On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 05:34:41PM -0400, Jean-David Beyer wrote: > On 10/04/2015 10:30 AM, Don Saklad wrote: > > How can it be made even easier!? > > > > Trying to encourage M.D.'s to use it is met with complaints about not > > having time to learn about it. Set up is a too complicated sequence of > > steps that aren't entirely clear. The steps can get hampered where there > > aren't instructions that cover what to do when one of the steps goes > > awry! > > > > Not just doctors. My lawyer has the same problem. She really needs > signed e-mails and encrypted e-mails, but has not the time to learn all > about how to install and use it.
Dare I suggest that people who need private and/or integrity-protected email for professional use should hire a professional to interview them, set up the software according to the client's standards for professional practice, and explain its use? (That would suppose that one *can* find such people for hire.) Doctors and lawyers shouldn't be doing such things for themselves -- they aren't trained for it, they don't have time for it, and much rides on getting it right. (I had added "and bankers", but banks have whole departments devoted to securing records and communication, or should.) Doctors and lawyers hire accountants to set up their financial subsystems, so why not hire experts to set up their communication subsystems? It probably comes down to getting the professions to squarely address the problem of just what *are* their standards of professional practice for secure electronic communication with their business associates. I get the sense that this is a problem which is being studiously ignored because it is (a) hard and (b) deep in somebody else's problem domain. We should always be looking for ways to make things easier to use. But there are limits to just how simple some processes can be made before violence is done to the nature of the process and the utility of its outcomes. There *are* doctors and lawyers because medicine and law are inherently hard problems requiring considerable expertise to do well. What is the limit of simplification of secure electronic messaging imposed by its intrinsic difficulties? We should be wary of transgressing that limit in the name of further ease of use. There are already enough examples of systems which have been made so easy to use that they should not be used at all. -- Mark H. Wood Lead Technology Analyst University Library Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis 755 W. Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-274-0749 www.ulib.iupui.edu
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