Clark Boyd

Clark Boyd

Clark Boyd is a reporter for The World. From advances in technology to the ups and downs of the markets, he has reported from many different countries for the show. He is now based out of the Boston newsroom.

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Tech Podcast: Cell phones fight fake drugs

April 6, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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Counterfeit drugs are a massive global problem. The UN estimates the worldwide trade in fake pharmaceuticals to be upwards of $500 billion. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the developing world, die each year because they don’t get the medication they thought they were getting. But what if there were an easy, cheap way for those buying the medications to validate their authenticity? And what if that system used a tool that most people in the developing world had close to hand — a cell phone? Well, that’s where a company called Sproxil comes in. Sproxil provides a scratch-off authentication label attached to medication. At the point of sale, a customer can send a free text message via short-code to a number provided on the label. And in just seconds, they’ll receive a message back either authenticating the drug, or warning the consumer that it might be fake. We’ll have an interview with Sproxil’s 28 year-old founder, Ashifi Gogo, who is himself from Ghana in West Africa. Here are a few links for that story:

We’ve also got a great interview about some work done by our friends at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. They got an inside look at some hacking done by the Chinese against Indian websites. We speak with Rafal Rohozinski, of the Ottawa-based SecDev Group. Rohozinski worked on the report, called Shadows in the Cloud: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0.

Here are some other links of interest from the ‘cast:

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Discussion

3 comments for “Tech Podcast: Cell phones fight fake drugs”

  • John Matthesen

    The experiment by the Finnish post office is interesting, but not new. There is a company in the USA called Earth Class Mail that has been doing this already for several years. Check them out at earthclassmail.com. I am not affiliated with them in any way, but I know several people who use it and like it.

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      John —

      Thanks for stopping by and leaving this information. ANy listeners out there actually using Earth Class Mail? Would love to talk to you about it.

  • Scott Williams

    I found the story on Red Star to be fascinating, mostly because it leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

    First, how open source is the OS? As in, can the people of North Korea modify it in ways that would allow them to circumvent the controls? And, could some sort of espionage from outside North Korea take advantage of the open source nature?

    Second, you mentioned that the OS uses versions of Microsoft and Firefox. I assume that these are pirated and not official versions (in the case of Microsoft specifically). Also, do we know how much modification was made to them.

    Finally, I assume with Firefox that they have access to the internet, but I also assume that it is a VERY restricted internet that the North Koreans are given.