West Lothian and email

[Roland Perry]

In article <20090115192320.wa82hbitm8s84ck0@webmail01.purplecloud.com>, 
signup@bealoid.co.uk writes
>Quoting Roland Perry <lists@internetpolicyagency.com>:

>>> BBC Radio Four's "InTouch" programme had an interesting piece about 
>>>'data protection paranoia', and a blind woman who was told by her 
>>>Mental Health trust that they could not email appointment details to 
>>>her because of data protection laws.
>>
>> Was that specifically due to their perception that email was
>> susceptible to eavesdropping? (and other forms of notification weren't).
>
>Sort of. They were saying that email could be "misdelivered" to the 
>wrong person, even though they (the key worker) had several emails to 
>and from the service user.

I had an interesting conversation with someone you would have thought 
might know better, a couple of years ago. They insisted that every email 
anyone sent was "offered" to every PC in the world, and mainly rejected 
as unwanted, except for the intended recipient. Not unlike some sort of 
global "ethernet".

>> The problem always has been: whose format of encrypted email (not much
>> interoperability, afaik), and is there any format that doesn't require
>> at least "A level" computer science qualifications to operate?

>As far as ease of use goes I used to think that it couldn't be too hard 
>to set up some easy to use system.  But then I look at the mess that 
>many people make with SSL browser encryption and realise that it's 
>probably harder.

I've not seen anything even close to a solution in the 8+ years I've 
been interested in this specific deliverable.

Always happy to be told about this invisible silver bullet - and be very 
interested in promoting it.
-- 
Roland Perry