Posts Tagged ‘Computer Forensic Science’

Protection of Healthcare Information, comment

August 26, 2008

This was a very interesting article. All though this is a convenience for the physicians we must always respect the rights of our patients. At our hospital we did have an RN that was terminated for looking up lab results on her ex-husband. This was not tolerated at our hospital. I support the decision that was made to terminate this individual. I would not want my information to be looked at by someone who had no reason to look at it. This is where we all need to be accountable for our actions. When you cross the line you should expect consequences. Everyone in healthcare has an obligation to respect patient’s rights. I will never cross the line to put a patient at risk by sharing information that is not mine to share. Thanks.

Original Post:
March 5, 2008
Patient information can now be found on paper as well as in the computer. The computer has made it easier for doctors and medical personnel to access patient information. A doctor can pull up labs, x-rays, etc right from his office or home. Our physicians have PDA’s and can look up information at lunch. While this makes the information more accessible, it also makes it a target for liability issues. Nurses have been terminated for looking up labs on a co-worker. With the right code you can pull up about anything. Hospitals and medical offices have had to implement rules concerning discussing patients in emails, etc. Most hospitals now have policies regarding looking up information on the computer to where you can not even look up your own information. Computer information has made patient care quicker and easier, but we have to make sure it is not costing our patients their right to privacy.

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Medical Identity Theft, comment

March 6, 2008

We teach our students who are studying the combination of Forensic Nursing and Public Health Nursing about medical identity theft. We encourage them to share with their clients about preventing the theft of medical identity. This prevention can occur by locking sensitive medical information. The lock can be a physical lock within the place of residence, a safe deposit box, a password-protected computer, and/or a password-protected section on a computer. Prevention can also occur via medical identity theft monitoring. The monitoring can be done by one of many different companies that offer this service. The easiest way to obtain medical identity theft monitoring is to seek a company, which offers identity theft monitoring. Thus, medical identity theft monitoring will be a part of the identity theft monitoring service. The client should seek a company that also offers medical identity theft resolution and restoration. By letting the company handle the resolution and restoration, a client can save themselves much time and much money.

Original Post:
February 27, 2008
I notice you deal with the subject Computer Forensic Science. What do you teach Forensic Nursing and Public Health Nursing students about preventing medical identity theft? This is regarding the public and clients that I communicate with during my Public Health Nursing duties.

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Protection of Healthcare Information

March 5, 2008

Patient information can now be found on paper as well as in the computer. The computer has made it easier for doctors and medical personnel to access patient information. A doctor can pull up labs, x-rays, etc right from his office or home. Our physicians have PDA’s and can look up information at lunch. While this makes the information more accessible, it also makes it a target for liability issues. Nurses have been terminated for looking up labs on a co-worker. With the right code you can pull up about anything. Hospitals and medical offices have had to implement rules concerning discussing patients in emails, etc. Most hospitals now have policies regarding looking up information on the computer to where you can not even look up your own information. Computer information has made patient care quicker and easier, but we have to make sure it is not costing our patients their right to privacy.

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Medical Identity Theft

February 27, 2008

I notice you deal with the subject Computer Forensic Science. What do you teach Forensic Nursing and Public Health Nursing students about preventing medical identity theft? This is regarding the public and clients that I communicate with during my Public Health Nursing duties.

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Is myspace.com, really that popular? April 25,2007

January 9, 2008

I printed out this article several months ago. Having just now cleaned off my desk the article has resurfaced. Myspace is quite popular with all ages. When utilized as initially intended, it is a great way to keep in touch with friends, family and associates. Myspace enables us to present ourselves to the public. The web site is user friendly and allows you to create dynamic presentations. I would however, like to foreworn all users to proceed with caution when personalizing their Myspace website. If the website is not set to private, anyone wishing to do so can view your Myspace. All your personal information that is placed on the site: name, address, age, pictures; are all accessible to anyone. Although Tom, the Myspace creator, has set an age limit for users, this is easily bypassed by lying about your age. I personally have a Myspace and enjoy looking at other Myspace sites. My son also has his own site. He is under age. I have access to his site and every so often will view it to make sure the content of the site is appropriate. I am writing this to help prevent violence against children, women, and men.

Original post April 25, 2007:
It seems now a days, the well-known Internet site http://www.myspace.com , is becoming more of a place for sexual predator, nudists, and drug dealers rather than a place for social networking. Recently in the news here in Jacksonville and Neptune Beach, Florida, there has been several crackdowns on sexual predators posing as under aged juveniles, attempting to engage in sexual activities with minors. There was an incident where an over aged man, got to engage in a gradual conversation with a under aged boy. The over aged man told him, he would have to meet his “older brother” first, for his approval. Well to find out, the over aged man, attempted to have sexual encounters with this male. Luckily the younger boy was able to beat him off and report it to authorities. Not everyone is as lucky though. Neptune Beach police officers on a regular basis set up undercover stings to catch sexual predators and offenders to catch them in a violation. Recently there has been a lot of news about the popular social networking going on in the website. Questions have been raised tremendously about safety risks for its many teen users. Also the possibility of identify theft. There have been several other different issues that have risen from Myspace.com. There are actually young girls running away to meet these guys that they have met on this Internet site. Some have come up missing and some have been beaten, raped or molested. Several companies are bringing forth a new policy about Internet usage due to the fact that they spend a majority of their time surfing Myspace.com rather than doing their job. A big institution in Duval county, Baker county, and Nassau county, here in Florida are among the new comers that have fired, or suspended several of their employees. Most of these employees were city or government officials. I personally do have a Myspace account to keep up with current friends and friends from high school, college, or family out of town. There is a lot of spam or junk mail that does come across each screen name. There are a lot of sexual offenders that take advantage of young users and know exactly what they are doing. Most parents do not understand the use of Myspace.com. Although there is an age block when initially signing up for the service. However if a teenager or child sets up the account, they can easily not check the appropriate age. Forensic specialist, local law enforcement, lawyers, attorneys and child support team workers are working together to stop the solicitation of the sexual offenders. They are working together to find a way to be able to identify these users, and start a regulation for the offenders to identify themselves before creating an account. Several children and teenagers have been caught in using this website to identify themselves, as people who they truly are not. Myspace is helping and also trying to help authorities to stop these offenders, predators and people imposing to be who they are not and to mislead the community. Parents honestly do not know exactly what this website is about and what exactly the misfortunes it can lead in to. Families of runaways are helping as much as they can, to find their children and to put a stop to this web site. However there are other ones out there, for example- Hi 5. This website is very similar to Myspace. Authorities are setting traps to catch some of these users, and so far they are working pretty well. Forensic specialists have the ability to search and read all documentation throughout the screen names to help find out what exactly did happen and how it happened. This is also helping to find the runaway kids that are still out there.

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Age Progression Training, comment

November 27, 2007

RESPONSE:
Click on the link to right of the main page of this blog. The title of the link is “Online Forensic Anthropology/Police Science Course at Canyon College.” You will see the class which police officers take to learn age progression imaging. The class is suitable for officers learning (for the first time) about police drawings on the computer. It is also suitable for those gaining experience after vendor instructions. And it is suitable for officers wanting advanced computer age progression techniques. Students eligible to take Forensic Anthropology include police officers, nurses, forensic nurses, anthropologists, physicians, and others. This online class allows each student to learn at his or her own pace.

Law enforcement agencies can establish an account for rapid composite drawing, police sketch, and facial reconstruction services. The final product, which is an police composite is sent to the agency via the Internet. Secure transmission is available. This frees the time of law enforcement officers and frees the resources of agencies.

For more information, you may also click on the link “Email Me With Topic Suggestions.” This is also found on the right side of the main blog page.

ORGINAL POST: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2007
Our police department needs help with making age progression pictures and photos on a computer. We recently purchased facial reconstruction software. The vendor gave us training. However, we need more time to learn to use the software. Our police officers cannot all learn at the same time.

The police department in the city next to ours wants to purchase the same software in January. The department wants to start training their officers in January 2008 to make police sketches and police drawings on the computer. They can use your help also because they handle a lot of cases of missing children.

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Age Progression Training

November 26, 2007

Our police department needs help with making age progression pictures and photos on a computer. We recently purchased facial reconstruction software. The vendor gave us training. However, we need more time to learn to use the software. Our police officers cannot all learn at the same time.

The police department in the city next to ours wants to purchase the same software in January. The department wants to start training their officers in January 2008 to make police sketches and police drawings on the computer. They can use your help also because they handle a lot of cases of missing children.

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Measures to protect patient information

September 11, 2007

1- Administrative safeguards:
a. Implementing practices to reduce identified risks;
b. Instituting a system to regularly review records of information system activity, such as
i. audit logs,
ii. access reports,
iii. and security incident tracking reports;
c. Developing a policy to sanction staff members who violate the offices security procedures;
d. Designating one staff person to be the Security Officer (similar to the designation of a Privacy Office as required by the HIPAA Privacy Rule);
e. Establishing who on staff has appropriate need to access patient records, and who does not;
f. Establishing and providing a security-training program for office staff.

2- Physical safeguards:
a. Hospital departments should be kept secure from intruders—with locks, alarm systems and other security devices and systems –the department is not open for business;
b. When the department is open for business, unattended areas are still kept secure with locks and other devices if possible, but at least closed doors;
c. Physical access to filing cabinets, computers and printers, photocopiers, fax machines and any other areas or equipment where patient information may be present should be controlled and monitored;
d. All workers should wear the organization identification badges at all times;
e. Patients and visitors should be appropriately escorted to ensure that they do not access restricted areas, and unidentified persons in restricted areas are (politely) challenged for identification;
f. When a person no longer works at the organization, keys and identification badge should be returned, alarm codes are changed, and computer access should be removed within one day.

3- Technical safeguards:
a. Computer passwords should be kept secure, and changed regularly;
b. Computer access tokens (such as key cards or USB keys), if used, should also be kept secure;
c. Computer screens should not be in plain view, where anyone other than staff can easily see them;
d. Users should log in to computer systems or terminals only with their own user ID, password or token; these only may be shared in extraordinary situations.
e. If there is no password-protected screensaver on the computer, log off when a computer system or terminal is unattended, even if it is only for a short time.
f. Computer systems should be used only for work-related functions (“playing” can provide a way in for viruses and other computer bugs);
g. Portable computing devices (laptops, PDAs) should be kept secure by remaining in the department or by password protection.
h. When a person no longer works in the organization, his/her computer use IDs and passwords should be immediately deleted, and any access tokens should be returned.
i. Use of computer-based patient information should be limited to the minimum necessary to get the job done. (Minimal security rule)
j. PHI (protected health information) should be stored on the secure servers in secure zone.

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Computer Forensic Science and Evidence

April 27, 2007

The world is becoming a much smaller place in which to live and work. A changing revolution in communications and information exchange has taken place in jobs, homes, and public places. Our world today is much more invested in information processing and management. Most of our daily lives depend on the use of some type of personal computer. We bank and transfer money electronically, and we are much more likely to receive an E-mail than a letter. We shop more on the Internet than in a regular store. We buy groceries on the Internet, clothes, animal products, jewelry, and medicine. If you can name it, you can probably find it on the Internet somewhere. It is estimated that the worldwide Internet population is over 349 million per CommerceNet Research Council 2000. As the workforce has slowly converted from manufacturing goods to processing information electronically, criminal activity has also changed from a physical dimension. Evidence and investigations are found in a wireless dimension, in which evidence exists only electronically, and investigations are conducted online. Computer forensic science was created to address the specific needs of law enforcement and specially trained forensic experts to make the most of this new form of electronic evidence. Computer forensic science is the science of acquiring, preserving, retrieving, and presenting data that has been processed electronically and stored on a computer media. Computer forensic science is, at its core, different from most usual traditional forensic disciplines. The computer material that is examined and the techniques available to the examiner are products of a market-driven private sector that are useful. In contrast to traditional forensic analysis, there now is a way to perform computer examinations at virtually any physical location, not only in a controlled laboratory setting. Rather than producing hypothetical conclusions, as in many forensic disciplines, computer forensic science produces direct information and data that may have significance impact in a particular case. This type of direct data collection has wide-ranging implications for both the relationship between the investigator, the forensic specialist, the lawyers, the judge, the accused and the work product of the forensic computer examination.
Using a computer data base is very useful in identifying identity theft, child pornography, and misrepresentation of an individual or just any type of scam artist. The computer has in deed changed over the past twenty years. The computer can do basically anything for you. The good thing about knowing the computer and being able to analyze the computer is you learn more and more, both scientifically and logically. Even though criminals think they have erased evidence on their computer or laptop, it is still in the computer brain somewhere, it’s just up to specialists and investigators to know what exactly to do to find that stored information. Having access to a criminal’s hard drive (if able to do so) is a great advancement. It will help in a situation if every thing else has gone cold, or law enforcement cannot find any other justification.

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