IT Milk: entry

Starting today, people living in Northeastern Pennsylvania have every reason to change their insurance company to the Blue Cross. Making going to the emergency room more convenient than ever before, Blue Cross members can access their personal health records and fill out hospital-insurance related forms just by tapping a few buttons on their cellphones.

Developed by a Canadian company Diversinet, their Wallet software boasts a technology called “One-Time Password.” One-Time Password technology is more secure than a memorized password, because even if a hacker snatches your password he will have wasted his efforts. I’ll show you how One-Time Passwords work below.

The patient has a PIN that he or she has memorized. Not to worry my man, because this number will not do a hacker any good.

The secret lies in the cellphone. The Wallet software in the cellphone generates a unique mathematically-formulated token based on the current time and the PIN. The servers holding the personal information validate the token sent by the patient by simply calculating the time with their special algorithm.

Now this One-Time Password changes every second, so even if the professional scam artist looks over your shoulder and scores your PIN, you are safe. As long as you don’t lose your cellphone along with it, your information will remain confidential and protected by Blue Cross and Diversinet.