Hackers Threaten To Leak Plastic Surgery Pictures (bbc.com) 33
Hackers have stolen the data of a large cosmetic surgery chain and are threatening to publish patients' before and after photos, among other details. From a report: The Hospital Group, which has a long list of celebrity endorsements, has confirmed the ransomware attack. It said it had informed the Information Commissioner of the breach. On its darknet webpage, the hacker group known as REvil said the "intimate photos of customers" were "not a completely pleasant sight." It claimed to have obtained more than 900 gigabytes of patient photographs. The Hospital Group, which is also known as the Transform Hospital Group, claims to be the UK's leading specialist weight loss and cosmetic surgery group. It has 11 clinics specialising in bariatric weight loss surgery, breast enlargements, nipple corrections and nose adjustments. The company has previously promoted itself via celebrity endorsements, although it has not done so for several years. Former Big Brother contestant Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace told Zoo magazine about her breast enhancement surgery with The Hospital Group in 2009. Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, Shameless actress Tina Malone and reality TV star Joey Essex from The Only Way is Essex are also previous patients who have endorsed the clinic.
Re:Vanity Is A Bitch (Score:5, Informative)
Seems these folks getting surgery need some mental help. Maybe this will push them in that direction. Go Hackers!
Statistically speaking, this is far more likely to push them over the edge, as in kill themselves. http://breastimplantinfo.org/b... [breastimplantinfo.org]
I don't think you should be cheering extortion of individuals.
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Privacy Is A Bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. That's not really the point. No one, hackers or otherwise should be revealing other people's personal data. Some other principled hacker might return the favor some day to their fellows because we all have personal data we don't want others to know.
Re:Vanity Is A Bitch (Score:5, Informative)
Seems these folks getting surgery need some mental help. Maybe this will push them in that direction. Go Hackers!
Not everyone who gets plastic surgery does so to enhance their looks. Some do it for health reasons (e.g. reduction mammoplasty to alleviate neck, shoulder and back pain ).
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>Some do it for health reasons (e.g. reduction mammoplasty to alleviate neck, shoulder and back pain ).
So you are hoping for Ariel Winter before pictures too?
Re:Vanity Is A Bitch (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all cosmetics are "vanity".
You had a car accident, and lost part of your nose. What will you do?
You have a defect that actually makes it harder to do daily tasks, like eating. What will you do?
You need to hide, maybe enter witness protection, and have to change your looks. What will you do?
Vanity funds it (Score:2)
Overpriced vanity funds the system which then provides somewhat affordable reconstruction surgery. It's not all bad; besides, the people who NEED the work done largely need it to fit into the same society who doesn't treat their deformed appearance well... and naturally that also extends to minor problems lucky people who only worry about their breast size not being what they'd like.
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Forgot:
Maybe you have a cosmetic defect that means you'll not be hired for your dream job. Welcome to real life.
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I never said it was. I was just pointing out the sick ones who do it for vanity. Reading comprehension. Google it.
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Criticism noted. I was too busy learning calculus and psychology to take a writing class.
I also assume people think like I do and they don't. O well. As they say, Freedom of Speech and all that.
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Ten years ago I had lost a clinically significant amount of weight and was left with a flab/skin roll that wasn't going to go away by itself. So I had a tummy tuck to get rid of it. I was thrilled with the results. I still am.
Money well spent. The surgeon has before and after pictures in his files - I've seen them and given permission for him to show them to others - but they're not identifiable as me.
...laura
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Hmmm. I've seen that button before! j/k
Obligatory Mr. Robot Reference (Score:2)
So what? (Score:1)
Taboos are stupid and we should not care about seeing photos of meat any more than we care about seeing photos of clouds.
Re: So what? (Score:2)
It's like you've never been among humans and haven't heard of the concepts of privacy ... and of shame (The kind that leads people to do plasic surgery in the first place. Yes, not nudity itself. Nude beaches and saunas and nudity in ads or at home among friends and family is normal here in Germany because it is normal. [It's just usually not warm enough for it.]).
Re:Who agrees to let a hospital store this stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who signs off on allowing a hospital to keep this stuff on a server gets what is coming to them....If the patients didn't sign a consent form, and the hospital is keeping intimate pictures without the patient's permission, a lot of people need to go to jail.
The answer is everyone signs off on this because it is a routine clause in the waivers one signs for plastic surgery.. The pictures are used for before/after comparisons, marketing purposes, legal defense, and journal articles.
Digital information wants to be free.
No. Stop with anthropomorphizing 1s and 0s. "Digital information" isn't alive let alone sentient and doesn't want anything. That is a cop-out statement to brush off and excuse people breaking into accessible data systems and taking information. You may as well say "Jewelry wants to be free!" the next time a home is burgled or a jewelry store is robbed.
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"Information wants to be free" the same way "life finds a way" and "physical systems seek their minimum energy state." It's not something you might want to happen, but entropy says yes.
Which is a good lesson for people storing this kind of archival, rarely accessed data. If it's convenient to access, it's convenient to steal.
The last hospital I worked at had an excellent alternative system. If you wanted some old patient data you had to figure out where the charts were (nobody really knew for sure, could be
Re: Who agrees to let a hospital store this stuff (Score:2)
Yes, information does not "want" to he free.
It IS free.
Because basic physics even prevent you from keeping the control necessary to even *know* if it was shared with the whole world behind your back unless sombody tells you. (Which is inevitable for the same reason, due to the point, so the point stands.)
Alright, here's the combination for the air shield (Score:2)
Just don't leak the pictures.
The combination is:
1 . . .
2 . . .
3 . . .
4 . . .
5 . . .
Good! (Score:1)
Now I can see if the doctors are any good before I plop down money to fix my Nixonesqe nose.
Remember the days when (Score:2)
Remember when celebs were threatened that their Playboy photos would get sent to major newspapers?