Re: Seems legit
Most British people (even in IT) wouldn't know what the N3 is either.
Simplistically*, it's the NHS National Network. The connections don't connect to the internet directly, but to the NHS national VPN. Thus, connections between two NHS sites are secured by the national level VPN, even if they aren't secured directly at the sites.
There is (obviously) a connection to the internet via N3, however it's secured against the internet being able to directly access things on the N3.
It's expensive because the NHS is the worlds 5th largest organisation by number of staff, beaten only by the US & Chinese armies, McDonalds and the Wallmart group. Out of those, only the US military has a secured physical network along the lines of the NHS and their network would crash and burn under the traffic loads on the NHS network.
*Please note the setup has been simplified for clarity to the point it's accuracy could be challenged by an pedant suffering from OCD.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
