Funny aside. I happen to know a few physicians pretty well outside their professions. I heard a lovely story involving a surgeon in an office that didn't use paper records. Everything was done through an EMR system.
The "computers were down" as the story was relayed. The surgeon called the family physician asking him about the medical history of the patient. The family doc (primary) asked what was wrong. The surgeon replied that the patient was in the waiting room, but since the EMR system was down, he didn't know anything about the patient. The primary responded with, "By any chance... Did you ask them?" to which the surgeon responded, "What?" The surgeon had a perfectly compus mentus patient, and didn't even bother to ask them a question because the EMR system was down.
Sometimes the lawyers don't even have to be involved for epic failure.
It was written in the 90s, in VB. That's about all I know. From what I understand, it did run properly in NT 4 SP6, but it was never tried on 2000.
Really, the point of the comment is that this is reuse of an old solution. Even during the attempt at migrating to Vista, shims were a suggested solution for applications that didn't work.
Fortunately, I didn't have to. It happened before I started here. But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it was applied when the software was packaged into an MSI format.
We = company in this case. I should have specified.
The suggestions I made came long after the fact. I was informed by my leadership that they had already lost that fight, and that I shouldn't bother pursuing it any further.
This is not a new solution at all. At my company, we had to employ a shim to make one of our "in house" developed apps work in XP even...
Please save any comments about "forcing our developers to fix their code." I mentioned it, and I might as well have suggested we invade Russia by land. Unfortunately, we got it to work, and the appropriate funding to make the software better never materialized since there was "no need to fix it anymore."
I suppose they're doing us a service with this patent. Now no one else can deliberately cripple their operating system. I suppose their motive was for that Max-3-Apps thing in the starter versions of 7.
And didn't Vista have similar functionality?
I'm very surprised that this got through. I believe I'm staring at pieces of prior art in the form of a pair of Hypervisors which 'unlock' features after entering a key (stating that I purchased it). These happen to compete against Microsoft's Hyper-V...
I don't think that any real action will come of this particular patent. It smells to me like they're trying to justify some sort of innovation quota. I really can't see this being enforceable at all... But, I'm not the one arguing this in court either.
"Or the wisdom of appointing a CTO who's no technologist."
That's all I need to read to know the following: -US tech policy will go to the highest bidder. -That nationalized EMR database? Virginia*50. -The ODF standard that you're talking about? Open Document Format? "Microsoft has one, and it's perfectly fine." -Rubber stamping? Nothing to stop this one. With control of the senate in Dem hands, they won't waste time questioning whoever the pres appoints. Even if the Reps were the majority, I don't think anyone in the Senate understands that the internet is anything other than a series of tubes.
Oh - from TFA: "Chopra concedes that he's not an expert on the inner workings of technical systems. 'What I brought to the table was an understanding of the capabilities of new technologies and how they might advance a particular agenda,' he said."
That quote tells me: While he says he's not a tech guy, he thinks he knows more about the tech's potential than those implementing it. That's lovely.
I'm hopeful that I'm wrong. I'll stand up and say that I'm wrong happily if I am.
Agreed with the credit-fraud assessment. But I think we both know how quickly the feds will require that the banks and creditors clean up their acts...
Excellent counterpoint regarding a closed doctor's office. Here are my rebuttals: 1) Pertinent information in your medical history that would likely pop up would probably also be located in your local hospital. In fact, drug interactions and common procedure allergies will normally be discovered in the 24 hour hospital. Besides, doctors have to provide copies of what happens when you visit a practice to the local hospital and/or insurer anyway. It's part of the great medical (verifiable) paper trail. 2) In the hospital, when you're suffering from your emergency that'll kill you in 30 minutes, chances are they won't even have time to hunt down your electronic records either. In fact, in the highest likelihood, the hospital is going to call the insurer first. 3) Don't assume that the systems are working on either side. There are plenty of "computer malfunctions" that could happen. 4) And no, it's not too bad that my records aren't on the web in some location where someone *else* could look them up either. If the doctor has opted in to having electronic records, then I'm sure he or she has some sort of VPN-like setup with a client that doesn't do public port 80... BTW - I was pointing out the use of port 80 specifically... Don't want anyone sniffing that in the medical coffee shop either.
You sir, are addressing this from a much better angle. The biggest reason EMRs are so valuable is because of the non-health information kept with them.
I personally don't care if the entire world knows I had knee surgery. In cases where someone had heart surgery, it's likely that they don't want a life insurer or health insurer to know... but they'll know anyway since that's their business. AFAIC - If our EMRs are not valuable to anyone outside the health industry, then I have no problem with them being posted up. I'm much more concerned with integrity at that point. On its own, verification is a task that can be tackled... Assuming you still keep a good paper trail. (coughDieboldcough)
And I'd rather have mine not on port 80 at all. It should be at least port 443, and better yet, on some seriously secured interface where accessing that data requires some sort of transaction ID, and pre-auth with the data holder.
Furthermore - In that scenario, if I was in an emergency, I'd rather have the freaking hospital *call* the my doctor's office directly to make sure my "history" is correct.
Has anyone ever wondered how people are supposed to verify the accuracy of these records?
The most dangerous opening to a statement involving security is "All it takes..." I've had to manage an EMR system. I've had to deal with the security aspect. I also had to do it fresh out of college.
And if you think that having one target for all this information makes it more secure? I have to totally disagree. I've worked with plenty of folks who have ties or worked for the government. They're exactly who I'm talking about when I say "lack of training, or budget, or both." You could audit everything you want, but if you don't know what to look for, or you're not watching the audit logs, it doesn't matter what you've got in place. I've taken a look at logs of an intrusion, and I've seen at least one case where the success happened because the attacker was already armed with data. First attempt succeeded cause they had a valid username/password... Someone else's.
You can't foolproof a public facing system... You can't geniusproof it either. There will be a compromise, it's just a matter of how small you can make it.
This is why a national requirement for EMR systems isn't a good idea right now. The staffers that have to take care of this (in light of recent events in Virginia) are getting hung out to dry either because they don't have the training, or the budget, or both to pull this of safely.
This will always be an argument against EMR systems - How much harder is it to break into someone's office or a hospital and rip off *everyone's* data. Sure, you could break in, steal a few and then torch the building... But which is worse? Missing your medical history or having all that personal identifiable information in the hands of credit thieves? And in the break in scenario, there's less stolen data. You're not walking out of a medial building with 160K charts... Or 8 Million in VA.
China has a system of blatantly stealing known technology too (see the Redberry, and Chery motors). They have no rules regarding foreign products, and in fact are encouraged to rip off what happens overseas by the govt. So I don't think that using China as an example of "innovation" is appropriate.
Simple rules to allow artists and creators to make a living off of being artists aren't bad things. I'm perfectly fine with a musician being ticked that someone's jacking their music, writings, or whatever.
In fact, if the RIAA and MPAA actually operated within those confines, I'm sure we'd have nowhere near the issue that we have now. The problem I have with the copyright lobby is that they've become a lobby. They don't value add, and they employ methods of enforcement that should be illegal. If they understood that their business model needs changing, and were willing to work *with* the markets instead of *against* the people, I'd see them as quite good and helpful.
Sadly, their impression of embracing technology involves wiretapping, and not using the wire to sell and distribute.
Now, onto your iPhone example - I think that you should concentrate elsewhere. In Japan, the iPhone is nothing special. They have excellent cutting edge phones, but from what I've gathered they do tend to be a little less reliable software wise. The features they have make the iPhone rather pedestrian (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/why-the-iphone/). In the case of the US, we do have a massive phone market, with a lot of competition, and decent product lines. It's not amazing by any stretch, but we have very solid phones, and they're engineered for reliability since that seems to be more important to the market here. Make no mistake, there's a lot of choice in the US.
God I hope. He's got quite an opportunity to stand up against some real winners on his side and tell them that what they're doing is fundamentally wrong according to the constitution.
Of course, if there's any decency left in the legislature, this won't even make it to a vote. This should die in committee.
From Your Source:Special rules related to legal [or juristic] persons in relation to the law of defamation. Defamation is the area of law in which a person's reputation has been unlawfully damaged. This is considered an ill in itself in regard to natural person, but a legal person is required to show actual or likely monetary loss before a suit for defamation will succeed.
There is nothing in there discussing harassment. Defamation != harassment. There is overlap, but they are not equal.
Well, that depends on who you talk to. Here in the US, that's probably true. Pretty much it's up to Europe to send the lawyers back in.
But, there is a comment at the end of the article to check for an obvious abuse:
The only way for Microsoft to make their legacy ODF documents work and to exclude other vendors would be to specifically look in the document for the name of the application that created the documentThis should be simple to test with a text editor, change the name of the application to match one that works and test that.
Since I don't have access to Office 2007 until I get home tonight, I can't try this out. But if someone feels compelled in the meantime, I'd love to see the results. If the document "magically" works after changing the header, then Microsoft did *not* do enough to keep the lawyers at bay.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe Snoc-ra-teez?
It also provides a verifiable paper record. Something our voting system could use too.
Funny aside. I happen to know a few physicians pretty well outside their professions. I heard a lovely story involving a surgeon in an office that didn't use paper records. Everything was done through an EMR system.
The "computers were down" as the story was relayed. The surgeon called the family physician asking him about the medical history of the patient. The family doc (primary) asked what was wrong. The surgeon replied that the patient was in the waiting room, but since the EMR system was down, he didn't know anything about the patient. The primary responded with, "By any chance... Did you ask them?" to which the surgeon responded, "What?" The surgeon had a perfectly compus mentus patient, and didn't even bother to ask them a question because the EMR system was down.
Sometimes the lawyers don't even have to be involved for epic failure.
It was written in the 90s, in VB. That's about all I know. From what I understand, it did run properly in NT 4 SP6, but it was never tried on 2000.
Really, the point of the comment is that this is reuse of an old solution. Even during the attempt at migrating to Vista, shims were a suggested solution for applications that didn't work.
Fortunately, I didn't have to. It happened before I started here. But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it was applied when the software was packaged into an MSI format.
We = company in this case. I should have specified.
The suggestions I made came long after the fact. I was informed by my leadership that they had already lost that fight, and that I shouldn't bother pursuing it any further.
This is not a new solution at all. At my company, we had to employ a shim to make one of our "in house" developed apps work in XP even...
Please save any comments about "forcing our developers to fix their code." I mentioned it, and I might as well have suggested we invade Russia by land. Unfortunately, we got it to work, and the appropriate funding to make the software better never materialized since there was "no need to fix it anymore."
Whoosh!
I suppose they're doing us a service with this patent. Now no one else can deliberately cripple their operating system. I suppose their motive was for that Max-3-Apps thing in the starter versions of 7.
And didn't Vista have similar functionality?
I'm very surprised that this got through. I believe I'm staring at pieces of prior art in the form of a pair of Hypervisors which 'unlock' features after entering a key (stating that I purchased it). These happen to compete against Microsoft's Hyper-V...
I don't think that any real action will come of this particular patent. It smells to me like they're trying to justify some sort of innovation quota. I really can't see this being enforceable at all... But, I'm not the one arguing this in court either.
"Or the wisdom of appointing a CTO who's no technologist."
That's all I need to read to know the following:
-US tech policy will go to the highest bidder.
-That nationalized EMR database? Virginia*50.
-The ODF standard that you're talking about? Open Document Format? "Microsoft has one, and it's perfectly fine."
-Rubber stamping? Nothing to stop this one. With control of the senate in Dem hands, they won't waste time questioning whoever the pres appoints. Even if the Reps were the majority, I don't think anyone in the Senate understands that the internet is anything other than a series of tubes.
Oh - from TFA: "Chopra concedes that he's not an expert on the inner workings of technical systems. 'What I brought to the table was an understanding of the capabilities of new technologies and how they might advance a particular agenda,' he said."
That quote tells me: While he says he's not a tech guy, he thinks he knows more about the tech's potential than those implementing it. That's lovely.
I'm hopeful that I'm wrong. I'll stand up and say that I'm wrong happily if I am.
I always thought it was in January of 1970...
Wow, that's been sooooooo effective.
Agreed with the credit-fraud assessment. But I think we both know how quickly the feds will require that the banks and creditors clean up their acts...
Excellent counterpoint regarding a closed doctor's office. Here are my rebuttals:
1) Pertinent information in your medical history that would likely pop up would probably also be located in your local hospital. In fact, drug interactions and common procedure allergies will normally be discovered in the 24 hour hospital. Besides, doctors have to provide copies of what happens when you visit a practice to the local hospital and/or insurer anyway. It's part of the great medical (verifiable) paper trail.
2) In the hospital, when you're suffering from your emergency that'll kill you in 30 minutes, chances are they won't even have time to hunt down your electronic records either. In fact, in the highest likelihood, the hospital is going to call the insurer first.
3) Don't assume that the systems are working on either side. There are plenty of "computer malfunctions" that could happen.
4) And no, it's not too bad that my records aren't on the web in some location where someone *else* could look them up either. If the doctor has opted in to having electronic records, then I'm sure he or she has some sort of VPN-like setup with a client that doesn't do public port 80... BTW - I was pointing out the use of port 80 specifically... Don't want anyone sniffing that in the medical coffee shop either.
You sir, are addressing this from a much better angle. The biggest reason EMRs are so valuable is because of the non-health information kept with them.
I personally don't care if the entire world knows I had knee surgery. In cases where someone had heart surgery, it's likely that they don't want a life insurer or health insurer to know... but they'll know anyway since that's their business. AFAIC - If our EMRs are not valuable to anyone outside the health industry, then I have no problem with them being posted up. I'm much more concerned with integrity at that point. On its own, verification is a task that can be tackled... Assuming you still keep a good paper trail. (coughDieboldcough)
And I'd rather have mine not on port 80 at all. It should be at least port 443, and better yet, on some seriously secured interface where accessing that data requires some sort of transaction ID, and pre-auth with the data holder.
Furthermore - In that scenario, if I was in an emergency, I'd rather have the freaking hospital *call* the my doctor's office directly to make sure my "history" is correct.
Has anyone ever wondered how people are supposed to verify the accuracy of these records?
The most dangerous opening to a statement involving security is "All it takes..." I've had to manage an EMR system. I've had to deal with the security aspect. I also had to do it fresh out of college.
And if you think that having one target for all this information makes it more secure? I have to totally disagree. I've worked with plenty of folks who have ties or worked for the government. They're exactly who I'm talking about when I say "lack of training, or budget, or both." You could audit everything you want, but if you don't know what to look for, or you're not watching the audit logs, it doesn't matter what you've got in place. I've taken a look at logs of an intrusion, and I've seen at least one case where the success happened because the attacker was already armed with data. First attempt succeeded cause they had a valid username/password... Someone else's.
You can't foolproof a public facing system... You can't geniusproof it either. There will be a compromise, it's just a matter of how small you can make it.
Man if only they were using OpenBSD... That would've been so... much.... ummm....
This is why a national requirement for EMR systems isn't a good idea right now. The staffers that have to take care of this (in light of recent events in Virginia) are getting hung out to dry either because they don't have the training, or the budget, or both to pull this of safely.
This will always be an argument against EMR systems - How much harder is it to break into someone's office or a hospital and rip off *everyone's* data. Sure, you could break in, steal a few and then torch the building... But which is worse? Missing your medical history or having all that personal identifiable information in the hands of credit thieves? And in the break in scenario, there's less stolen data. You're not walking out of a medial building with 160K charts... Or 8 Million in VA.
(Score:2, Troll)
Awesome.
China has a system of blatantly stealing known technology too (see the Redberry, and Chery motors). They have no rules regarding foreign products, and in fact are encouraged to rip off what happens overseas by the govt. So I don't think that using China as an example of "innovation" is appropriate.
Simple rules to allow artists and creators to make a living off of being artists aren't bad things. I'm perfectly fine with a musician being ticked that someone's jacking their music, writings, or whatever.
In fact, if the RIAA and MPAA actually operated within those confines, I'm sure we'd have nowhere near the issue that we have now. The problem I have with the copyright lobby is that they've become a lobby. They don't value add, and they employ methods of enforcement that should be illegal. If they understood that their business model needs changing, and were willing to work *with* the markets instead of *against* the people, I'd see them as quite good and helpful.
Sadly, their impression of embracing technology involves wiretapping, and not using the wire to sell and distribute.
Now, onto your iPhone example - I think that you should concentrate elsewhere. In Japan, the iPhone is nothing special. They have excellent cutting edge phones, but from what I've gathered they do tend to be a little less reliable software wise. The features they have make the iPhone rather pedestrian (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/why-the-iphone/). In the case of the US, we do have a massive phone market, with a lot of competition, and decent product lines. It's not amazing by any stretch, but we have very solid phones, and they're engineered for reliability since that seems to be more important to the market here. Make no mistake, there's a lot of choice in the US.
First thing they'll get is a loud cheer from Americans like me.
God I hope. He's got quite an opportunity to stand up against some real winners on his side and tell them that what they're doing is fundamentally wrong according to the constitution.
Of course, if there's any decency left in the legislature, this won't even make it to a vote. This should die in committee.
From Your Source:Special rules related to legal [or juristic] persons in relation to the law of defamation. Defamation is the area of law in which a person's reputation has been unlawfully damaged. This is considered an ill in itself in regard to natural person, but a legal person is required to show actual or likely monetary loss before a suit for defamation will succeed.
There is nothing in there discussing harassment. Defamation != harassment. There is overlap, but they are not equal.
It's called "Troll" or "Flamebait"
Well, that depends on who you talk to. Here in the US, that's probably true. Pretty much it's up to Europe to send the lawyers back in.
But, there is a comment at the end of the article to check for an obvious abuse:
The only way for Microsoft to make their legacy ODF documents work and to exclude other vendors would be to specifically look in the document for the name of the application that created the documentThis should be simple to test with a text editor, change the name of the application to match one that works and test that.
Since I don't have access to Office 2007 until I get home tonight, I can't try this out. But if someone feels compelled in the meantime, I'd love to see the results. If the document "magically" works after changing the header, then Microsoft did *not* do enough to keep the lawyers at bay.