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Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by asdaddasdad on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @03:09AM (#21122747)
Does the paged text typically contain information that can identify the patient?
Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by lunchables on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @09:31AM (#21125094)
https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-care/article...

"An information technology worker from Johnson County recently told The Star about the issue after he stumbled across hospital pager information while playing with an antenna, which he bought to get TV channels on his laptop computer. With a simple program, the antenna picks up radio signals that can be digitized.

Except instead of picking up local TV stations, he started seeing things like this, with the patient's and doctor's names included:

RQSTD RTM: (patient's name) 19 M Origin Unit: EDOF Admitting: (doctor's name) Level of Care: 1st Avail Medical Diagnosis: TONSILAR BLEED, ANEMIA, THROMBOCYTOPENIA

It was the personal patient data of a 19-year-old man, broadcast across the airwaves for anyone to read. And it was coming from a local hospital, which was sending the message to a doctor on a pager."

Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by hannob on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @04:38AM (#21123278)
I looked into some of such cases in Germany, there the answer was definitely yes. Names and addresses, coupled with extremely sensitive medical information.
Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by satanspastaroll on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @03:41AM (#21122928)
I'd imagine it to be trivial to also send malicious signals and jam the system.
Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by giancarlostoro on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @06:35AM (#21123889)
That sounds like any radio frequency though. Alao a great way to get the FCC knocking on your door sooner or later.
Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by satanspastaroll on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @07:02AM (#21124046)
True you could create a trash beacon for any frequency, but as you said it'd be very "loud". Disrupting service with seemingly innocent messages would be much harder to detect though
Re:Japanese pagers to issue last beeps on Tuesday, ending 50... by giancarlostoro on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @08:13AM (#21124423)
Oh I see, you're suggesting a very specified attack. Sounds like a smaller scale Stingray or something, but for beepers.

Edit: Yeah I'm not entirely familiar with interference detection, but I would always suspect some HAM somewhere will figure it out and report it.