I noticed real estate also heavily relies on it. Everything still seems to be done with paper and fax.
Why not scan the paper to email?
Well, a fax definitely isn't secure...
The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
21–30 of 108 posts
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#22Fax is not more secure than email.
It is more secure in some senses. You can't get a PDF-borne virus from an old-school fax reception. My tax preparer only accepts mailed documents and faxed documents. It's sometimes a pain, but I have to admit that I'm a little bit happy that he's more paranoid than I am about my financial information.
Actually, you can! There was a presentation at DEFCON this year (DEFCON 26) showing exactly this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLCE8spVX9Q
> "See for yourself first-hand as we give a live demonstration of the first ever full fax exploitation, leading to complete control over the entire device as well as the network, using nothing but a standard telephone line. "
Maybe it's time for you to find another tax preparer. Mine accepts encrypted documents with her public key.
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#23My insurance company mailed me a pdf to make a claim but they made me snail mail my printed copy with signature on it to them, they said they would have accepted a fax but would never accept an email with a photo of the same documents.
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#24Back when I first started working in tech, in the early 90s, up to when I left enterprise IT in 2011, email-to-fax gateways were a thing. You just emailed a specific address format, something like: 999-999-9999@your.fax.gateway, and the email server would send an image of the email and attached documents to that number, via a connected fax machine. Likewise, incoming faxes to your number were received as images in an email.
Do those things no longer exist? You would think, if anything, that would be easier today than it was 25 years ago.
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#25It's that "Faxes" are //exempt//, they are, by far:
* Obsolete
* Insecure (no encryption in transit)
* Insecure (no recipient validation)
* Insecure (no validation of sender or data integrity)
* Horrid quality (200, maybe 300, DPI, monochrome)
* Like PTSN interlinked phones, fairly ubiquitous.
The exempt status also precludes any real attempt at security which makes 'fax the thing' quick and easy for untrained end users. Fire, and forget until someone pokes you about a failed fax, or even claim you tried and just assume gremlins ate all record of the first (never happened) actions.
There's also not a /ubiquitous/ replacement. The mere cost of telephone calls and duration makes blindly trying to fax out spam that way not-cost-effective (plus the negotiation of fax technology inhibits just recording a dumb audio file to play against VoIP lines). Email is practically free, but HORRENDOUS for file transfers, and at any corporation where data retention is required for legal discovery holding on to EVERY file transferred forever is hell.
While some better standards do exist, they aren't ubiquitous and often require 'non standard' software (mostly because Microsoft is highly allergic to any protocols/formats not invented by them).
Also, it needs to be part of the /default/ OS install. It would be really great if Windows Explorer (the desktop shell) understood SFTP (SSH file transfer).
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#26Back when I first started working in tech, in the early 90s, up to when I left enterprise IT in 2011, email-to-fax gateways were a thing. You just emailed a specific address format, something like: 999-999-9999@your.fax.gateway, and the email server would send an image of the email and attached documents to that number, via a connected fax machine. Likewise, incoming faxes to your number were received as images in an…
Twilio has a Fax API: https://www.twilio.com/fax
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#27To me, a person that doesn't (and never did) live in the US, faxes there seem to be even more ubiquitous than this article paints. Imagine my amusement when I registered an Amazon account only to get it suspended with the request to verify it by... faxing bank statements and whatnot. Internationally on a +1 number. [0] And yes, support was not been able to offer any alternative to that.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#28These requirements for faxing are becoming almost silly. Not only is the PSTN infrastructure in some areas so bad (40 year old corroded copper lines and such) that there are potential problems every time it rains, but incumbent carriers are trying to do everything they can to rip down what is left of the copper infrastructure. I don’t blame them as this makes practical and financial sense (remove copper phone lines,…
The dream is that the PSTN will be done away with entirely, with all traffic going through the internet
How far off the mark am I in thinking that part of this dream you have, that was left unstated is that 'all traffic going through the internet' assumes we've fixed the last mile problem of broadband connectivity to rural areas? Because otherwise that dream effectively cuts a lot of people off from the rest of the world.
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#29My desk phone at work has automatic inbound fax detection and reception. And one of the local medical firms has a phone number with a prefix that is one digit off from my desk phone direct line. You can guess what happens.
It's kind of amazing what kinds of things they will put in a fax. Stuff I would find very personal, for sure, and wouldn't want to have faxed around carelessly.
Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete
#30To me, a person that doesn't (and never did) live in the US, faxes there seem to be even more ubiquitous than this article paints. Imagine my amusement when I registered an Amazon account only to get it suspended with the request to verify it by... faxing bank statements and whatnot. Internationally on a +1 number. [0] And yes, support was not been able to offer any alternative to that. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/…
Fax has a carve out in PCI & HIPPA compliance, and there is a huge existing momentum behind continuing to use fax.
Alternatives for actually secure document transmission boil down to difficult to use private messaging/"secure" email systems (that only work in their walled garden).
Many in the general public get frustrated with these walled gardens, as it is another login & interface to remember, and their credit union/bank, healthcare provider, company, etc will each have its own totally unique system