COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Tue Mar 17 18:06:25 UTC 2020

> On Mar 17, 2020, at 02:20 , Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 16/Mar/20 16:54, Carsten Bormann wrote:
> 
>> I recently had to reschedule an X-ray because the license manager for the X-ray machine was acting up.  I don’t think people have a grasp for how much of the medical infrastructure no longer works when the Internet is down.
> 
> I get this, to some extent. But also, there is a reason hospitals,
> airports and military installations are either put on special power
> grids or invest plenty of money in backup power.

I don’t get this… X-Ray machines (and other critical medical equipment) should operate in a fail-safe mode where a license screw up doesn’t prevent the machine from operating.

If the hospital hasn’t paid up, find a way to go after the hospital, but don’t kill patients to collect your fee.

> If an x-ray machine won't work because the Internet is down, I'm not
> sure that is responsible. As inefficient as it may be to have a license
> server on-prem if there is an option to check against one in the public
> cloud, for a medical use-case, that would make more sense to me.

Why should there be a license server at all? Why should an X-ray machine have an external dependency like that in the first place, even if it’s a local server?

Owen