NHS email encryption

[Charles Lindsey]

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:07:27 +0100, Adrian Midgley <amidgley2@defoam.net>  
wrote:

> Dave Howe wrote:

>>   I *do* know the nhs.net official mailservers have been causing us
>> problems - they assert their wilingness/ability to do opportunistic
>> crypto in their EHLO replies, but then drop the connection if you
>> attempt to do a STARTTLS from outside of the nhs.... This is
>> apparently a deliberate security misfeature, no idea how or why they
>> would implement that.
> Is it possible to document that (I mean further than just saying it - I
> believe you of course)?
>
> And can I confirm that this would mean that the system being presented
> to doctors and all other NHS workers as providing encrypted ("end to
> end" no less) transmission to collect mail by (webmail and) POP3 and
> IMAP4 over SSL so as to safely carry patient-identifiable information
> between places in the NHS network and places outside it, does not
> provide that encryption when operated as described?

I don't think STARTTLS will ever give you "end-to-end" encryption. The  
most it can do is to protect you against eavesdroppers on the external  
lines. Within the nhs server farm the message would still be in the clear,  
where any NHS employee could see it. But, of course, they would never do  
that, would they.

If you want end-to-end encryption, then you use multipart/encrypted. Or  
PGP.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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