jkao-propublica

Hey folks -- Jeff Kao at ProPublica here.

What was most frustrating to me while reporting this story, was that a researcher had written about this exact problem (after scanning ipv4 for the port) back in 2016. HIPAA is one of the only federal data privacy laws w/ teeth, and this type of obvious insecurity is pretty inexcusable.

Thanks for reading. If you think there's something we should look into, we'd love to hear about it. :-)

P.S. As a fast.ai student -- thanks Jeremy for posting!

Hey HN, I'm a reporter at the non-profit newsroom ProPublica. I used to be a software engineer in the Bay Area, but now I work primarily with data and code for news investigations.

We published a story today that found that a lot of the firms touting their ransomware decryption services actually end up paying the hackers (often behind the client's back) and then tacking on a fee.

Though you all would find it interesting. A great tidbit that my reporting partner Renee uncovered: a former deputy FBI director was paid to promote MonsterCloud, while knowing that they paid bitcoin to cybercriminals.

He's also a former TSA director. So of course, he partnered with their CEO on a side biz to put massage chairs in airports. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, thought this would be a story that HN would enjoy. Would love to hear y'all's thoughts since this is the community with the expertise & experience to comment. If you have things (ransomware or otherwise) you think we should look into, would love to hear as well. :-)