Outliers: Who needs security?

"Thanks, but no thanks.”

That seemed to be the reaction from members of the American Academy of Family Physicians to the news that the AAFP was beefing up security on its website.

In an effort to protect members' personal information such as home and e-mail addresses, the AAFP said the AAFP.org authentification process “will look and feel very much like what users are accustomed to seeing” on bank, utility company and retail websites. Members will need to create passwords with a minimum of eight characters—including at least one upper and lowercase letter and one number.

This information was included in a news brief on AAFP.org and underneath it are five comments—all of them negative.

“I wish you wouldn't, since some of us appreciate convenience over security,” wrote one member.

“It's one thing to beef up security on a bank website or if there were HIPAA-protected information here. But really, do I care if someone gets in and sees my CME record?” said another family doc.

“How many 8 characters from 10 different websites can you memorize? Hard, unless you differ by only 1 character. Access to one might be a gateway to other more important sites. Be careful of what you ask,” said another AAFP member.

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