In a volatile world, only change is a constant. One day, the world may well view the notion of holy war, or jihad, as outdated as the duel or trial by ordeal.
What then? Look for another rally point for expression of violence. Look for xenophobia as trigger.
Xenophobia is the next incubator for nascent terrorist organizations, once the world tires of jihad. A recent article on how this just expressed itself in South Africa presents a grim view of how hackers – the machete-wielding kind – exact revenge for real or perceived injustices suffered at the hands of immigrants who, to the rest of the world, hardly appear to be cavorting in luxury.
The interesting but faint signal to detect here is a phenomenon stretching at least as far back as the sans culottes of France who warmed to the guillotine as instrument of social justice during the French Revolution. There are a number of commentators of the world scene out there who are making their living editorializing about why the world hates America and Americans.
Type in "why they hate us" in Amazon.com's search box and 463 entries materialize. We represent the modern world to people who want to cling to tradition. We are the only remaining super power, hence easy to blame for everything that goes wrong. We are prosperous, so we must be doing something at someone else's expense. We are ostentatious, shifting between the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen popularized a couple of centuries ago to just making more films and entertainment products that sell throughout the world, inevitably putting an American face into the world's face.
Evidently, the world resents that. But we are not the only bad guys.
What a recent Reuters article on the South African violence brings to mind is another idea. Maybe old-fashioned xenophobia never goes away.
My own theory is that people are tribal, even in America. We all have a certain number of people we can accommodate comfortably into our lives. Say, for example, my upper limit is 30, while yours may be 50. [The exception may be for those of you with giant Rolodexes whom author Malcolm Gladwell defines as mavens in his Tipping Point.]
When we move, change jobs, or just start our own families, the personal total stays about the same, but many of the players change. We lose touch with people who no longer affect our lives, making room this way for others who are now take center stage.
And this takes place in a modern world and country, where the nuclear family has made us much less hidebound with clan, tradition, and feudal patterns or castes that distinguished other societies. But the rest of the world may well be much more clannish.
Recall that, in Saddam Hussein's ascendancy, his clan and tribal relationships meant that preferment went to kinfolk or tribesmen from Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace.
Add this tribal preoccupation, for which Africa is famous, to a natural tendency to find fault with outsiders, and what do you get? The kinds of mob attacks South Africa is seeing.
What do we watch for in all this? The victims.
How long will it be before some enterprising, organized, and martially proficient "defenders" emerge to offer protection to the victimized expatriates or tribal minorities in exchange for money or the kind of unwavering loyalty that is very easy to promise when one's back is to the wall and the only alternative is death or torture by mob violence?
– Nick Catrantzos
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Lapses in the Health Care Industry
Are you are a security professional charged with protecting patient records maintained by your employer such as a hospital or medical insurer?
Then don’t miss Sarah Rubenstein’s April 29th round-up in The Wall Street Journal of the issues and most egregious recent breaches involving poorly protected medical records. (Sarah’s article is also useful if you are simply concerned about your own digitized medical records and issues of personal privacy.)
Most of the media attention in recent weeks about patient records has focused on a few Hollywood stars who allegedly had their records and their privacy invaded in Los Angeles. There has been at least one indictment since Sarah’s article, based on evidence that some of the information may have been sold to the media itself.
But the problem for those who guard those records is only going to get much bigger as hospitals and other health care institutions begin complying with the industry’s determined press to adopt electronic records for patients – making access quicker and easier in a crisis.
The intent of the industry initiative is to give a sharp and final shove to Luddite medical doctors and hospital bureaucrats who keep vital medical records on unprotected scraps of badly filed paper … and who have traditionally refused any and all reasonable attempts to master contemporary data recording and retrieval systems.
But the transition to digits is creating security nightmares of its own.
And the problem, says Sarah in her April 29 article, goes well beyond celebrity records in Hollywood hospitals: “In a spate of recent security lapses at hospitals, health insurers and the federal government, private information on hundreds of thousands of patients, ranging from Social Security numbers to fertility-treatment and cancer records, has been compromised.”
Security professionals in the health care industry need to keep on top of potential vulnerabilities in this field, but they also must be aware of changing privacy rules in the industry, largely driven by the provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Sarah also provides some links that are useful in learning more about the law … and how all of us can better guard the guardians of our records:
Health Care Privacy Project
http://www.healthprivacy.org/
Detailed information on federal health-privacy laws
Patient Privacy Rights
http://www.patientprivacyrights.org/
Privacy toolkit that includes a form to request your medical records
Privacy Rights Clearing House
http://www.privacyrights.org/
Tips on identity theft and dealing with a security breach.
World Privacy Forum
http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/
Tips on medical identity theft
– Tom Goff
Then don’t miss Sarah Rubenstein’s April 29th round-up in The Wall Street Journal of the issues and most egregious recent breaches involving poorly protected medical records. (Sarah’s article is also useful if you are simply concerned about your own digitized medical records and issues of personal privacy.)
Most of the media attention in recent weeks about patient records has focused on a few Hollywood stars who allegedly had their records and their privacy invaded in Los Angeles. There has been at least one indictment since Sarah’s article, based on evidence that some of the information may have been sold to the media itself.
But the problem for those who guard those records is only going to get much bigger as hospitals and other health care institutions begin complying with the industry’s determined press to adopt electronic records for patients – making access quicker and easier in a crisis.
The intent of the industry initiative is to give a sharp and final shove to Luddite medical doctors and hospital bureaucrats who keep vital medical records on unprotected scraps of badly filed paper … and who have traditionally refused any and all reasonable attempts to master contemporary data recording and retrieval systems.
But the transition to digits is creating security nightmares of its own.
And the problem, says Sarah in her April 29 article, goes well beyond celebrity records in Hollywood hospitals: “In a spate of recent security lapses at hospitals, health insurers and the federal government, private information on hundreds of thousands of patients, ranging from Social Security numbers to fertility-treatment and cancer records, has been compromised.”
Security professionals in the health care industry need to keep on top of potential vulnerabilities in this field, but they also must be aware of changing privacy rules in the industry, largely driven by the provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Sarah also provides some links that are useful in learning more about the law … and how all of us can better guard the guardians of our records:
Health Care Privacy Project
http://www.healthprivacy.org/
Detailed information on federal health-privacy laws
Patient Privacy Rights
http://www.patientprivacyrights.org/
Privacy toolkit that includes a form to request your medical records
Privacy Rights Clearing House
http://www.privacyrights.org/
Tips on identity theft and dealing with a security breach.
World Privacy Forum
http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/
Tips on medical identity theft
– Tom Goff
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