitutes to
clients.
In 2002, Germany
legalized prostitution, and the industry there has expanded
dramatically since then. Some estimates put the number of
prostitutes in Germany at about 400,000, many of
whom are foreign nationals from economically stressed parts of
Europe like Bulgaria and Romania. According
to the Telegraph, the country’s sex industry is worth
$21 billion a year, and several 12-story megabrothels have opened.
… And now a startup
based out of Berlin has launched an app called Peppr, which bills
itself as the “first
mobile Web app for booking erotic entertainment.” Prospective
clients simply list their location, acknowledge they are at least 18
years old, select a gender of choice, and they’re presented with
photos and profiles of potential men or women offering to have sex
for a fee. Prostitutes set up their profiles for free and clients
pay €5 to €10 for booking.
For my students who
read.
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