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Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

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Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#51

Post by tjohns »

vpzom wrote: post #14
aurizon wrote: post #2

To send a fax you need access to a handhshaked landline. A direct wire between the stations. Faxes synchronize themselves, send data and test the bit, makeing sure it is properlt placed in the data queue, and send the next and so on =handshake. Suggest you look up old fax synchronization and I tossed my last muirhead rotary in 1982 - used it for weather maps. https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/fax/history-…

What exactly makes this "hard via radio"?

Radio spectrum is precious, so virtually any type of radio telephony is significantly compressed, either in terms of raw audio bandwidth or by applying lossy digital compression — often both. This applies to both 2-way radio and cellular telephones.

There are radio-fax standards. Marine weather reports are a good example that's still in use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiofax

However, the fax machines we use on our telephones were not designed with this in mind. The protocol is neither tolerant of the reduced bandwidth nor lossy compression from cellular networks... not to mention jitter if the call passes over a packet-switched network.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#52

Post by vegardx »

talles wrote: post #19

Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?

Up until very recently my grandpa would use fax to send complaints to just about anything. It was about as stereotypical grumpy old man as you can imagine. He's a good person, just old-school formal when he writes. Comes of as a bit ... harsh.

I thought it was going to end when they dismantled the analog network, and his fax machine with it, but somehow it just got worse. You see, on fax machines you rarely got spam, but on email that's another story. It's hilarious to see the email exchanges he has with some spammers. They've met their worst enemy.

He is more than capable to identify spam, but he doesn't fully understand that, while sent to him, it's nothing personal. He takes it very personal. Very personal. Like, call me late in the evening or during work hours (unheard of for someone in his school) to discuss this outrageous claim that someone made about him. He, like a lot of senior citizen, has a lot of free time. So he naturally replies back. And we're talking full page replies, going into great detail about how they are bad people for doing this to someone like him.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#53

Post by dragonwriter »

talles wrote: post #19

Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?

> Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?

In healthcare, because despite the technical reality that it is electronic, it's not considered “electronic media” under HIPAA, so security and transaction & code sets standardization rules that apply to electronic transactions do not apply to transactions conducted by fax.

It's a giant compliance hole in HIPAA that entities in the healthcare space ruthlessly exploit. (Various incentives to move to mechanism that are considered electronic under HIPAA have chipped away at it, but the compliance hole still keeps people using it.)

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#54

Post by fanf2 »

emmelaich wrote: post #5

There used to be a free service for faxes, at tpc.int. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phone_Company The fact that it costs you so much probably just means that the demand just isn't there.

TPC.int was kind of crazy. They had a stunt DNS server that made it more convenient to use, so you could mail an address like remote-printer@441234567890.tpc.int (referring to a nonexistent number in Bedford in the usual bigendian E.164 order) and it would be automatically converted to official little-endian RFC 1528 format remote-printer@0.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.4.4.tpc.int, after which the usual DNS delegation mechanisms could model the E.164 delegations to route the fax to the nearest server.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#57

Post by jamieweb »

fanf2 wrote: post #54
emmelaich wrote: post #5

There used to be a free service for faxes, at tpc.int. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phone_Company The fact that it costs you so much probably just means that the demand just isn't there.

TPC.int was kind of crazy. They had a stunt DNS server that made it more convenient to use, so you could mail an address like remote-printer@441234567890.tpc.int (referring to a nonexistent number in Bedford in the usual bigendian E.164 order) and it would be automatically converted to official little-endian RFC 1528 format remote-printer@0.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.4.4.tpc.int, after which the usual DNS delegation mechanism…

For those wondering, the domain tpc.int was registered before `.int` domain registrations required an established international treaty.

It was grandfathered in when this requirement was added.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#58

Post by colejohnson66 »

gumby wrote: post #29
talles wrote: post #19

Genuine question: why there are folks still using fax?

In the US, clinical medicine and law firms use it because it has an unusual legal status: it’s considered secure and positively delivered if some device at the other end acknowledges it. In Japan many businesses are still wedded to a fax. It’s much easier to scribble a take out order on a piece of paper.

How is it secure though? It’s unencrypted!

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#59

Post by detaro »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, clinical medicine and law firms use it because it has an unusual legal status: it’s considered secure and positively delivered if some device at the other end acknowledges it. In Japan many businesses are still wedded to a fax. It’s much easier to scribble a take out order on a piece of paper.

How is it secure though? It’s unencrypted!

It's considered secure by the law (probably because historically the phone network was considered mostly secure). Doesn't matter if it isn't really until the law changes or some court overthrows it.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I send faxes from my phone?

#60

Post by netsharc »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, clinical medicine and law firms use it because it has an unusual legal status: it’s considered secure and positively delivered if some device at the other end acknowledges it. In Japan many businesses are still wedded to a fax. It’s much easier to scribble a take out order on a piece of paper.

How is it secure though? It’s unencrypted!

Somehow institutions are still pretending the emperor is wearing the nicest looking clothes, they're pretending fax is secure from "photoshopping"/data tampering.
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