Mark wrote:
> >And another thing, what about having Internet >appointments for our
> surgeries, repeat scripts, etc? >Now that would save a whole load of
> receptionist >time....
>
> Until some computer geek with a grudge decides that it would be funny to
> hack your system and block-books a whole week of appointments for his cat!
>
Which is why any appointment system would need to be able to cope
with accepting appointments which have a valid signature. To do that
the patient would need to have a private key for signing his
correspondence, and a public key for the person (or process)
accepting the appointment to be able to verufy the signature. And if
the present goevernment proposals on Key Escrow go through, the
patient will need to have all this holding of keys done via an agency
which will then be able to 'sign' ANY document with the patient's
signature, and no one (including the patient) will be able to
challenge it!!
No, I am not paranoid, just concerned that the pressent proposals on
key escrow will result in large numbers of babies going out of the
window along with their bathwater.
And this has nothing to do with NHSNet. It will apply to anyone who
wants to have a private/public key pair.
Mike Wells
==========================================================
Professor Mike Wells
University Computing Service, The University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Phone: 0113-233-5416 E-Mail [log in to unmask]
==========================================================
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|