Reinforcing several trends reported here earlier,
including physician
invulnerability.
MUSC
terminates employees who 'snoop' in patients' medical records
Thirteen employees were fired in 2017 from the
Medical University of South Carolina after administrators determined
they had broken federal law by using patient records without
permission, spying on patient files or disclosing private
information.
Some of
these privacy breaches involved high-profile patients. [You couldn’t
sell my records to the National Enquirer. Bob]
MUSC staff explained to the hospital's Board of
Trustees during a recent meeting that designated
employees monitor the news media for any potential privacy breaches.
Sometimes, they said, health care providers will "snoop"
in patient records after a case makes the news. Eleven of 58 privacy
breaches at MUSC in 2017 were categorized as snooping.
… But patients shouldn't worry excessively
about the security of their own information. Experts agree that
digital medical records are more secure than paper ones. [I’m
an expert, and I strongly disagree. Bob]
Elizabeth Willis, the corporate privacy officer at
Roper St. Francis, said the
ability to track each employee who opens a record makes patient files
less vulnerable to a security breach. [It
makes detection of breaches easier, but does nothing to stop a breach
– see paragraph one. Bob]
… She provided further information about
security breaches and terminations at MUSC dating back to 2013.
Since then, MUSC has identified 307 breaches and 30 employees have
been fired. Nearly half of all those firings occurred last year.
None were physicians,
Woolwine said.
I called this a while back… Russia is
demonstrating what could happen if they are banned from future games.
Russia
Hacked Olympics Computers, Turned Blame on North Korea: Report
Russian
military spies hacked hundreds of computers used by Winter Olympics
organizers and tried to make it look like the work of North Korea,
the Washington Post reported Sunday, quoting US intelligence sources.
South
Korea had previously announced that it was investigating
the failure of several Olympic-linked internet sites and
broadcast systems just as the opening ceremonies were taking place on
February 9.
… The
Russians used a North Korean internet provider to make it appear the
attack originated in North Korea, in what is known as a "false
flag" operation, the Post said.
… they
said the cyber attack against the Games -- from which Russia's team
was excluded for doping -- was worrisome.
Some
analysts believe the cyber attack was retribution for that ban. Some
Russian athletes were allowed to compete, but only under the
designation of "Olympic Athletes from Russia."
Can we prepare for the hack of the 2020 election?
A primer on
political bots: Part one
Data
Drive Journalism – “The rise
of political bots brings into sharp focus the role of automated
social media accounts in today’s democratic civil society. Events
during the Brexit
referendum and the 2016
U.S. Presidential election revealed the scale of this issue for
the first time to the majority of citizens and policy-makers. At the
same time, the deployment of Russian-linked
bots designed to promote pro-gun laws in the aftermath of the
Florida school shooting demonstrates
the state-sponsored, real-time readiness to shape, through
information warfare, the dominant narratives on platforms such as
Twitter. The regular news reports on these issues lead us
to conclude
that the foundations of democracy have become threatened by the
presence of aggressive and socially disruptive bots, which aim to
manipulate online political discourse. While there is clarity on the
various functions that bot accounts can be scripted to perform, as
described below, the task of accurately defining this phenomenon and
identifying bot accounts remains a challenge. At Texifter,
we have endeavoured to bring nuance to this issue through a research
project which explores the presence of automated accounts on Twitter.
Initially, this project concerned itself with an attempt to identify
bots which participated in online conversations around the prevailing
cryptocurrency phenomenon. This article is the first in a series of
three blog posts produced by the researchers at Texifter that
outlines the contemporary phenomenon of Twitter bots. Bot accounts
are a persistent feature of the user experience on Twitter. They can
increase the influence of positive, negative, or “authentic” fake
news stories; promote opinion posts from a variety of accounts
(botnets); and circulate memes. Their ability to shape online
political discourse and public opinion, however, is generating
legitimate concerns. The significance of the bot effect stretches
from the academic research community, to tech and platform companies,
national regulatory bodies, and the field of journalism. One of the
most recognized examples of this involves the lead-up to the 2016
U.S. Presidential Election. During that period, over 50,000
automated Twitter accounts from Russia retweeted and disseminated
political material posted by and for Trump, reaching over 677,775
Americans. Over 2,000,000 tweets and retweets were the result of
these Twitter bots, accounting for approximately 4.25%
of all retweets of Trump’s tweets in the lead-up to the U.S.
election. These findings accentuate the larger
issue of state actors using social media automation as a tool of
political influence…”
First numbers I’ve seen on the “new” cards.
Chip Cards
Lead to 70% Drop in Counterfeit Fraud: Visa
The
financial industry has been pushing for the adoption of EMV (Europay,
MasterCard, Visa) card technology in the United States since 2011,
and efforts were increased
following the disclosure of the massive data breach suffered by
Target in 2013.
However,
according to Visa, by September 2015, only roughly 392,000 merchant
locations had been accepting chip cards, and the number of Visa debit
and credit cards using this technology was only at 159 million.
Data
collected by Visa shows the number of storefronts that had
migrated to EMV technology by December 2017 increased by more than
570%, with 2.7 million storefronts in the U.S., representing 59% of
the total, accepting chip cards. The number of Visa cards using chip
technology increased by 202% to 481 million, with 67% of Visa payment
cards having chips.
Visa
also reported that EMV cards accounted for 96% of the overall payment
volume in the United States in December 2017, with chip payment
volume reaching $78 billion.
As
a result of U.S. merchants upgrading their payment systems for EMV
cards, cases of counterfeit fraud had dropped by 70% in September
2017 compared to December 2015.
While
the adoption of chip and PIN technology addresses the problem of
counterfeit card fraud, it has not deterred fraudsters, who have
simply shifted their focus to card-not-present (CNP) and other types
of fraud.
Which part of “we surveil your children” did
they not understand?
James Tozer reports:
Happily
chatting and walking between lessons, these children are being
watched by school spy cameras designed for their protection.
Now
it has emerged that the images can be viewed by anyone after the CCTV
systems were hacked and put online.
A
disturbing website, which boasts ‘Watch live surveillance cameras
in the UK’, allows people anywhere in the world to spy on children,
teachers and parents in real time.
[…]
The website broadcasting the footage claims no cameras are hacked and all the internet-connected cameras on the site do not have proper password protection.
Read more on Daily
Mail. So have UK parents just discovered the Internet of
Unsecured Things the hard way? Were these systems really hacked or
did they just use default configurations available to everyone or….?
And will this result in cams in toilets being removed? Will any
lessons be learned or is this just another 15 minute news cycle?
Is this any way to run a government agency?
Kathleen Dion of Robinson & Cole writes:
On January 30, 2018, EDUCAUSE, a higher education technology association, submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education describing concerns that it had with the Federal Student Aid (“FSA”) ability to protect federal student financial aid data.
First, EDUCAUSE expressed concerns about letters that various colleges and universities received from the FSA. These letters indicated that a data breach or suspected data breach occurred at educational institutions, and required the institutions to make a full accounting of their information security program. Some of the letters also indicated that the institutions failed to self-report alleged or suspected breaches. It appeared that the FSA identified these institution from news reports, but EDUCAUSE expressed concern that FSA did not confirm that the breaches or suspected breaches occurred prior to sending the letter.
Read more on Data
Privacy + Security Insider.
[From
the article:
Second, EDUCAUSE expressed concerns that FSA did
not have proper reporting procedures in place. In late 2017, the FSA
stated that notifications
could be made via text message to an FSA official’s cellphone
number. It also indicated that blocked phishing attempts
constituted a suspected data breach that must be “immediately
reported,” (i.e. on the date of detection).
An article worth reading.
On February 13, 2018, the New York Times reported
that Uber is
planning an IPO. Uber’s value is estimated between $48 and $70
billion, despite reporting losses over the last two years. Twitter
reported a loss
of $79 million before its IPO, yet it commanded a valuation of
$24
billion on its IPO date in 2013. For the next four years, it
continued to report losses. Similarly, Microsoft paid $26
billion for loss-making LinkedIn in 2016, and Facebook paid $19
billion for WhatsApp in 2014 when it had no revenues or profits.
In contrast, industrial giant GE’s stock price has declined
by 44% over the last year, as news emerged about its first losses
in last 50 years.
Why do investors react negatively to financial
statement losses for an industrial firm but disregard such losses for
a digital firm?
Looks like everyone is underpaid!
Search and
explore faculty, staff, and adjunct salary data at thousands of
colleges
Chronicle of Higher Education – Chronicle
Data – Institutions are grouped under the most recent Carnegie
Classification. User may search full time salaries, staff salaries,
and adjunct salaries, by college, state, sector or Carnegie
Classification, as well as display by college.
I can not convince my students to take notes!
Laws on
Recording Conversations in All 50 States
-
See also related reference from last June via Quartz – As Comey shows, documenting conversations with your boss can be smart – “Careful documentation of meetings via notes and memos is part of the FBI’s culture (via NYT), but there are sound reasons for ordinary workers to at least consider doing the same when we talk to our bosses. Taking notes—or better, recording conversations in states where its legal—is sound practice for employees who feel their managers are doing something inappropriate…
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