A Note and a Follow Up On Sermo

There will be no other posts today, as we are recovering from overnight calls and other clinical duties.
In other news. The Sermo (and other physicians-only networks) security vulnerability story continues to reverberate across different media channels. Xconomy, a Boston business publication, has published a story yesterday, Sermo Strikes Back: A Physicians’ Online Community Lashes Out Against Bloggers Who Publicize Security Gap. Though a balanced story, they never ask Dr. Palestrant and Co. the hard questions about the continuing susceptibility of Sermo’s network. Dr. Palestrant still lies that they beefed up security by introducing a patch that features new authentication protocols based on “data that should be available only to the individuals.”
The truth of the matter is that Sermo does not have any better information about American MDs than anyone else. Hence, they still rely on publicly available data. On the other hand, if it is true that they do have our private data, we want to know what private data they have and where they got it from.
In other news, as Xconomy is reporting, Medgadget members got quite an ire from some vocal Sermo members. In addition to ire, we got libeled by an anonymous posting inside Sermo. When we contacted the company, they sent us a legal response that they have a “policy of allowing the free exchange of information posted by physicians.” It seems now that anonymous libel and slander against two physicians is the information that Sermo is proud to contain.
As you can assume, we will be working on the Sermo story for the foreseeable future. Stay tuned.
More: Medgadget’s Guide to Hacking into Social Networks for Doctors …; Confirmed: Sermo Is Not for Physicians Only; New Important Questions Raised …; Open Letter to Dr. Daniel Palestrant, CEO of Sermo.com…; Sermo Improves Registration Security; Needs to Do More ….
Update: Mexican Medical Student has an excellent overview of the security issues involved in private social networks here.