Programmable Fax – API for sending and receiving faxes • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmable Fax – API for sending and receiving faxes

#171

Post by Roboprog » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

faxman wrote: post #160

Roboprog wrote: post #95

Here's how it looks like it works to me: (their stuff is of course HTTPS, and I'm assuming the caller's support links would be as well. Each REST call also has authentication tokens, of course) === Out: === You POST data to their REST resource, including a link to your PDF document, which they pull (as well as phone number data). Presumably, you want to add some kind of temporary security token/nonce to the link that…

Your description is right. To give this a visual dimension, here are sequence diagrams showing how outbound and inbound faxing work at another provider (disclaimer: I'm a co-founder at Interfax): Outbound: https://www.interfax.net/en/dev/dev-guide/using-interfax-for... Inbound: https://www.interfax.net/en/dev/dev-guide/using-interfax-for... Your suggestion for a "sign this and send it back" workflow is an excellent i…

Thanks for the sequence diagram. That's exactly what we're doing.

Re: Programmable Fax – API for sending and receiving faxes

#172

Post by bankster » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 1:09 AM UTC

Tons of great information on this thread. The idea that in the year 2017 we are transmitting sensitive data at modem speed technology is somewhat mind boggling. The fax server market is very mature and has evolved, however the transport has not. etherFAX has created the largest ecosystem when it comes to fax and healthcare (https://etherfax.net/solutions/etherfax-sen). etherFAX supports and serves every major fax server application and EMR. Having over 6 million connected endpoints in healthcare allows for end-to-end encrypted transmissions and guaranteed delivery, without traversing the PSTN. The Fax Federation (faxfederation.com) allows for other fax server providers (like Twilio) to join said ecosystem.

Re: Programmable Fax – API for sending and receiving faxes

#173

Post by bankster » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 10:43 AM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #135

jandrese wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this one of those cases where implementing a solution is practically impossible, so all of the existing solutions are just the horrible old ones that were grandfathered in?

The solution is: Do not FAX or use phone lines to transmit data. Practically though there isn't a 'good enough' standard from an end user perspective. The very things that make FAX a poor security standard make it user friendly. * Fire and forget * 'Just works' * Short, simple destination identifier * No real crypto or other security. A real solution would be for everyone to use (good) key-based SFTP transfers. This…

Tons of great information on this thread. The idea that in the year 2017 we are transmitting sensitive data at modem speed technology is somewhat mind boggling. The fax server market is very mature and has evolved, however the transport has not. etherFAX has created the largest ecosystem when it comes to fax and healthcare (https://etherfax.net/solutions/etherfax-sen). etherFAX supports and serves every major fax server application and EMR. Having over 6 million connected endpoints in healthcare allows for end-to-end encrypted transmissions and guaranteed delivery, without traversing the PSTN. The Fax Federation (faxfederation.com) allows for other fax server providers (like Twilio) to join said ecosystem.

Re: Programmable Fax – API for sending and receiving faxes

#174

Post by bankster » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 12:21 PM UTC

Tons of great information on this thread. The idea that in the year 2017 we are transmitting sensitive data at modem speed technology is somewhat mind boggling. The fax server market is very mature and has evolved, however the transport has not. etherFAX has created the largest ecosystem when it comes to fax and healthcare (https://etherfax.net/solutions/etherfax-sen). etherFAX supports and serves every major fax server application and EMR. Having over 6 million connected endpoints in healthcare allows for end-to-end encrypted transmissions and guaranteed delivery, without traversing the PSTN. The Fax Federation (faxfederation.com) allows for other fax server providers (like Twilio) to join said ecosystem.