Personal blog of Yzmir Ramirez

Any web developer today is probably running Firefox because of some of the great add-ons they have (i.e. WebDeveloper, Colorzilla, Firebug, Hackbar, etc…). But you may also want to install some addons for security:

Security and privacy are some of the major concerns these days while choosing a web browser to use. So much so that all the major players in the “browser wars” are providing or developing a private browsing mode.

Firefox with the myraid of add-ons that it has to offer is never far from action. Here are some of the top Firefox addons that you should install for better privacy and security

Check out this article for the list of 10+ Best Firefox Addons for Security and Privacy.

To use Lindell’s new protocol, the first party (“Alice” in cryptography speak) would create a key with which both parties could encrypt their data. The key would be stored on a special kind of secure smart card. Alice would then hand over the smart card to the second party in the scenario (known as “Bob”), and both parties would use the key to encrypt their respective databases. Next Alice sends her encrypted database to Bob.

The contents of Alice’s encrypted database cannot be read by Bob, but he can see where it matches entries in the encrypted version of his own database. In this way, Bob can see what information both he and Alice share. For extra protection, Bob would only have a limited amount of time to use the secret key on the smart card because it is deleted remotely by Alice, using a special messaging protocol.

Source: Technology Review

I wonder if this could be extended for medical records, where I could generate a temporary key that I provide to  ‘Bob’, a hospital, who would then read from ‘Alice’, Google or another hospital who has my records.  Keeping a log knowing exactly what was viewed would be good to know.

Wiring up physicians from small practices will be one of the biggest hurdles.

Physicians and information specialists across the country are feverishly figuring out how to best prepare for the impending availability of $19 billion designated for health-care IT spending in the newly signed stimulus bill. Broadly deploying electronic health records (EHRs), they say, will require special support for small private practices across the country.

In my humble opinion we need to fix things like the vulnerability of DNS servers and SSL certificates, before something like this goes into effect. (more…)