Encryption Of CDs

I have reproduced below the contents of a letter that I received recently from Social Security. I am not sure whether this has been distributed nationally. I used Adobe Acrobat's optical character recognition (OCR) on this. I hope I have straightened out all the misreads.

Dear Colleague:

We are writing to tell you about an important change that furthers our commitment to protect our claimants' personal information.

In October, we will begin a pilot program to encrypt the claim folder CDs sent to you by the Social Security Administrations' Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. We expect to expand the pilot rapidly, so that by the end of 20 10, we will be encrypting all CDs sent to appointed representatives and medical/vocational experts. We developed the decryption password formula in collaboration with members of the appointed representative community. The encrypted CDs are easy to use and provide a major and necessary improvement in safeguarding the personally identifiable information in our possession. We huve enclosed a guide that describes the process.

We appreciate your ongoing support to help strengthen the security and privacy of our claimant's

data.

Jim Borland
Associated Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Strategic Information

Jim Bentley
Associate Commissioner Acting Associate Commissioner
Office of Electronic Services and Office of Budget, Facilities and Security

Opening an Encrypted CD

No additional software is necessary to read the information on the encrypted CD. The following instructions will allow proper viewing of the contents of the CD.

1. Insert the Electronic Folder CD into your PC's CDROM drive.

2. Double click on "My Computer"; next double-click on your PC's CDROM drive to display the contents of the CD.

3. Double-click on the pme.exe file located on the CD.
4. Enter the Account Name and Password; click OK.

Account Name: ssa
All ODAR encrypted media will use the same Account Name, "ssa". The Account Name field is not case sensitive.
a. Use the following criteria to determine the encryption password. If you are unable to determine the correct password for your encrypted CD, call the local ODAR office that sent you the CD for assistance. NOTE: The password will always be nine characters long.

Representatives and Claimants Password Criteria:

• First 4 letters of claimant's first name in lower case (if the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha)
• A number sign (#)
• Last 4 numbers of the claimant's SSN

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Claimant's full last name
• Claimant's first 4 numbers of the SSN

Examples:
Claimant's name is Mickey Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is mick#6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".
Claimant's name is Tom Mays and SSN is 123-45-6789. The encryption password is tom##6789. Label on the CD is "Mays 1234".

Experts (medical and vocational) Password Criteria:

• First 4 of the expert's last name (lowercase). If the name is less than four characters, use "#"s after the last alpha.
• A number sign (#)
• First 4 numbers of the experts BPA

The CD will be labeled as follows:

• Experts full first name.
• Date of the hearing or "interrogatory".

Examples:
Experts name is Sam Jones and the BPA number is 1234. The encryption password is jone#1234. Label on the CD is "Sam 080910" (date ofhearing is 8/9/10) or "Sam interrogatory",

5. To decrypt the contents of the CD, highlight the words "[Encrypted Device]" and click on the Extract button.
6. The Browse For Folder window will appear. The first time you decrypt a CD, highlight the drive where you want to save the file and click on [Make New Folder] button. NOTE: If a folder already exists, navigate to that location to download the file.
7. Change the folder name then highlight the new folder and click on the OK button.
8. Go to the folder created, or the location you extracted the files. Double-click on the index.html file
9. Close the Pointsec encryption window by clicking on the "x" in the upper right hand corner of the screen or by selecting File/Exit from the menu.
10. A deletion window will appear if files were extracted to your computer.
11. If you extracted files to your hard drive or server and DO NOT want the files deleted from your computer, select "No". By selecting "Cancel", you will return to the Pointsec encryption window.

1.0 Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if the account name and/or password entry is incorrect?
If incorrect information is entered in the Account name and/or Password fields, you will receive a Pointsec Media Encryption box, pop-up message say that says, "Your password or account name is wrong. Please try again."

Click the OK button on the screen to reenter the correct Account name and Password. If you continue to get this message, please contact the local ODAR office that sent you the CD.

What happens if the files are copied or viewed beforethey are un-encrypted?
If the files are copied or view straight from the CD without running the decryption process, they will be unreadable.

Once the contents ofthe folder is decrypted, can I simply view the files without copying or extracting them to my computer?
Yes, you can view the files individually from the Pointsec Media Encryption window without using the index.html to navigate to them. You will have to select each separate document in the "docs" folder. If you open the index.html from the Pointsec window, it may not display correctly.

To view the actual tiff images you will need to navigate to the "docs" folder and select the desired
image.