If this relates to the January 2015 breach, what
does it say about their confidence in their security going forward?
Probably not much difference in the cost for the 80 million breached
and all 106 million “members” given that many will not bother to
opt in. (But if you leave, we'll toss you to the wolves!)
John George reports:
Independence Blue Cross, the Philadelphia region’s largest health insurer, said Tuesday it will offer identity protection services — at no charge to eligible members and their dependents — starting Jan. 1, 2016.
The action was part of the national Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s announcement that Blue plans across the country will make such services available to their 106 million members throughout the United States.
Read more on Philadelphia
Business Journal.
The Association’s press release follows:
… The new offering will be made available
on an opt-in basis to all eligible* members for as
long as they have a Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance
policy in effect.
A law to “force” management to do its job?
Neil Ford explains:
Germany has passed a new IT security law requiring critical infrastructure institutions to implement minimum information security practices or face fines of up to €100.000.
The new law, which was drafted last August, was passed by the Bundestag last month and has now been passed by Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat.
It gives more than 2,000 essential service providers two years to comply with the new requirements, which include achieving certification to cyber security standards and obtaining clearance from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The BSI itself will be expanded to cover new obligations, which include evaluating reports of possible cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.
Read more on IT
Governance.
Making you a “Thing” on the Internet of
Things?
Eddystone
beacons let Google pinpoint exactly where you stand
… Dubbed Eddystone
(apparently after
a U.K. lighthouse), the project is a cross-platform answer to
Apple's iBeacon technology that arrived in 2013. It allows small
beacon devices to detect when a phone, smartwatch, or other
Bluetooth-enabled device comes within close range, in turn triggering
a specific action. [The assumption is that a real person
carries these devices. Bob]
Google offers a few examples of how this might be
useful: When you arrive at a bus stop, you might get a notification
informing you of any delays, and when you sit down on your couch,
your phone might instantly display what's on TV. A beacon-equipped
cat collar could deliver the owner's contact information, and a
restaurant could show you its menu as you walk by. Bluetooth beacons
allow for much greater accuracy than Wi-Fi and GPS alone, locating
devices that are as close as a few centimeters away.
Is this true for Universities as well? I think it
might be.
Infographic:
Transforming the Digital Enterprise
Findings from a new 2015
global report on digital business, by MIT Sloan Management
Review and Deloitte, indicate that strategy, not technology,
is driving digital transformation. The report, “Strategy, Not
Technology, Drives Digital Transformation,” is based on a survey of
more than 4,800 business executives, managers and analysts from
organizations around the world.
[The
infographic:
http://marketing.mitsmr.com/PDF/MITSMR-Deloitte-Digital-Infographic-2015.pdf?src=blog
“It's easy to make money once you get rid of all
those pesky lawyers!” And you wouldn't need the lawyers if you had
done a better job of managing your business.
Bank of
America profit more than doubles as legal costs drop
Bank
of America Corp (BAC.N),
the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, reported its biggest
quarterly profit in nearly four years on Wednesday as its legal costs
dropped sharply, driving expenses down to their lowest since 2008.
… The bank's profit
in the year-earlier quarter was dragged down by $4 billion of legal
expenses linked to mortgage disputes stemming from the financial
crisis. Litigation expenses fell to $175 million in the latest
quarter.
Big Data: If the Library of Congress can't handle
a mere 500,000,000,000 Tweets their IT Department is in much worse
shape than I thought. What else are they missing? (Where else are
they failing?)
Twitter
archive project at LC deemed a failure
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Jul 14, 2015
Politico:
“In the spring of 2010, the Library of Congress announced it was
taking a big stride toward preserving the nation’s increasingly
digital heritage — by acquiring Twitter’s entire archive of
tweets and planning to make it all available to “How Tweet It Is!”
the library said in an exuberant
blog post,
which generated fanfare from tech
sites, the mainstream
media, librarian
blogs and, of course, Twitter. For the two-century-old library,
it was evidence that even an institution that traces its heritage to
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson can break new ground in social media.
But more than five years later, the project is in limbo. The
library is still grappling with how to manage an archive that amounts
to something like half a
trillion tweets. And the researchers are still waiting.
[Note – I respectfully declined to participate in this program when
contacted – I have over 35,000 postings on beSpacific.com
with exponentially more links therein – extrapolate on the breath
of the LC project and the number of blogs that simply go silent – I
am not one of course. When I stop you will know I have departed this
earth, and not for another planet!]
Like all “Free” software...
This Is How
Microsoft Can Monetize Windows 10
Perspective. Once upon a time, you picked up the
phone and called your friend at the local paper. Now you can target
hundreds of journalist with a single Ad. Call it e-Politics?
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) 2016 presidential
campaign uses Twitter’s advertising tools to directly target
messages at certain journalists, an aide said Tuesday.
“If something’s breaking and we really need to
get it out there, we’ve created a list that we’ve uploaded into
Twitter’s ad platform of journalists,” Chief Digital Strategist
Vincent Harris said at an event put on by Twitter for political
advertisers and operatives.
… Twitter has a relatively small reach, with
just over 300 million active users compared with more than 1.4
billion at Facebook. But its popularity in political circles has
made it a potent tool for campaigns to reach out to individuals they
view as disproportionately influential.
“We have even created lists of journalists in
early primary states, working with the communications team,” Harris
said. “And it’s a really good cheap, effective, targeted way to
get a piece of content out there in front of people that you want to
see it — journalists who are going to help with their megaphone
push a piece of content out further.”
For psychology students, when they get off their
smartphones.
Extreme
Digital Addiction Is Destroying Kids’ Lives Around the Globe
… According
to The Conversation, it was back in 2006 that the American
Journal of Psychiatry pushed for digital addiction to be more
formally recognized. Since then, plenty of research on the topic of
effects, recognition,
and treatment of digital addiction, has been conducted by
specialists in various fields.
I try to teach my Excel students to avoid these.
Really try.
Your Excel
Skills Suck
… If you picked up your Excel
skills on the fly, the last thing you want to do is
advertise your lack of knowledge.
We'll show you five typical Excel behaviors that
tell the world your Excel skills suck. And because we're not
heartless, we'll show you how to avoid them.
Apps for Office. I have selected a few we should
be showing our students.
App Awards
Winners 2015
Powerful solution to embed legally binding
signatures into documents with a few clicks, then share. Apps for
Outlook, Word, SharePoint and Office 365. Drag & drop interface,
robust web back end.
Highly interactive and engaging handwriting-based
mathematics app designed for teachers and students. Enables users to
easily create, solve, and graph math and physics formulas on their
touch-screen device.
Highlights variances and exceptions in Microsoft
Project Online and Project Server environments. Interactive
dashboard allows project managers to better identify problem areas
and resource bottlenecks.
Global warming! Global warming! Won't Al Gore be
pissed?
A 'mini ice
age' is coming in the next 15 years
(Related) Then again, maybe not.
No, Earth
is not heading toward a ‘mini ice age’
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