Journalists
are supposed to report the facts. What do you call the people who
write for the “infotainment” shows they try to pass off as the
evening news?
Sue
Marquette Paremba takes the media out to the wood shed for reporting
on breaches in ways that repeat false claims of “sophisticated”
attacks and that may leave us thinking that there’s nothing we can
do to protect ourselves or better secure data we are responsible for:
Some media outlets called last month’s data breach at
health-insurance company Anthem, which resulted in the theft of
highly sensitive personal information pertaining to up to 80 million
people, a “sophisticated attack.” However, later reports showed
that weak authentication
had let hackers into the database, and that a lack
of proper encryption had allowed the personal information
to be shared.
In a similar breach in 2014 at Community Health Systems, the company
said the attackers “used highly sophisticated malware and
technology.” It turned out the hackers had actually exploited the
simple, very fixable Heartbleed
bug, which had been widely known for months.
Read
more on Tom’s
Guide.
I
hope more journalists covering breaches in the mainstream media read
Sue’s article.
Spinoff
from the Hillary Email story. Interesting timing on this one.
(Related)
...and the Quill Pen Award for refusing to learn new technologies
goes to... (No doubt Hillary will claim this proves she is more tech
savvy than most.)
(Related)
You should have known this was inevitable since Hillary assured us
there was no classified information in her emails.
…
The AP said the lawsuit to force the government to act came only
after multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
went unfulfilled.
(Related)
Hillary also told us it was perfectly secure.
Clinton
Email Server Vulnerable for 3 Months: Venafi
Access
to the personal email server used by former U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton was not encrypted or authenticated by a digital
certificate for the first three months of her term, research from
security firm Venafi has found.
This
has potential. Researchers will need to be careful.
Apple
Announces 'ResearchKit' Aimed at Medical Research
Apple
SVP of Operations, Jeff Williams, today announced
"ResearchKit", a new open source software framework in the
vein of HomeKit and HealthKit that will turn an iPhone into "powerful
diagnostic tools for medical research." The new software aims
to assist doctors and scientist gather data at a faster and more
accurate rate via the accessibility of the iPhone.
Williams
mentioned multiple conditions that ResearchKit will be aimed at,
including: Parkinson's, Diabetes, Cardiovascular disease, Asthma and
Breast cancer. Apple also
promised it "will not see your data" when
reiterating on Privacy of the new ResearchKit app.
(Related)
The iPhone is subject to all the downsides of “old fashioned”
research. Can we avoid that by making the App smarter?
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Apple-ResearchKit-has-thousands-sign-up-amid-bias-6128829.php
Apple
ResearchKit has thousands sign up amid bias criticism
Stanford
researchers were stunned when they awoke Tuesday to find that 11,000
people had signed up for a cardiovascular study using Apple
Inc.’s ResearchKit, less than 24 hours after the iPhone tool
was introduced.
“To
get 10,000 people enrolled in a medical study normally, it would take
a year and 50 medical centers around the country,” said Alan
Yeung, medical director of Stanford Cardiovascular Health.
“That’s the power of the phone.”
…
“Just collecting lots of information about people — who may or
may not have a particular disease, and may or may not represent the
typical patient — could just add noise and distraction,” said
Lisa
Schwartz, professor at the Dartmouth
Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in an e-mail.
“Bias times a million is still bias.”
For
starters, the average iPhone user is more likely to have graduate and
doctoral degrees than the average Android user, and has a higher
income as well, according to polling company CivicScience
Inc. Those sort of demographic differences could skew the
findings from a study.
Misleading
data can also come from a user accidentally hitting a button or
giving her phone to someone else, said C.
Michael Gibson, a professor at Harvard
Medical School and an interventional cardiologist.
And
apps may be more restricted in the types of questions they can ask
than standard trials, which allow researchers to ask open-ended
questions in face-to-face encounters. Asking about specific side
effects — “Mrs. Jones, are your teeth itching?” — may prompt
false memories and make people more apt to report them, a problem
that an open-ended question wouldn’t have triggered, Gibson said.
Yet
the iPhone also helps address a problem that standard trials often
encounter: People enrolled in studies often falsely report their
activity to researchers. By using its internal components or
secondary devices connected wirelessly via Bluetooth,
the iPhone can silently measure users’ behavior, without relying on
them to keep track or be honest about what they’re doing.
(Related)
As I tell my Statistics students, some unknown percentage of
respondents lie to survey takers.
Elizabeth
Earl reports:
The national attention on the risk of data breaches may be keeping
patients from sharing information with physicians.
A survey from Austin, Texas-based software advising firm Software
Advice of 243 people found that 45 percent of respondents were
moderately or very concerned about security breaches involving
personal health information. Nearly a quarter, 21 percent, withholds
personal information from their physicians for fear of a data breach.
Read
more on Becker’s
Hospital Review.
All
that is not forbidden is mandatory.
All
that is not mandatory is forbidden. “The Once and Future King”
“We
changed our privacy policy so this is no longer our responsibility.”
Head Twit
Charlie
Warzel reports:
Twitter is cracking down on the scourge of revenge porn with a series
of updated rules in its privacy policy designed to make sure users
don’t publish nude photos or post pictures of users engaging in
sexual acts without the subject’s consent.
[…]
As of 6 p.m. ET, Twitter has changed
its rules to reflect the following (all changes are in italics):
Private information: You may not publish or post other people’s
private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers,
street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without
their express authorization and permission. You may not post
intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the
subject’s consent.
The company also modified its abusive behavior policy page to include
the following:
Threats and abuse: Users may not make direct, specific threats
of violence against others, including threats against a person or
group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion,
sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or disability. In
addition, users may not post intimate photos or videos that were
taken or distributed without the subject’s consent.
Read
more on BuzzFeed.
As
the non-lawyer, statements like this always confuse me. Does this
mean state courts are a Federal-Law-Free Zone? “We're
concentrating on a crook, sometimes innocent folk will get trampled.”
Mike
Cason reports:
Prosecutors in House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s ethics case responded
to an accusation
that they might have violated federal law by revealing bank
account numbers in a recent court filing in Hubbard’s ethics case.
Prosecutors said a federal law and federal court filing rules cited
by Hubbard’s defense don’t apply in state court cases.
Read
more on AL.com.
[From
AL.com:
On
Feb. 27, prosecutors filed a response opposing the request for a more
definite statement and saying that the 23-count indictment was
sufficient.
They
said that a vast number of emails, bank records and other documents
provided to Hubbard's defense removed any doubt about the nature of
the charges.
They included more than 300 pages of exhibits in that Feb. 27
filing as examples of those documents.
Hubbard's
lawyers complained that the documents included six bank account
numbers (not Hubbard's), as well as cell phone numbers and other
personal information. They said two people had their bank accounts
changed as a result and said the content of the documents violated
rights of privacy.
My
library will lend you a GoPro camera or an iPad. These articles
suggest more technology may be coming soon.
Forecasting
the Future of Libraries 2015
This
special section focuses on some of the key trends shaping libraries.
It pairs with American Libraries’ annual coverage of the
ALA Emerging Leaders. These librarians are, after all,
representative of a new wave of library leaders who will help shape
our futures—and likely have already contributed to, influenced, or
led the trends that we will cover. The first piece, “Trending
Now,” is a quick introduction to the Center for the Future of
Libraries’ “trend library.” The trend
library is designed to provide the library community with a
centralized and regularly updated source for trends—including how
they are developing; why they matter for libraries; and links to the
reports, articles, and resources that can further explain their
significance. As a collection, it will grow to include changes and
trends across society, technology, education, the environment,
politics, the economy, and demographics. Makerspaces are playing an
increasingly important role in libraries. Four librarians from three
library makerspaces—Tampa–Hillsborough County (Fla.) Public
Library System’s The Hive, the Free Library of Philadelphia’s
Maker Jawn, and the Innisfil (Ont.) Public Library’s ideaLAB—talk
about how maker culture is transforming their libraries and share
ideas about this important trend’s direction, in “Making
Room for Informal Learning.” Keeping up to date with changes
in education is important for all of us but especially for those of
us working in academic and school libraries. Joan K. Lippincott
shares her thoughts in “The
Future for Teaching and Learning” on how academic libraries can
leverage growing interest in active learning, new media and
information formats, and technology-rich collaborative spaces within
the higher education environment. Natalie Greene Taylor, Mega
Subramaniam, and Amanda Waugh, all of the University of Maryland’s
College of Information Studies, look at how school librarians can
integrate three trends—the mobility of information, connected
learning, and learning in the wild—to keep up with the future of
K–12 education in “The
School Librarian as Learning Alchemist.” There is news from
two library science programs’ initiatives exploring what’s ahead
in library education, in “The
Future of the MLIS.” This focus on the education of librarians
is important for all of us.”
There's
not just AN App for that, there are lots of Apps for
that. Find the one that works best for you.
Time
To Ditch Evernote? Letterspace & Fetch Are Compelling
Alternatives
Evernote
is the world’s most widely used notebook application, but that
doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Letterspace
and Fetchnotes
are two alternative iOS notebooks that focus on quickly adding and
accessing notes.
For
all my students.
How
to Upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update
…
Here’s all you need to know to upgrade to Windows 10 directly from
Windows 7 or 8.1 and start getting to grips with the future of
Windows.
Ever
since it was officially unveiled last year, Windows 10 has been an
intriguing prospect for PC users. Given that Microsoft
is
set to make the upgrade free for its first year of availability,
Gee,
mentoring sounds a lot like teaching.
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