Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My husband wants to do this, and I'm not entirely comfortable with it. What will he have access to? Will he be able to install software on my computer without my knowledge? What exactly does sharing a C-drive mean/allow? I'm a medical transcriptionist so am bound by HIPAA guidelines and am not sure if I'm okay with this. Thanks!
Sharing a C drive means what you think, giving someone complete access to everything on that drive. Your husband would be able to see every file on your drive. In addition, if that share is not password protected at a minimum, *anyone* would have access to everything on your C drive.
This is a bad thing.
If he needs access to files on your computer, you can share certain directories, and you can limit access by password, and restrict the share from changing files. This way if you are sharing music or something, he would be able to see the files and use them, but not change them or delete them.
If you have HIPPA guidlines reliant on your computer then I strongly suggest you separate your work computer from your personal computing and lock that thing down tight. No one should have even physical access to your PC if there is sensitive medical data stored on it.
In most cases, everything in your computer is on the C drive. That's where Windows is installed, your programs are installed, and all your data is kept. Its generally considered bad practice to share the entire C drive. Instead, just share specific folders that need to be shared.
If you shared the whole C drive, he could browse through everything on the computer. If your transcription files are in a format specific to the program you use, he wouldn't be able to open those from his computer. But if they were Word files or plain text, he could.
Did he explain why he wants you to share the entire C drive? Ideally, I wouldn't even have the transcription computer on the network at all but you probably do need Internet access to communicate for work. But I definitely wouldn't share the C drive.
I assume you mean sharing your C: drive (this is usually your main hard disk drive) over a network.
This means he will have access to all the files on your hard drive (generally a bad thing), but drive sharing in and of itself does not permit software to be installed on the remote computer.
If he wants an easy way to transfer files between two computers, it would be better to share just one folder. Put any files that he needs access to in this folder. He will be able to transfer files to and from this shared folder at will, but will not be able to access the rest of the computer's files.
In the bigger picture, it sounds like some trust issues are at work here...
You CAN prevent access to the entire drive if your computer is running XP Professional, Vista Business, Ultimate, or similar Windows 7 versions.
You can control access at the folder or file level - but it is a pain in the *ss.
But why does your husband want access to your C drive? Is this on your home network?
If your computer has data subject to HIPAA regulations though I would not do a single thing to give access to others without checking with your HIPAA compliance people.
BTW sharing your C drive does NOT give access to every file on that drive. It will give access to enough that you should be very concerned about HIPAA.
As someone who works with HIPAA files on a regular basis and has had to sign (digitally) the government supplied death warrant I would strongly suggest that you inform your husband it's a no. If you are storing your HIPAA work on a personal as opposed to a work computer I would strongly suggest that that you stop.
The feds get pretty upset about that data being shared with the wrong people. If you happened to share my medical information I would sue you so fast you wouldn't believe it.
The consequences of HIPAA violations aren't usually as severe as a PCI-DSS violation - but there is more attention than ever on data privacy.
Don't mess with it. It just isn't worth it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
