Donor Manager Software

Hi John,
You might have thought of this, but then maybe not. Since your Pack N Go works great, I am now using DonorManager on my home laptop as well as my office computer. But the office computer is a public domain computer.

Yes, I trust my colleagues, but it does bring to mind the question of security of information...especially for those missionaries who are working in more sensitive areas of the world.

I know that any of this thinking will affect the type of automatic outputs of data. Since the normal output is an Excel spreadsheet then the data has the potential of getting in others hands. Therefore I think that it would be good if normal backups that the program does could be encrypted (by choice)...and that the access to the program have the potential of being password protected.

Any thoughts?

Brian

Good suggestions, Brian.

I've had several discussions via email with folks on this very subject.

A few comments: putting password protection on entry into the program is not difficult at all. That would keep out a lot of casual attempts to break in to the computer.

At the next level, we'd have to add encryptation to the data tables themselves. That's not impossible, but it isn't cheap.

There are some ways to do it (for example, zip and encrypt the data files when the DM shuts down, then unzip and unencrypt on startup). It would add some time to the start up and shut down, but for it would add quite a bit of security.

That would be the next level.

Of course, the making of unencrypted automatic backups would have to be dealt with as well, but that's not that tough.

The larger question is, and I'd love to hear the thoughts of others, if you have security concerns, then you really need a more comprehensive approach than just encrypting the DM data files.

I know some folks that encrypt major sections of their hard drives for security, etc.

I'd love to hear what others think on this. Perhaps others who have similar concerns can contribute to the discussion here.