PGP is a freeware program that can encrypt any file quite securely. It's not
within Stata, of course, but I think it could easily encrypt a do-file (which
is really just a plain text file.) See www.pgpi.org
--
Christopher W. Ryan, MD
SUNY Upstate Medical University Clinical Campus at Binghamton
and Wilson Family Practice Residency
40 Arch Street, Johnson City, NY 13790
cryanatbinghamtondotedu
Public key generated with PGP 602i available at
http://home.stny.rr.com/ryancw/PGP602ipublickey.html
or via http://wwwkeys.us.pgp.net:11371
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the
work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless
sea." [Antoine de St. Exupery]
On Wed, 28 May 2003 09:56:01 -0500, Fred Wolfe wrote:
>In the US, a new set of privacy regulation known as HIPAA, strongly
>discourages the use of identifiers. For example, date of birth (DOB)
>is an
>identifier. We "de-dentify" DOB by dropping it and using -age-
>instead,
>after adding some random (algorithmically) generated noise to age.
>As one
>might guess, there are times when we need the actual age or DOB for
>use in
>a program.
>
>One way to do this would be to provide the conversion algorithm in a
>protected (encrypted) program. I wonder if there might be any way to
>encrypt a file (do or ado) so that Stata could read it but no one
>else
>could, kind of like a Stata internal program. I suspect the answer
>is no.
>
>I'd welcome any suggestions. No comments on the imbecility of such
>regulations, please, as such is already known/
>
>Fred
>
>
>
>Fred Wolfe
>National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases
>Wichita, Kansas
>Tel (316) 263-2125 Fax (316) 263-0761
>[email protected]
>
>
>*
>* For searches and help try:
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>* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
>* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
*
* For searches and help try:
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* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
