Tech support as if it mattered

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 11 May 2008 04:06PM CDT

Section: Business

ExpressionEngineTwo things about software: it all has bugs and it’s all more complicated than you think. Or at least than I think. Or something. Yesterday, at 5:45PM I received an email from the chief technology officer of the vendor of the software I use to run this website. He told me that someone had reported a security vulnerability to them (just the kind of message you want to get at the end of a long day).

Turns out the vulnerability had been resolved two major versions and three years ago but I hadn’t managed my updates properly and needed to fix a few things immediately.

Instead of treating me like a dumbass who rarely realizes he’s in way over his head, Derek merely made some suggestions. At 3:45PM on what I bet was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Portland. Well, EllisLab principals are geographically dispersed, and I’m not sure where, exactly, he’s located, but I’ll bet there were any number of things he’d rather be doing than telling me my server has a security issue. Imagine my surprise when he didn’t even make fun of me for running his elegant software on a rickety old Windows enterprise server box that I’ve been trying to migrate to Ubuntu for more than a year. But now I’m thinking a Mac, but that’s a story for another day.

And just to top things off, he checked in again this morning—Sunday—to double-check my fixes.

So, hearty thanks, Derek. What a delightful surprise to find that on the verge of another tech bubble burst, there’s still great software and better people working on it.

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Laptops can be searched at US border without cause

By Michael Fraase

Wednesday, 07 May 2008 07:23PM CDT

Section: Privacy

FileVaultLast month the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops can be searched by US border agents without cause. A previous US District Court for the Central District of California ruling found such laptop searches to be “intrusions of the mind.” The US Justice Department argued that electronic devices are containers no different from luggage and should be subject to search.

The ruling allows the contents of electronic devices to be copied and the hardware confiscated. This poses significant problems for business travelers who are working on proprietary documents, lawyers carrying documents and notes protected by privilege, journalists carrying notes from confidential sources, or doctors carrying medical records.

US Attorney Thomas O’Brien supported the decision in a prepared statement: “The government needs to have the ability to restrict harmful material from entering the country, whether that be weapons used by terrorists, dangerous narcotics, or child pornography.”

Thankfully there’s a relatively simple remedy. If you’re using OS X, FileVault is built-in to the operating system and encrypts your home directory. Be sure to turn off your MacBook Pro, though; OS X stores account passwords in RAM. If you’re using Windows or Linux, consider the freeware TrueCrypt. In the US it’s currently up for grabs whether or not a border agent can force you to decrypt the contents of your laptop.

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Morality and metrics in dialysis

By Michael Fraase

Sunday, 04 May 2008 01:09PM CDT

Section: ESRD

Medical moneyAfter the Epogen overuse dust up last year, you just knew the US government would stumble over itself trying to remedy the problem and end up making it worse. Well, here come the unintended consequences.

Earlier this year the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) submitted a report to Congress, ”A Design for a Bundled End Stage Renal Disease Prospective Payment System.” The crux of the proposal is to “bundle” payments for dialysis medications and medical treatment into a single payment of US$234.66 (in 2006 dollars) per treatment with up to 13 treatments per month. The intent of the proposal, presumably, is simple: reduce Epogen overuse by capping and combining payment for it with medical services.

A secondary purpose behind the proposal is probably to reduce the Medicare expense for dialysis. Almost all dialysis patients are covered under Medicare, regardless of age. The CMS report indicates that as of 2006 there were roughly 4,700 outpatient dialysis facilities serving 315,000 Medicare dialysis patients to the tune of US$8.1 billion.

If the goal is to stop the overuse of Epogen, there are far better ways to reach that goal: have Medicare negotiate the medication prices directly, thereby removing dialysis providers from the drug business is one that comes immediately to mind. Paying providers based on patient outcomes is another.

More...

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