Re:Why Doctors Still Use Pagers (2013)
by mikechml on Friday July 11, 2014 @03:22PM
(#8021930)
I take issue with a couple of the points made for pagers (and against smartphones).
Security: Pagers are hilariously insecure. It's all plaintext, and it's broadcast nationwide. All you need is $15 for an RTL-SDR dongle and you can receive and log everything. I've seen, first hand, pager messages with embarrassing medical information and the full patient name and address.
Reliability: Since pagers are one-way only, there are no built in means to check whether a page was received. If the doctor is out of range, the page is just silently lost. Cell phone range may be less but you can get an ACK.
Security: Pagers are hilariously insecure. It's all plaintext, and it's broadcast nationwide. All you need is $15 for an RTL-SDR dongle and you can receive and log everything. I've seen, first hand, pager messages with embarrassing medical information and the full patient name and address.
Reliability: Since pagers are one-way only, there are no built in means to check whether a page was received. If the doctor is out of range, the page is just silently lost. Cell phone range may be less but you can get an ACK.