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Does the paged text typically contain information that can identify the patient?

by asdaddasdad 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
satanspastaroll 7y ago
I'd imagine it to be trivial to also send malicious signals and jam the system.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  That sounds like any radio frequency though. Alao a great way to get the FCC knocking on your door sooner or later.
  - satanspastaroll 7y ago
    True you could create a trash beacon for any frequency, but as you said it'd be very "loud". Disrupting service with seemingly innocent messages would be much harder to detect though
    - giancarlostoro 7y ago
      Oh I see, you're suggesting a very specified attack. Sounds like a smaller scale Stingray or something, but for beepers. Edit: Yeah I'm not entirely familiar with interference detection, but I would always suspect some HAM somewhere will figure it out and report it.
hannob 7y ago
I looked into some of such cases in Germany, there the answer was definitely yes. Names and addresses, coupled with extremely sensitive medical information.
lunchables 7y ago
https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article213414334.html https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article... "An information technology worker from Johnson County recently told The Star about the issue after he stumbled across hospital pager information while playing with an antenna, which he bought to get TV channels on his laptop computer. With a simple program, the antenna picks up radio signals that can be digitized. Except instead of picking up local TV stations, he started seeing things like this, with the patient's and doctor's names included: RQSTD RTM: (patient's name) 19 M Origin Unit: EDOF Admitting: (doctor's name) Level of Care: 1st Avail Medical Diagnosis: TONSILAR BLEED, ANEMIA, THROMBOCYTOPENIA It was the personal patient data of a 19-year-old man, broadcast across the airwaves for anyone to read. And it was coming from a local hospital, which was sending the message to a doctor on a pager."

Does the paged text typically contain information that can identify the patient?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

satanspastaroll 7y ago

I'd imagine it to be trivial to also send malicious signals and jam the system.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
That sounds like any radio frequency though. Alao a great way to get the FCC knocking on your door sooner or later.
- satanspastaroll 7y ago
  True you could create a trash beacon for any frequency, but as you said it'd be very "loud". Disrupting service with seemingly innocent messages would be much harder to detect though
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Oh I see, you're suggesting a very specified attack. Sounds like a smaller scale Stingray or something, but for beepers. Edit: Yeah I'm not entirely familiar with interference detection, but I would always suspect some HAM somewhere will figure it out and report it.

hannob 7y ago

I looked into some of such cases in Germany, there the answer was definitely yes. Names and addresses, coupled with extremely sensitive medical information.

lunchables 7y ago

https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article213414334.html https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article... "An information technology worker from Johnson County recently told The Star about the issue after he stumbled across hospital pager information while playing with an antenna, which he bought to get TV channels on his laptop computer. With a simple program, the antenna picks up radio signals that can be digitized. Except instead of picking up local TV stations, he started seeing things like this, with the patient's and doctor's names included: RQSTD RTM: (patient's name) 19 M Origin Unit: EDOF Admitting: (doctor's name) Level of Care: 1st Avail Medical Diagnosis: TONSILAR BLEED, ANEMIA, THROMBOCYTOPENIA It was the personal patient data of a 19-year-old man, broadcast across the airwaves for anyone to read. And it was coming from a local hospital, which was sending the message to a doctor on a pager."