Trial commences in Finland for 26 y/o who allegedly blackmailed psychotherapy patients

[thewayne]

The twerp hacked Vastaamo Psychotherapy Center and stole all their patient files, which included notes taken during therapy sessions. The center refused to pay a six-figure ransom, so he switched to trying to extort the individual patients for 500 Euro each. That didn't prove a revenue generator either, so he dumped all the files on a dark web site. This was October 2020.

In February 2023 he was arrested by French police when the man, 6'3" and green-eyed, presented Romanian identification which proved false. His attorneys asked for his release during the trial as he had already been jailed for eight months. The judge declared that he was still a flight risk and ordered him held for the duration of the trial.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/11/alleged-extortioner-of-psychotherapy-patients-faces-trial/

Comments

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Of course unified records would be convenient and have health benefits. The question is whether those benefits justify the risks and the costs.

Consider that the last stable number of people's approval for the medical industry was a dismal 33% and has since plummeted but not yet stabilized; I've seen numbers all over the twenties and a few in the teens. So if people don't trust the health industry, and don't have control over their own records or consider those in safe storage -- the last points of control they have are not talking or not going. I got new glasses recently. The "privacy" statement consisted of a long list of places they planned to hand my information to, including the goddamn military, and they were demanding a lot of information that had nothing to do with my eyes. Well, if people don't feel safe sharing information, then a whole lot more health issues will go untreated. I think that's a serious problem. And not a lot of people are taking it seriously.

From what I see, information security is the same as telling a woman to keep her knees together and then her having to deal with a rape-friendly society. Sure I'd love to keep my data secure -- but I can't have that and participate in society or get health care. So I wind up minimizing contact as much as possible and resenting the violations. Not a great situation.