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I have an idea for using visual cryptography to improve patient safety in healthcare centers. Although it isn't directly related to the type of cryptography men

I have an idea for using visual cryptography to improve patient safety in healthcare centers. Although it isn't directly related to the type of cryptography mentioned here, I'm interested in sharing it to receive feedback from fellow HN users who know more about visual cryptography. (I'm a layman when it comes to the subject.) Without further ado: My friend, a nurse, told me that serious medical complications can occur because of breakdowns in communication among patients, nurses and other healthcare professionals. As information changes hands, misspellings and misinterpretations of records can seriously harm patients. For example, you might have heard the story of a girl in Ohio who overdosed in 2011 because a nurse accidentally prescribed her the wrong dose of medication. It was a simple clerical error; the nurse had been prescribing the same amount for years. I'm interested in using visual encryption to help validate patient information, especially the types of information (names, contact info, treatment regimens) that remain relatively constant over time. Imagine if there were an easily recognizable, thumbnail-sized image on patient medical records. The image would pose no security risk because no sensitive data could be deduced from it, but even the slightest change in a patient's record would make it appear entirely different. I think this might be one extra useful layer of security that would help patients and healthcare professionals safely validate their information. But, as I said, I'm a layperson when it comes to cryptography. I'm interested in learning more about this approach, as well as the subject in general, and welcome any feedback from people who know more about visual cryptography.

peeters 13y ago
It's a reasonable idea that already has use in displaying cryptographic fingerprints. Typically when servers present a certificate, if the cert is untrusted, a fingerprint (a hash of the public key) is shown to the user. This is meant to caution the user: if all of a sudden they see a fingerprint that they don't recognize, it might be somebody malicious trying to capture your traffic! Instead of presenting the fingerprint as a big hexadecimal string, some clients instead produce ASCII art and display that instead, on the theory that the human brain is better at memorizing that than a big string of digits. For example, OpenSSH: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/unix-sysadmin/visual-ssh-fingerprints-with-new-openssh-51-release-26175 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/unix-sysadmin/visual-ssh-fingerp... I would argue this has even more use in a system that is trying to warn about changes, rather than about possible malicious attackers. After all, in the SSH example above, an attacker just needs to get a certificate that looks close enough to the real one that the user will accept it.
SolarNet 13y ago
I think what you are actually looking for is hashing[1] mixed with some sort of generative art[2]. For example Identicons [3,4]. Meaning that you could use identicons so that when prescribing a medicine a picture would be displayed next to it which would be completely different for different types and amount of medicine.[5] You could likely go farther, but you would have to read up on hashing and see what information you can and can't use with it. I think the harder problem is getting the system to be used, not how viable it is. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon [4]https://github.com/blog/1586-identicons https://github.com/blog/1586-identicons [5]http://i.stack.imgur.com/SfGpg.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/SfGpg.png
deleted 13y ago
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peeters 13y ago

It's a reasonable idea that already has use in displaying cryptographic fingerprints. Typically when servers present a certificate, if the cert is untrusted, a fingerprint (a hash of the public key) is shown to the user. This is meant to caution the user: if all of a sudden they see a fingerprint that they don't recognize, it might be somebody malicious trying to capture your traffic! Instead of presenting the fingerprint as a big hexadecimal string, some clients instead produce ASCII art and display that instead, on the theory that the human brain is better at memorizing that than a big string of digits. For example, OpenSSH: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/unix-sysadmin/visual-ssh-fingerprints-with-new-openssh-51-release-26175 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/unix-sysadmin/visual-ssh-fingerp... I would argue this has even more use in a system that is trying to warn about changes, rather than about possible malicious attackers. After all, in the SSH example above, an attacker just needs to get a certificate that looks close enough to the real one that the user will accept it.

SolarNet 13y ago

I think what you are actually looking for is hashing[1] mixed with some sort of generative art[2]. For example Identicons [3,4]. Meaning that you could use identicons so that when prescribing a medicine a picture would be displayed next to it which would be completely different for different types and amount of medicine.[5] You could likely go farther, but you would have to read up on hashing and see what information you can and can't use with it. I think the harder problem is getting the system to be used, not how viable it is. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_art [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identicon [4]https://github.com/blog/1586-identicons https://github.com/blog/1586-identicons [5]http://i.stack.imgur.com/SfGpg.png http://i.stack.imgur.com/SfGpg.png

deleted 13y ago

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