A Year to Notify Patients
Hacking is a major industry and one that has no borders and no way for any government or authority to stop it. China even has a massive building devoted solely to hacking (see book Future Crimes). Our government wasn’t prepared to stop it. Target and others stores weren’t prepared to stop it. And now health insurance companies are proving to be as weak as everyone else. Did you know that it took Baltimore-based CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health plan almost a year to notify some 1.1 million of its members that their personal data had been swiped by hackers? What’s more, the cyberattack wasn’t even detected in-house! This is pathetic.
Who cares if China or Russia has your medical information? Well, how about a simple example. Let’s say a certain candidate wants to run in a few years and is tough on pollution coming from these countries. Just maybe his history of chlamydia and gonorrhea gets leaked? There are so many more ways that hacking can hurt you. What if the next Edward Snowden puts up a website with everyone’s health issues on it. You can just look up what medical problems your neighbor has. HIPAA be damned.
There is power in information both in good and bad ways. I give these damn insurance companies enough of my money and time so to now feel that they couldn’t give a crap about my information makes me very angry. You should be as well.
Doug,
You are just not thinking deviantly enough.
No, the real fun will be when fake history (STD, etc.) is ADDED to your history and then published! Are we all a little more comfortable now?
Deviate! Doug.
How about when your life threatening allergies are wiped out and you are given a med to which you are allergic?
The FUN is about to start!
Deviant and Proud!
Dave
PS: We should not fear China, in some ways. All they want is their money. They are bureaucrats, accountants and collectors – they have been so while the West was inventing agriculture. They invented money – do not think we can fool them about things that are financial.
Some politicians growl and fuss about China’s exerting dominance in the Pacific near its shores, and suggest we should flex our muscle and show our might and resolve. They would laugh! We sail two dozen warships – they would point out that all were paid for by international lending to the US Government! “Go ‘way you foolish people – or we will repossess your aircraft carrier!” We are the foolish debtors, and they are the heartless title-holders. “Go ahead, have a diamond put in your teeth! But if you stop making payments, we will ‘repossess’ that incisor!”
China is merely inventorying the assets of its debtors. When the collection agency calls, they need to know if you have the cash. If you are truly broke, oh well then – make some small payments. But if you are hiding scads of cash, and refusing to make payments, they will have to come and take that pile of cash.
“But,” you say, “I did not squander billions of dollars, on the ACA or the failed EMR experiment! My money comes from hard work by my family over generations, building a farm, building an industry! You shouldn’t take MY money!”
Yes, yes, the Chinese have heard it all before – that’s my ex-wife’s debt not mine. The Chinese sent money to the US, and the Chinese will get their money back from the US – on the lender’s terms, not the debtors. You had a million in the bank – not any more! Is that fair? Can they do it? Do you know the Mandarin term for unjust, no? Or for property rights? When the time comes, they will not dabble in the trivialities of “who” owes money to China. There is some money, and now it is gone. You all can work out the charming little legal trivialities on your own, property rights and all that, Americans! Sue each other! Once we get our repayment, we are done.
We have nothing to fear from China. They are just counting the noses of their flock.
We are nearing the anniversary of the publication of a most embarrassing document – one that those in power would really like to never have been written. It states:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
That is radical-speak. Many modern governments, such as China, stake their existence upon the bureaucratic control of their citizens. China has the terror of having many millions of people about whom almost nothing is known. If force is applied to them, will they comply or resist? China had one Tiananmen Square – look it up – it does not want another.
One of the most important aspects in the management of power by the modern dictatorships is the ability to gather all sorts of information about their citizens. Look through recent history – so many have failed because they did not have Big Data.
It is not merely about chlamydia or gonorrhea – it is more about how to control the Unapproved. China does not care about our Amazon purchasing habits – we give them Facebook. But they are going to have to make good an immense debt, trillions of dollars. They need to know how to settle that debt by taking from the livelihoods of Americans, without triggering one of those unpleasant things like the Boston Tea Party in its colony. China owns us like the shepherd owns the sheep; it must know how to make us profitable. THAT is why they want Big Data.