HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

[sharon sanders]

PlanFirst Webcasts on Pandemic Influenza

http://javascript<b></b>:window.ope...=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes'); void(''); <TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 summary="This table is used to format page content" cellPadding=0 width=760><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px" width=410></TD><TD style="FLOAT: none" vAlign=top width=350>The Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for protecting citizens from public health and medical emergencies, including a possible influenza pandemic. Significant progress has been made to prepare the Nation for a flu pandemic but the threat remains so our work continues.
To learn about the current status of the H5N1 virus, new advances in medical countermeasures, progress made towards public health preparedness and the challenges that remain please join us on Wednesday, January 28th at 2 p.m. ET .
No registration is required. Email your questions for the Webcast panelists before and/or during the program to hhsstudio@hhs.gov. Please include your first name, state and town.

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Speakers:

• RADM W. Craig Vanderwagen, MD, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, HHS
• Nancy Cox, PhD, Director, Influenza Division, CDC
• Robin Robinson, PhD, Director, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, HHS

Sign on here:

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/news/panflu_webinar.html

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

bump this.

 

[tropical]

Re: HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

It sounds good.

#1: "The Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for protecting citizens from public health and medical emergencies, including a possible influenza pandemic."

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

PandemicFlu.Gov on Twitter



# 2720


Over the past couple of weeks I've written about Twitter (see Agencies All Atwitter ) , and how government agencies are moving into this (relatively) new communications medium.

FEMA recently held a press conference using Twitter, and today, the HHS provided a twitter feed (#planfirst) to go along with today's PlanFirst Webcast.

Several flubies, including StandingFirmCM, and Flutrackers also participated, re-tweeting BirdFluGov updates to their followers.

In this way, many more people saw the #planfirst tweets than just those following BirdFluGov.

Kudos to all those involved!

You can follow today's (and future) twitter feed on the PlanFirst broadcast by visiting (Instead of writing a review of the event, I participated live for FT - Fla1)


http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23planfirst


​

And if you missed the HHS Planfirst broadcast today, it will be archived and available for viewing within a couple of weeks on the HHS site.


Here is the news release on pandemicflu.gov.

PandemicFlu.gov is on Twitter


Follow us at http://twitter.com/BirdFluGov.
More Information about Twitter and How We Plan to Use It


What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social messaging utility that helps users communicate in real-time. Each message is 140 characters or less in length, and is called a “tweet.” Tweets can be sent and received using computers and mobile devices. Twitter lets you control how many messages you receive by allowing you to choose the users you want to “follow.” Other people can “follow” you to receive your updates. Twitter in Plain English is an excellent, short (2:25 min.) video that provides more on the basics of Twitter.

How does PandemicFlu.gov plan to use Twitter?
Our presence on Twitter is an experiment in progress. We plan to provide updates when information is posted to the PandemicFlu.gov Web site and when there are credible reports about Bird Flu in the mainstream media. There are many other potential uses of the medium and we encourage anyone with ideas to make a suggestion by sending us a tweet.

Will we follow you back?
We recognize that new tools like Twitter derive much of their value from the two-way conversations that they enable. However, participating in these new forums adds additional responsibilities without the benefit of additional resources. To help us manage our workload while experimenting with these new tools, our current approach is to only follow users who have sent meaningful and pertinent replies directly to our Twitter account.

What about Hashtags?
Hashtags (#) help organize tweets on Twitter into user-defined groupings around one general topic, making threaded conversation easy to follow. Individuals from the PanFlu community have suggested that we use the #prep and #panflu hashtags on our Twitter account. For the time being, our intention is to use #planfirst in conjunction with our PlanFirst Webcast series. To see how this would work, try searching for #planfirst on Twitter.
​

FluTrackers page on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/FluTrackers

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

FluTrackers joined Twitter a week ago to evaluate the effectiveness of this medium.

It has some serious limitations. Only 150 characters per message.

And it is a for profit enterprise. Its assets (the messages, comments, etc.) can be sold at any time.


"...Twitter collects personally identifiable information about its users and shares it with third parties. Twitter considers that information an asset, and reserves the right to sell it if the company changes hands.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference">[22]

</sup> A security vulnerability was reported on April 7 2007 by Nitesh Dhanjani & Rujith. The problem was due to Twitter's using the SMS message originator as the authentication of the user's account. Nitesh used fakemytext.com to spoof a text message, whereupon Twitter posted the message on the victim's page. This vulnerability can only be used if the victim's phone number is known.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference">[23]</sup> Twitter introduced an optional PIN that its users can specify to authenticate SMS-originating messages within a few weeks of this discovery.

The site Qwitter [1] was created to notify users when someone who was following them has stopped.<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference">[24]

</sup> On January 5, 2009, 33 high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised, and falsified messages—including sexually explicit and drug-related messages—were sent.<sup id="cite_ref-washtimes20090105_24-0" class="reference">[25]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-techcrunch20090105_25-0" class="reference">[26]</sup> The accounts were compromised after a Twitter administrator's password was guessed via a dictionary attack.<sup id="cite_ref-techcrunch20090105-2_26-0" class="reference">[27]</sup>



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

 

[tropical]

Re: HHS - PlanFirst Webcast On Pandemic Influenza January 28, 2009

#5

It seems it unfortunately quite early becamed an overture to additional spam/.../tec.device sec. breaches.