Benlog

This summer, I joined the faculty at Children’s Hospital Informatics Program. My work is focused on security and privacy of health data. One of the projects I’m contributing to was just announced in the press:

Dossia was established by major U.S. employers Applied Materials, BP America Inc., Cardinal Health, Intel Corporation, Pitney Bowes Inc. and Wal-Mart [...]

In the last few weeks, friends of mine — savvy friends of mine — have been hit by sites that ask for your gmail, yahoo, or hotmail password just so they can “check to see if your friends are using the site!” Quechup, the so-called “social network that’s sweeping the globe” is accomplishing that grand [...]

The “surge” is working. That is, if you count the number of deaths in the “right” way:

a body found with a gunshot to the front of the head is classified as an ordinary crime, while a body with a gunshot to the back of the head is attributed to sectarian violence.

Bill Maher mentioned this last [...]

I’m a big fan of Apple. However, they just announced a new offering that, although small in scope, seems to be a big departure from their usual approach, and it worries me. They announced that, for an extra 99 cents, you can take a song and turn it into a ringtone for the Apple iPhone. [...]

For the second time in a month, a vendor says to me, on the phone:

I’m sorry, sir, but that account is under your wife’s name, and only she can cancel the account.

What was particularly annoying about this call (with Verizon, oh how much I loathe them), is that my wife had granted me “full access” [...]