Timeline for Is email less secure than voicemail, snail mail, or internet portals for transferring sensitive information?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
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| Jun 20 at 14:48 | comment | added | DarkTrick | How did this answer change now in 2024? | |
| Sep 21, 2014 at 16:27 | comment | added | user55743 | @Brandon The banks I use (e.g. Chase, CapitalOne) have passable websites. The health portal I use looks like it was put together by a high school kid. Not just in terms of visual attractiveness, but stuff like how many million clicks I need to make before I can see my inbox message. Someone who isn't smart enough to design even a sub-par-looking website is probably not smart enough to design a secure website. | |
| Sep 20, 2014 at 10:38 | comment | added | o0'. | @Brandon I don't buy that. If you have money to spend on security, you certainly must have some money to spend on proper design too, since it usually costs an order of magnitude less... i.e. if you do not even bother to have a nice design, I don't really believe you spent the due amount of money on security either. | |
| Sep 19, 2014 at 22:59 | comment | added | Xander | @DavidConrad. You would not know, as you would not with postal mail or email. This is one of the reasons I describe it as somewhere between those mechanisms. | |
| Sep 19, 2014 at 22:36 | comment | added | David Conrad | @Xander What do you base your statements about voicemail on? How would you know, when you send a voicemail, whether it has been intercepted by an eavesdropper? | |
| Sep 19, 2014 at 13:31 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | ... I mean, before anyone else says it, naturally Google hands a copy of it all to the NSA, but then so would HealthCareCo or for that matter the USPS if leant on. I don't think HIPAA requirements are really designed to defend against national security legislation. | |
| Sep 19, 2014 at 13:29 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | Also, if HealthCareCo said your email had to be from one of a list of reputable providers to whom they can deliver direct from their server by SMTPS, then they'd be in a similar position to where they are with snail mail: they hand it securely to Google, Google under normal circs does a good job of secure delivery, and if you set your Google account to forward somewhere less secure, well, that's like you taking out your mail and leaving it on your lawn. But the health care industry presumably doesn't see enough benefit in assessing and enforcing good email provision, can't say I blame them. | |
| Sep 19, 2014 at 12:54 | comment | added | Brandon | @KennyLJ An ugly web site is not necessarily an insecure web site. It just means they value security more than eye candy. Not a bad value system for a healthcare provider, in my opinion. Ever notice how banks have some of the worst web sites/apps? They are clunky, ugly, confusing, and outright obnoxious to use. But I bet you they are safe. | |
| Sep 18, 2014 at 17:19 | comment | added | Xander | @KennyLJ Voicemail is different, and somewhere between snail mail and email in that it leaves the providers system and is left in the hands of a telco to deliver to you. While voicemail is not immune to attack (as we well know from the Fox News case in England a few years back) it doesn't have the systemic weakness of email. When I leave someone a voicemail, there's nearly 100% chance of them receiving it without it being intercepted first. Not 100%, but close enough to be negligible. The confidence level for email is far, far below that, and quite non-negligible. | |
| Sep 18, 2014 at 17:15 | comment | added | Xander | @KennyLJ With a web portal, the quality may be poor, but with an adequate authentication system and HTTPS, they control the entire channel from their end to yours, and can reasonably assess it and declare it secure. | |
| Sep 18, 2014 at 17:10 | comment | added | user55743 | What about say email vs internet portal (which, in the case of my particular healthcare provider, appears, at least superficially, to be pretty unprofessionally done)? Or email vs voicemail? | |
| Sep 18, 2014 at 16:40 | history | answered | Xander | CC BY-SA 3.0 |