dogecoin, the new world currency

Increasingly, we are hearing in the news about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin. A new facet of the conversation, though, is that more and more stores, service providers and big e-tailers are starting to accept the new currency.

Adoption is low at this point, but growth is happening – and fast. The Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban started accepting the dogecoin in the Mavs Shop in early March. In April, they had transacted 6,000+ tickets in the digital coin. Cuban states he will not sell any dogecoins for at least a year, a confident move backing the currency.

And dogecoin is perhaps one of the least likely of more than 9,100 cryptocurrencies. It was conceived as joke that never planned to challenge the king of crypto, bitcoin, but almost immediately upon it’s inception became a goto method to tip on reddit.

Reddit also is known for having started the AMC/GME craze, leading to impossible gains fueled by the unity of it’s users buying power. Perhaps a similar phenomena is occurring at this moment with the #dogearmy, hundreds of thousand of retail investors who understand and day and swing trade crypto like stocks and plan to ride the volatility and appreciation of doge all the way ‘to the moon’.

Although desire for wealth is never a market indicator that something will happen, this unlikely coin continues to surprise and it’s poised for a remarkable next week. The self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk will rule Saturday Night Live, and to be sure, his legions of adoring followers will be watching with their trading accounts cocked and loaded.

Doge has seen some wild swings in the last two weeks but the future looks bright. Celebrity and dogearmy support coupled with retail adoption and the possibility that doge could be the currency of another planet has led to an annual increase of 8,421% since the first of the year.

#crypto #doge #hodl #dogearmy #dogearmy #elonmusk #markcuban

Health Technology Forum: May 8th, 2013, 6pm. Twitter created the New Radio Star.

 

 

Health Technology Forum

Dallas/Fort Worth Meetup

The monthly events are hosted by IBM at their Innovation Center in Dallas near LBJ and Stemmons.  Food and refreshments are provided.   Suggestions for speakers are always welcome for future events!  These events are always an hour or two of great networking, learning and discovery.

At these completely FREE monthly meetups, we discuss real-life technology use-cases from hospitals, doctor offices, medical billing, insurance, remote monitoring, health and wellness, and various patient-care services.   Subject matter experts, users, entrepreneurs, regulators, and providers address each other’s needs and solutions.  The objective is to connect entrepreneurs with professionals who are addressing these real-life problems that exist today in the healthcare ecosystem.  We also review how low-cost, scalable, deployable systems can meet or exceed the needs of 21st century care-giving.

 

The Health Technology Forum Meetup event will take place

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 at 6pm

at the NEW

IBM Innovation Center

1177 South Belt Line RdCoppellTexas 75019

This is the new location for the Innovation Center!

Please join us at this or future events by signing up at meetup.com.

 

Presentation:

Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 6pm.  The Health Technology Forum presents “Twitter created the New Radio Star”.

6:00-6:45PM – Welcome, Refreshments and Networking
6:45-6:55PM – HTF Progress Report: Conference/ Code-a-thon update, Chapters Update. HTF Founder Pronoy Saha
6:55-7:00PM – Speaker Introduction
7:00-7:40PM – Twitter Created the New Radio Star, Erica V. Olenski
7:40-7:50PM – Forum Q&A
7:50-8:00PM – Networking with Speaker and Organizers and Closing

ABSTRACT

In a number of significant ways, managing a Twitter account is similar to managing a radio station. In order to captivate listeners’ attention, the Twitter account must have a “deejay” with a unique and memorable personality who is focused on building relationships with listeners.  A successful Twitter account must also stream quality content that is local and familiar to its audience.

The health care industry is changing dramatically, and Twitter provides the opportunity for clinical and technical professionals to discuss these changes, interact with key decision makers and influence the outcomes. There is tremendous value for a tool that can help facilitate those conversations, and Twitter provides that opportunity.

SPEAKER BIO

Erica V. Olenski is an Account Executive at Corepoint Health and the VP of Communications for the DFW chapter of HIMSS.  She is the founder of the #HITsm hashtag on behalf of HL7 Standards (@HealthStandards) and the weekly tweet chat held on Fridays at 11 a.m. CST.  #HITsm is currently is the #1 most popular healthcare related hashtag on Twitter.

Erica was voted a #HIT100 Top Contributor, being the 3rd most nominated contributor by those involved with the healthcare technology community on Twitter.

 

Please join us for this exciting conversation on new media in healthcare!

Come together for health,

 

Eric

Co-Organizer
Health Technology Forum Meetup
eric@empowerT.com

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

 

#htforum Health Technology Forum Innovation Conference today in San Francisco

The HTF Innovation Conference is today in San Francisco.  I couldn’t be there today, but I will try and find any remote participation options and post them here.

I have really been unable to find any ways to participate remotely, except for updates via twitter.  Check out the #htforum tweetchat room: https://tweetchat.com/room/htforum

The Agenda below has been modified to reflect times in Central time zone.

Agenda

Time

CST

Atrium

Robertson

Fisher East

Fisher West

10:00

Registration/

Breakfast/

Expo

     
10:15
10:30
10:45
11:00

Expo

CEO Panel

 

Digital Media Law in Healthcare Panel

Patients Engagement Panel

11:15
11:30
11:45
12:00

Break

12:15

 

 

 

 

Expo

Health Information Security Panel

Role of Technology in the ACA Panel

Using Technology to Support Individuals with Complex Needs

12:30
12:45
1:00
1:15

NPR’s Tech Nation

   
1:30
1:45
2:00
2:15

Lunch

Lunch announcement-

HTF Goes Global( 12:45-1:00PM)

   
2:30
2:45
3:00
3:15
3:30

Macro and Micro Economics of Healthcare

TeleHealth and mHealth Panel

Analytics/Big Data Panel

3:45
4:00

Code-a-thon Highlights & Winners

4:15
4:30

Keynote Speech-2

 

   
4:45
5:00

Design Thinking Panel

Demos and Case Studies

 

Demos and Case Studies

 

5:15
5:30
5:45
6:00

Break

6:15

Expo

Venture Capital Panel

Robotics in Healthcare Panel

IT Challenges at Hospitals Panel

6:30
6:45
7:00
7:15      
7:30 – 9:30

Networking Reception

 

Health Technology Forum: March 6, 2013, 6pm. Panel on Security in Healthcare.

 

 

Health Technology Forum

Dallas/Fort Worth Meetup

The monthly events are hosted by IBM at their Innovation Center in Dallas near LBJ and Stemmons.  Food and refreshments are provided.   Suggestions for speakers are always welcome for future events!  These events are always an hour or two of great networking, learning and discovery.

At these completely FREE monthly meetups, we discuss real-life technology use-cases from hospitals, doctor offices, medical billing, insurance, remote monitoring, health and wellness, and various patient-care services.   Subject matter experts, users, entrepreneurs, regulators, and providers address each other’s needs and solutions.  The objective is to connect entrepreneurs with professionals who are addressing these real-life problems that exist today in the healthcare ecosystem.  We also review how low-cost, scalable, deployable systems can meet or exceed the needs of 21st century care-giving.

 

The Health Technology Forum Meetup event will take place

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 at 6pm

at the NEW

IBM Innovation Center

1177 South Belt Line RdCoppellTexas 75019

13800 Diplomat Drive, Dallas, TX  The Innovation Center has moved!

Please join us at this or future events by signing up at meetup.com.

 

Presentation:

Please mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 6pm.  The Health Technology Forum presents a panel on Security in Healthcare featuring experts in the field.

6:00-6:45PM – Welcome, Refreshments and Networking
6:45-7:00PM – Overview and Panel Introductions
7:00-7:20PM – Valmiki Mukherjee, CISSP, CRISC Mycroft Inc., Director of Security Solutions
7:20-7:40pm – Jason Dugger, Kaba Access & Data Systems, Business Development Director
7:40-7:50pm – Moderated Panel questions
7:50-8:00PM – Forum Q&A, Networking with Panelists and Closing

Valmiki Mukherjee, CISSP, CRISC
Mycroft Inc.
Director of Security Solutions

Valmiki is an industry recognized Information Security and Risk Management Professional and has assisted multiple fortune 500 companies in their pursuit of managing enterprise risk through strategic technology and business process implementation. His focus is on Identity and Access Governance and Assurance, Cloud Security and Information Security Program Management. He brings significant experience in strategizing, planning and implementing security technologies in different industries including health care. Valmiki is a Director of Security Solutions at Mycroft. He serves as the Vice Chairman for the Cloud Security Alliance of North Texas and the Global co-chair for Identity and Access Management for Cloud Security Alliance. He is also involved in a number of Cyber Security initiatives across the globe and in the North Texas region.

Jason Dugger
Kaba Access & Data Systems – Americas
Business Development Director (Vertical Markets)

Jason has spent the last four years with e-DATA / Kaba both in marketing & creative design as well as business development for vertical markets, including healthcare, loss prevention and financial. Kaba is a global leader in security and technology products, including manufacturing door, safe and cargo locks, web-based access control, biometrics and time & attendance solutions. Before Kaba, Jason spent 15 years in the marketing/creative design industry.

As always, the Forum encourages our attendees to participate, ask questions, propose new ideas and benefit from the interactive format.

We look forward to seeing you March 6th!  Please help us grow the Forum by forwarding this email to those who may be interested.  We have street team materials for anyone who would like to volunteer and help us grow.  We are looking for university students to promote on campus, corporate employees who can reach large groups or anyone with a passion for Health Technology. Please let me know if you are available and interested.

Cheers,

 

Eric McQuaid

Co-Organizer
Health Technology Forum Meetup
eric@empowerT.com

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

 

U.S. government warns of hack threat to network gear

CERT has been in contact with over 200 manufacturers of electronic networking equipment after a security firm released details of widespread vulnerabilities.  The problem stems from a feature  called uPnP which was conceived and designed to increase interoperability and compatibility between devices found in a network.

Read the full article at Reuters.

I found the protocol enabled by default on 5 client devices today.  It is recommend the feature be turned off.  Each device has a different procedure for disabling the feature.

As always, please let us know if you require any assistance with your network.

 

Health Technology Forum: February 6, 2013, 6pm. Expert Panel on Telemedicine. Please join us!

 

Health Technology Forum

Dallas/Fort Worth Meetup

The monthly events are hosted by IBM at their Innovation Center in Dallas near LBJ and Stemmons.  Food and refreshments are provided.   Suggestions for speakers are always welcome for future events!  These events are always an hour or two of great networking, learning and discovery.

At these completely FREE monthly meetups, we discuss real-life technology use-cases from hospitals, doctor offices, medical billing, insurance, remote monitoring, health and wellness, and various patient-care services.   Subject matter experts, users, entrepreneurs, regulators, and providers address each other’s needs and solutions.  The objective is to connect entrepreneurs with professionals who are addressing these real-life problems that exist today in the healthcare ecosystem.  We also review how low-cost, scalable, deployable systems can meet or exceed the needs of 21st century care-giving.

 

The Health Technology Forum Meetup event will take place

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 at 6pm
IBM Innovation Center
13800 Diplomat Drive, Dallas, TX

Please join us at this or future events by signing up at meetup.com.

 

Presentation:

February’s meeting will be an expert panel to discuss the importance of Telemedicine in Health and Wellness programs.

HealthLAN partners Eric Lyke and Alex Xing will present and discuss their telemedicine medical device partnership and the technology behind it.  CIO Randall Mills will provide an overview of CallMD’s Telemedicine Services.  Larry North, the household name in fitness, weight loss and health, will discuss the importance of Telemedicine in his fitness centers and how it is used in his Great American Slim Down program.

6:00-6:45PM – Welcome, Refreshments and Networking
6:45-7:00PM – Overview and Panel Introductions
7:00-7:10PM – HealthLAN and Medical Devices in Telemedicine
7:10-7:20pm – CallMD, Telemedicine 24/7
7:20-7:30pm – Larry North, Fitness and Telemedicine (Mr. North cannot be with us due to unforeseen travel circumstances)
7:30-7:45pm – Moderated Panel questions
7:45-8:00PM – Forum Q&A, Networking with Panelists and Closing

As always, the Forum encourages our attendees to participate, ask questions, propose new ideas and benefit from the interactive format.

We look forward to seeing you February 6th!  Please help us grow the Forum by forwarding this email to those who may be interested.  We have street team materials for anyone who would like to volunteer and help us grow.  We are looking for university students to promote on campus, corporate employees who can reach large groups or anyone with a passion for Health Technology. Please let me know if you are available and interested.

Cheers,

 

Eric McQuaid

Co-Organizer
Health Technology Forum Meetup
eric@empowerT.com

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

Health Technology Forum Dallas Fort Worth, October 24th Meetup: “SmartCare: Smart Technology for Passive Health Monitoring”

 

Health Technology Forum

Dallas/Fort Worth

October Meetup

 

The monthly events will be hosted by IBM at their Innovation Center in Dallas near LBJ and Stemmons.  Food will be provided and we have a confirmed speaker and will notify you shortly(suggestions welcome for future events!).  It will surely be an hour or two of great networking, learning and discovery.

At these completely FREE monthly meetups, we will discuss real-life technology use-cases from hospitals, doctor offices, medical billing, insurance, remote monitoring, health and wellness, and various patient-care services.  Subject matter experts, users, entrepreneurs, regulators, and providers will address each other’s needs and solutions.  The objective is to connect entrepreneurs with professionals who are addressing these real-life problems that exist today in the healthcare ecosystem.  We will also review how low-cost, scalable, deployable systems can meet or exceed the needs of 21st century care-giving.

This will be our 2nd event for the Dallas Chapter.   The kickoff meetup was a lively discussion on the use of analytics to tackle billion dollarhealthcare problems.

 

The 2nd Health Technology Forum Meetup event will take place

Wednesday, October 24th at 6pm
IBM Innovation Center
13800 Diplomat Drive, Dallas, TX

Please join us at this or future events by signing up at meetup.com.

 

Presentation:

Dr. Manfred Huber

Associate Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

University of Texas at Arlington

 

“SmartCare: Smart Technology for Passive Health Monitoring”

 

6:00-6:45PM – Networking
6:45-7:00PM – Overview and Group Discussion
7:00-7:30PM – Presentation and Discussion
7:30-8:00PM – Q&A, Networking with Speaker and Closing

 

Dr. Huber will discuss SmartCare, the University of Texas at Arlington’s research and demonstration center that will develop, build, and deploy the next generation of intelligent care technologies enabling a significant nationwide improvement in in-home health care.  SmartCare technologies will be non-intrusive, easy to use, easily deployable, secure, reliable, and low cost with the aim of reducing the cost of care while improving the independence, quality of life, and health of the elderly and those with disabilities.   The center is focused on designing, integrating, and evaluating technologies related to those challenges most commonly occurring for elders as they struggle to maintain independence including chronic disease management, nutrition, and fall prevention monitoring, among others.

Backed by $800,000 in federal grant money, SmartCare is being developed through a partnership between UTA’s College of Nursingand College of Engineering. The commercialization of in-home health-related technologies will also be discussed.

We look forward to seeing you all again and meeting some new members!

The home chapter of the Health Technology Forum in Sillicon Valley has 1800 members.  Please join now to keep abreast of interfacing with this vibrant group of academicians, clinicians, technologists, entrepreneurs and other healthcare stakeholders.  Besides the physical meetups, we have some tweet chats as well as web streams of the SV meetups planned.

We would be very grateful if you would help us grow our membership by forwarding this page to any of your colleagues, students, partners etc. who may be interested in this exciting new Forum.

In Health,

 

Eric M. McQuaid
Co-Organizer
Health Technology Forum Meetup
eric@empowerT.com

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

Health Technology Forum Dallas/Fort Worth

Health Technology Forum  Dallas/Fort Worth

Introducing the

Health Technology Forum

Dallas/Fort Worth

 

I became involved in the Health Technology Forum’s Dallas chapter because of my passion for technology and it’s use in improving patient care.   The industry has come a long way, but there is tremendous progress to be made.  This progress will only occur and accelerate if we facilitate the interaction between technologist and entrepreneur – and do it locally.

So when founder Pronoy Saha decided to bring the Forum to other cities and chose Dallas as the first stop on the list, of course I wanted to know how I could help…

 

I am very excited to introduce to you the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Health Technology Forum.  With over 1600 members in the original Silicon Valley chapter, the group there averages 150 members per meeting.

There is relatively little talk about how technology influences the quality and cost of healthcare given that it consumes one-sixth of the US GDP.  Why does this segment lag in taking advantage of the post web2.0 and totally-mobile world?

For the past few years, healthcare technology companies are emerging hoping to disrupt the existing care-giving modality, prepared to combat the current insane costs and inefficiencies.  The advent of PHRs, social network, open platforms, smart phone, personalized medicine, compliance/interoperability and reform are creating new opportunities.  Entrepreneurs and existing providers who innovate will thrive.

At these completely FREE monthly meetups, we will discuss real-life technology use-cases from hospitals, doctor offices, medical billing, insurance, remote monitoring, health and wellness, and various patient-care services.  Subject matter experts, users, entrepreneurs, regulators, and providers will address each other’s needs and solutions.  The objective is to connect entrepreneurs with professionals who are addressing these real-life problems that exist today in the healthcare ecosystem.  We will also review how low-cost, scalable, deployable systems can meet or exceed the needs of 21st century care-giving.

The monthly events will be hosted by IBM at their Innovation Center in Dallas near LBJ and Stemmons.  Food will be provided and we have a confirmed speaker and will notify you shortly(suggestions welcome for future events!).  It will surely be an hour or two of great networking, learning and discovery.

 

The first Health Technology Forum Meetup Kickoff event will take place

Thursday, September 20th at 6pm
IBM Innovation Center
13800 Diplomat Drive, Dallas, TX

Please join us at this or future events by signing up at meetup.com.  

Presentation:

Pressure Ulcer Prevention:

Modeling, Monitoring & Feedback (click for summary)

Mehrdad Nourani, Ph.D.
Professor in Electrical Engineering and EE Associate Department Head
University of Texas at Dallas

We would be very grateful if you would help us grow our membership by forwarding this page to any of your colleagues, students, partners etc. who may be interested in this exciting new Forum.

In Health,

 

Eric M. McQuaid
Co-Organizer
Health Technology Forum Meetup
eric@empowerT.com

Please change your linkedin passwords now. I mean right now.

LI confirms that “some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts.”

Please change your linkedin passwords now. I mean right now. If you are one that uses the same password across multiple sites, you should do a review of your passwords immediately. If the linkedin password was shared across sites, those passwords should be changed right now. If your linkedin password resembles your work credentials, change them. Change them all. Right now.

Unfortunately users rarely take password security seriously. It has been shown that most users user one password for all their accounts. That’s a problem when a breach like this linked loss of 6.5 million passwords occurs.  The attacker is a worthy opponent.   They know what to do.  The hacker that stole this information has already gotten in to some bank accounts and stolen hard earned cash.

Don’t be a victim.  Change any password you instinctively know is just too simple.  Use minimum of 9 characters with caps, numbers and special characters.  Use Lastpass.com to remember them all. It’s an excellent tool and it works.  Add a yubikey for two-factor authentication. Google Authenticator is great also and uses your cell phone as a second factor.  Most email services can use SMS verification so that accessing your email always requires the password, and a code delivered via your cell phone.   See this article at coding horror for a good tutorial on that.

If you think your pass is strong, Run a MD5 and SHA1 hash of your passwords and search google for those hashes.  If any hits come back, change your password(s).  NOW!  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a tool on my website to help you:  https://www.empowert.com/hash-generator/

Yampolskiy created a tool that checks your password against the list of known cracked passwords(about 160k of 6.5 million).  You can check if your password has been affected here.  Check out his blog post on the topic.

Lastpass has also offered a tool to check if your linkedin password was compromised.

Should you use any of these tools to check if you password has been hacked?  If you don’t, you may never know.  Why not change the linkedin password, and then check it.  You should be changing passwords regularly anyway right?

The days of being secure using a password are long gone.  Today, at the very least, you should be using complex passwords of minimum 9 characters, preferably randomly generated, with a second factor authentication.

Please comment, call or email anytime if you have questions about all this.

 

 

 

Does HIPAA / HITECH Require Strong Passwords? No, But It’s Expected.

This is a very succinct summary of what HIPAA/HITECH require in terms of passwords and encryption from AlertBoot Endpoint Security.

Does HIPAA / HITECH Require Strong Passwords? No, But It’s Expected

If you’re working for (or with) a HIPAA covered-entity, you probably know by now that the HITECH Act, which amended parts of HIPAA, includes a patient data breach notification rule.  You may also know that the use of data encryption software like AlertBoot provides safe harbor from said rule, although encryption software is not explicitly required by HIPAA or HITECH, or even the HHS, which is charged with enforcing the rules.

In fact, anyone who tells you that HIPAA or HITECH requires encryption is speaking from a practical standpoint, not from a legal one.

What About Strong Passwords?

This “incentive” to use encryption (and not just any encryption, but strong encryption) brings up additional questions: are you required to use strong passwords?  Just like with encryption, the answer is no, there is no such requirement.  Or at least, I can’t find one anywhere; however, it stands to reason that if you’re not required to use encryption, then there probably isn’t a requirement on passwords either.

The use of strong passwords, though, is expected (and recommended.  If you’re going to do something, you should do it right).  In fact, HIPAA documents keep referring to strong encryption as a “best practice.”  In one HHS document I found, it’s noted that “the use of a strong password to protect access to the device or file would be an appropriate and expected risk management strategy.”

What is a Strong Password?

You can find many claims on-line that the following are components of a strong password:

  • Be over 8 characters long.
  • Use a combination of upper and lower case letters.
  • Include at least one numeric and/or special character (& or ? or @, etc).

It’s also recommended that a dictionary word is not included in the password itself, which I disagree on, personally: the key is not to not have a dictionary word, but to not only have a dictionary word.  For example, “19snwNNapple*93” is no less secure than “!2n1kSSaow#” just because the word “apple” happens to be in it.  This contrasts with “apple” or even “apple93” which cannot be considered a secure password.

I’d use the above three requirements to construct a password, with one exception: I’d substitute the 8-character requirement with a 12-character password requirement.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is to be used with cryptographic solutions like laptop encryption.  If you’re using a password-protection software only, it won’t matter how long or strong the password happens to be.

Related Articles and Sites:
https://blogs.hcpro.com/hipaa/2009/11/expert-encryption-best-way-to-go/

Please let us know if you feel a security assessment is needed. You cannot protect your information assets enough.