LuxSci has implemented a number of enhancements which add to its already stringent security and high reliability of services.  These features cover areas such as login security, password resets, SecureLine encryption, Widget backups, and more. The enhancements are listed below, by service.

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Changes to HIPAA as a result of HITECH provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are going into effect on February 17, 2010.  These changes seriously impact the requirements on Business Associates and impose significant liability penalties on HIPAA violations.  For a discussion of these and how they relate to email and web services, see: HITECH 2010: HITECH Impact on Email and Web Outsourcing.

In response to these changes and to ensure that both LuxSci and its HIPAA customers are HIPAA-compliant:

• Old BAA Void: All Business Associate Agreements (BAA), formerly known as Medical Privacy Agreements, that current LuxSci customers have by virtue of the old BAA being incorporated automatically in LuxSci’s Master Services Agreement are VOID as of February 17th, 2010.
• New BAA Required: Any LuxSci Customer who is using or plans to use LuxSci for ePHI (electronic protected health information) of any kind (i.e. email, web sites, WebAides, databases, etc) must explicitly sign our new BAA and ARA (Account Restrictions Agreement) before LuxSci will consider itself a Business Associate and the customer’s LuxSci account HIPAA compliant.

LuxSci will be contacting customers that it believes might need to sign a BAA and ARA during the month of February.  However, as LuxSci does not know which customers are using their account(s) for storage or transmission of ePHI, it is up to our customers to contact LuxSci to establish a BAA.

See:

• Lux Scientiae HIPAA Busines Associate Agreement
• Lux Scientiae HIPAA Account Restrictions Agreement
• Medical Privacy / HIPAA in LuxSci’s Privacy Policy

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LuxSci has made some changes to it Privacy Policy.  These changes expand the types of things that LuxSci considers to be confidential and strengthen LuxSci’s confidentiality statement.  The Privacy Policy is posted here – Lux Scientiae Privacy Policy.

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McAfee, LuxSci’s partner in providing Premium Email Filtering and Premium Email Archival, has reduced some of its prices for Email Archival. LuxSci is able to pass these savings on to new customers. Customers with existing archival contracts with LuxSci can opt for a new contract and changed pricing by contacting LuxSci Support.

The pricing changes are as follows:

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This article is Part 4 of our series on Internet Programming. See the Introduction and Part 1, Introduction to HTML. This article covers logical comparisons, making decisions with if, comparing text, while and for loops, and debugging hints.

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On January 30th, 2010, LuxSci will be releasing a set of software updates that add new security features and enhance existing security features.  Additionally, LuxSci is introducing a new Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA customers — one that complies with the new HITECH provisions of HIPAA.  These changes will impact some existing and future customers, as described in this notice.

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Surprise!  HIPAA has changed, gotten bigger, and grown teeth.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or The Obama Stimulus Bill), signed into law in February 2009, includes new, more comprehensive provisions for HIPAA. These provisions are in a section of the bill known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH).

For organizations that are already required to abide by HIPAA (i.e. the “Covered Entities” of HIPAA), HITECH adds the following requirements:

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LuxSci has been a partner of MX Logic since 2003, integrating with them to provide Premium Email Filtering and Premium Email Archival.

Over the weekend of Jan. 22-24, MX Logic will deploy a wide range of service and feature enhancements, many of which will reflect the initial phase of changes from MX Logic to McAfee (they were recently acquired by McAfee).  These changes include:

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This article is Part 3 of our series on Introduction to Internet Programming series. See the Introduction and Part 1, Introduction to HTML. The Introduction to Perl covers the basics of Perl, including how to write and debug simple scripts.. Perl is a computer programming language that is very good at manipulating strings, doing pattern matches, and pretty much just about everything else! It is a relatively slow language compared to compiled languages like C, however it very easy to get programs up and running very quickly in Perl.

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We have previously discussed the various options for email distribution lists in our post: Three Kinds of Distribution Lists.  However, we are often asked how to make distribution lists with special properties, such as:

• Only people who belong to the list can send to the list
• Have messages sent to the list be spam filtered
• Only forward messages with certain content in them to the list
• Block messages from certain people or with certain content in them
• Add custom headers to messages sent to the list
• Etc. –  the list goes on

These are all very doable at LuxSci by using a “4th” way of making a distribution list — using custom email filters.

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