Makes you think...
http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/local_story_003233725.html?keyword=topstory
Stolen hard drive could give patients a headache
BY KECIA BAL The Tribune-Democrat Published: January 03, 2007 11:37 pm
SOMERSET — A local doctor’s office is keeping mum on a stolen hard drive that may contain personal information on hundreds of patients who seek care there.
Yet one criminology expert said Wednesday that – depending on the hard drive’s contents – the security breach could have serious implications.
“If someone was actually stealing it for the records, it could be used for identity theft, for embarrassment purposes – which could mean potential lawsuits – or for extortion,” said Dennis Giever, Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor and Criminology Department chairman.
“There’s got to be something pretty serious behind it for someone to break in and steal a hard drive that might cost $30 at Staples and nothing else,” he said.
Pass this to your records retention manager...
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070104/A_NEWS/701040333
Unshredded medical records turn up at recycling center
By Scott Smith January 04, 2007 Record Staff Writer
STOCKTON - Dozens of boxes of unshredded medical records surfaced at a Stockton recycling business Wednesday afternoon, possibly violating a state law enacted in recent years to protect patients' personal information.
Well, of course!
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=549098
Firm didn't need Social Security data
Lawmakers rip agency after mailed forms bear numbers
By PATRICK MARLEY pmarley@journalsentinel.com Posted: Jan. 3, 2007
Madison - The state Department of Revenue had no business reason for providing Social Security numbers to a contractor that went on to mistakenly print the numbers on the outside of 170,000 tax booklets mailed to Wisconsin residents.
The department said Wednesday that it recovered about a third of the forms - roughly 54,500 - from U.S. post offices in Madison, Portage and Oshkosh [The interrupted the mail? They must take this seriously... and the mail must be slow... Bob] in an effort to prevent the sensitive data from falling into the hands of identity thieves. That means the U.S. Postal Service delivered about 115,500 tax forms with the numbers visible.
After the Journal Sentinel reported on its Web site Wednesday that the state did not need to give the Social Security numbers to the firm, the department announced that it would scrub files in the future to make sure vendors do not get sensitive data they do not need. [Gee, we never considered this... Bob]
... "I suppose technically there would be a way to remove that information from that file and, you know, certainly in retrospect that would have prevented this particular problem," Engan said. "However, this contract is in its third year, and we have not had that problem previously with the vendor in terms of putting that information incorrectly onto the actual tax document." [Arrggh! Bob]
... He said the state bears much of the responsibility for the error because at minimum state workers should have reviewed the print job before the forms were mailed.
“You know, if this keeps happening we might have to lock the doors!”
http://www.wcbd.com/midatlantic/cbd/news.apx.-content-articles-CBD-2007-01-03-0015.html
Third Case of Computer Theft at High School
Wednesday, Jan 03, 2007 - 07:02 PM Tara Lynn Reporter
North Charleston police are trying to find out who stole a laptop computer from Academic Magnet High School. That computer contains personal information about hundreds of students. This theft is actually the third time someone has stolen computers from this school. November 17th-- someone stole a desktop computer from a guidance counselor’s office. November 30th-- someone stole three monitors and two laptops from the media center. Over the holidays-- someone stole a lap top again from the same guidance counselor’s office. School officials say parents and students have nothing to worry about. ['We got ebery ting unner control...” Bob]
... Schools officials and police say someone broke into the school and stole a lap top from a guidance counselor’s office. Charleston County school representative Jerry Adams says that computer contained personal information for about 500 students who go to that school. But he says that information should be safe no matter whose hands it falls into.
“Identity theft and privacy issues concern us,” said Adams. “But we don't think its an issue because the information is password protected and encrypted.”
Duplicate? Note that they had addressed this in a contract! Radical idea?
http://www.akronnewsnow.com/business/itemdetail.asp?ID=960§ion=business&subsection=localnews
Personal Info On Bank Customers Stolen
12/29/2006 2:21:11 PM Craig Simpson
KeyCorp has notified customers in Ohio and other states that private information about them was taken when a laptop computer was stolen from an outside vendor.
Officials say the information on 9,300 customers may include Social Security Numbers. Corporate communications for the Cleveland-based bank say affected customers were notified by mail.
Key hired the unnamed vendor to scan paper documents into a computer format for storage. Officials say the vendor violated its contract by putting the data on a laptop computer that was taken outside of its offices and failing to encrypt sensitive information. They say that vendor has since been fired.
When you quote (or hint at) a law, shouldn't your lawyer confirm that it actually exists? Shouldn't a manager at least look at mass mailings before they go out? Perhaps we should look at their academic papers for “imaginary” citations?
http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/nj/200701030.asp
January 3, 2007
School Officials Promise to Destroy Ill-gotten Information
The superintendent of the West Windsor-Plainsboro school system recently sent a letter to homeschool families telling them they “must” submit certain personal information, including their children’s country of birth, language spoken at home, and race.
The letter said “the state of New Jersey” was seeking this information. There is no law that requires homeschool families to submit this information, however.
FYI (Will this be a hot topic this year?)
January 03, 2007 10:30 AM Eastern Time
ALM’s Law Journal Press Announces Publication of “Privacy Law”
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ALM’s Law Journal Press®, a leading publisher of books for legal professionals, today announced the publication of “Privacy Law,” by Charlene Brownlee and Blaze Waleski. The book is the publisher’s latest title, examining the impact of the laws, industry standards, and consumer expectations regarding personal information and information security in a variety of contexts, including healthcare, the workplace, financial services, e-commerce, international business and corporate transactions. A detailed table of contents and ordering information on this and other Law Journal Press books is available at www.lawcatalog.com.
“Worse” is a terrible goal... No catastrophe = I didn't get fired?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070103/144201.shtml
'It Could Have Been Worse' Hardly Seems Like A Defense Of E-Voting Technology
from the just-imagine-how-bad-it-could-have-been dept
With a new report coming out that highlights many of the problems that voters using e-voting machines faced in the last election, it's more interesting to look at the response from supporters of those machines. An article in the Houston Chronicle mentions the report and then quotes someone defending the machines by giving the "it could have been worse" defense: " Failure will happen.... Critical failures are ones in which voters are turned away. By and large, looking at the last general election, we consider it a success." Given just how many problems there were, and how widespread they were, it seems pretty ridiculous to consider "success" to be a lack of catastrophic errors (which some people might disagree with). Certainly, it could have been much worse, but with something as important as democratic voting, you would think that a higher standard would be used.
[The report: http://www.votersunite.org/info/E-VotingIn2006Mid-Term.pdf
Yes! The easiest way to make changes that impact a corporate culture is to start over at another location with an whole new staff. When they are ready to assume the workload, switch – then fire everyone at the old location.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070103/180621.shtml
Amazon.com Launches New Site To Compete With... Well, Amazon.com
from the funny-how-that-works dept
If you read what we discuss about competition and innovation around here, it's no surprise that we believe that a company that is simply resting on its laurels is going to eventually be in trouble. That's why one of the most interesting things a company can do is cannibalize its own offerings. Intel famously does this on a regular basis. Basically, the lesson is clear: if you aren't willing to cannibalize your own offerings, someone else will do it for you. It's a lesson that plenty of big companies don't like to learn -- but they all learn it eventually when the competition eats their lunch. That's why it's always fascinating to see the ways that companies try to stave this off. One of the more interesting ideas that probably makes sense for some larger companies is to build a separate group, whose job is effectively to act as the competition. Let them develop the next great competitive advantage -- and if it destroys your existing business, better that it's done by your company than someone else's. It looks like Amazon may be practicing a bit of this concept by launching a brand new shoes and handbags store, that looks like it has nothing to do with Amazon.com. They named it something different (Endless.com) and built the site up from scratch, not relying on Amazon's e-commerce or search tools (they do use Amazon's distribution and warehouse system, however). Looking at the website, you'd have no idea it was related to Amazon at all.
Again, the comments point out many of the implications. If this is easy, the transcripts of your phone calls are already in someone's database...
http://digg.com/tech_news/Search_Every_Word_Said_on_YouTube_Impressive_feature
Search Every Word Said on YouTube [Impressive feature]
Speech-to-text video and audio search engine Podzinger just announced this afternoon that users can now search inside YouTube videos with a tab on the front page of Podzinger. The functionality appears to have been added in late December but I haven’t seen any blog coverage of it yet.
http://splashcastmedia.com/search-youtube-audio-with-podzinger
So, what do you do when you find the video you want? (Note that it does not take hundreds of pages of program code to make this work...)
http://cyber-knowledge.net/blog/2007/01/03/download-youtube-videos-via-command-line-cross-platform/
Download Youtube Videos Via Command Line (Cross Platform)
January 3rd, 2007 - By: Alex Bailey
If you don’t want to slow your browser down with Firefox extensions, or you think you’re a command line guru then check out youtube-dl. It’s an open source script written in python. It’ll work on any system capable of running python, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. There are a few handy options to name the video the name of the youtube title, simulate the download, and output no text (quite mode). It also currently supports user and passwords for videos dubbed inappropriate to users under 18 as well.
The file extension type of the downloaded video is an flv. To open it, I use the cross platform video player VLC. It’ll also open in mplayer.
There really is no install directions for this script, but there are a few commands needed to get it working. Download the script, and name the file “youtube” without the quotes.
Assume for a moment that this isn't madness. Is there a logical reason to deify a leader? (Never mind the supporting strategies like “only ignorant/isolated people will believe this nonsense...”)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070103/wl_csm/okimeologyx
N. Korea escalates 'cult of Kim' to counter West's influence
By Robert Marquand, Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorWed Jan 3, 3:00 AM ET
North Koreans are taught to worship Kim Jong Il as a god. In a manner unique among nations, the North exerts extraordinary control through deification - a cult ideology of complete subservience - that goes beyond the "Stalinist" label often used to describe the newly nuclear North.
While outsiders can see film clips of huge festivals honoring Mr. Kim, the extraordinary degree of cult worship is not well known, nor that programs promoting the ideology of Kim are growing, according to refugees, diplomats, and others who have visited the Hermit Kingdom.
In fact, in a time of famine and poverty, government spending on Kim-family deification - now nearly 40 percent of the visible budget - is the only category in the North's budget to increase, according to a new white paper by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul. It is rising even as defense, welfare, and bureaucracy spending has decreased. The increase pays for ideology schools, some 30,000 Kim monuments, gymnastic festivals, films and books, billboards and murals, 40,000 "research institutes," historical sites, rock carvings, circus theaters, training programs, and other worship events.
... It has long been axiomatic that the main danger to the Kim regime is internal unrest. That is, Koreans will discover the freedoms, glitter, and diversity of the modern outside world, and stop believing the story of idolatry they are awash in. "It isn't quite realized [in the West] how much a threat the penetration of ideas means. They [Kim's regime] see it as a social problem that could bring down the state," says Brian Myers, a North Korean expert at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.
Free is good!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20070103/tc_cmp/196800535
Telelogic Giving Away Software Modeling Tool
By Charles Babcock InformationWeekTue Jan 2, 8:52 PM ET
Telelogic, one of the few surviving high end suppliers of commercial software development tools, is offering its new modeling tool, Telelogic Modeler, for free.
... Modeler is available for download from the company Web site Telelogic will also make an upgraded version available for $100 per user, minimum quantity 100 users.
... But UML modeling allows models to be aligned with the lines of source code. If the model changes, the parts of the code that need to be changed are highlighted and changed; if the code moves from the model in the process of development, the model can be changed to reflect what the developers have done, with project manager approval.
Useful for research too?
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/54970.html
Wikipedia Inspires Course Reading List Generator
UPI 01/03/07 12:00 PM PT
Taking cues from the structure of Wikipedia and the algorithms used by Google, Alexander Wissner-Gross, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate, has developed software to automatically create reading lists for students based on the subjects they're studying. He experimented with algorithms to find the most important pages and how they ranked for a given topic.
Free is good!
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0104/p13s02-legn.html
How to go to M.I.T. for free
Online 'intellectual philanthropy' attracts students from every nation on earth.
By Gregory M. Lamb Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted.
The cost? It's all free of charge.
... The MIT site (ocw.mit.edu), along with companion sites that translate the material into other languages, now average about 1.4 million visits per month from learners "in every single country on the planet," Ms. Margulies says. Those include Iraq, Darfur, "even Antarctica," she says.
Okay, it's expensive and hard to learn. Think everyone will rush to upgrade?
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/013462.html
January 03, 2007
Review of Office 2007 Highlights Key New Features and Learning Curve
Walt Mossberg, WSJ free feature: Bold Redesign Improves Office 2007
But Learning Curve May Be Too Steep for Some Users; Ribbon Replaces Menus
Become moderately geeky... At least have some idea what can be learned about your network.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Basic_Networking_Commands_you_should_know
Basic Networking Commands you should know!
Describes with examples some of the basic networking commands on unix/linux based systems
http://techflock.blogspot.com/2007/01/basic-networking-commands-you-should.html
Still looking for the perfect ringtone?
http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/01/03/library-of-bird-and-animal-sounds-available/
January 3, 2007
Library of Bird and Animal Sounds Available
Filed under: Science-Zoology
CHIRP! The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library’s Web site is now making available over 65,000 sound clips and about 18,000 video clips of birds and animals. You can get your squawk on at http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org.
You can do a simple search by keyword, or you can do an advanced search for marine vs terrestrial beings as well as searching by location and recording information (at the moment the catalog has a North American emphasis but the site promises to continue to put more clips online.)
I did a simple keyword search for hawk. I got OVER 1300 RESULTS. Results include both audio and video clips. Note that not everything you get in your search results has been digitized yet (the advanced search includes a switch that allows you to include only results with available video or audio clips.) Search results include animal name (common and scientific), date of clip (I saw clips that go back as far as 1951) and contributor, and quality of the clip (rated on a scale from one to five.) A detail page includes the location and duration of the clip.
Clicking on the “play” button (if the play button is gray, the clip is not available; look for blue play buttons) pops up a window that plays the clip with RealPlayer. There’s also a neat feature called RavenViewer that requires a download; RavenViewer allows you to get a visualization of bird calls; play the call and watch a waveform and spectrogram at the same time. (RavenViewer is not available for all the clips that I saw.)
Don’t feel like searching the clips? There’s also a browsing feature that allows you to look at several sets of “best of” — best of long-distance communications, best of territory defense, etc. Lots to browse through here!
