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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?

#91

Post by grawprog »

perl4ever wrote: post #83
snarfy wrote: post #43

I give up and tell them I can't send a fax where I'm from. When they ask where I'm from, I tell them I'm from the year 2020.

The thing is, when I'm asked to send sensitive documents over unencrypted email or something, then I'd rather use the fax option. And I don't trust any internet gateway, I go to some local store with actual fax machines. I kinda sorta think of it as more secure than the internet, still?

As far as I know, most modern fax machines keep a record of things received and transmitted on them. At least the ones at my old work did. We could bring up a week's worth of faxes or something and reprint them.

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

#93

Post by bemmu »

na85 wrote: post #78
amelius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps someone could start a relay service.

These exist! They're not cheap and probably ripe for disruption.

The Twilio API supports fax, so I used it to make this: https://5dollarfax.com/

Cheapest service I know of if you infrequently need to send a fax and wait a few days for the possible reply.

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

#94

Post by fastily »

It doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. I've written a simple web app that wraps Twilio's fax capabilities.

https://github.com/fastily/fax-machine

The whole thing is designed to run on a raspberry pi. The setup costs $1 a month (for the twilio number) and a couple cents per page.

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

#95

Post by ballenf »

grawprog wrote: post #91
perl4ever wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, when I'm asked to send sensitive documents over unencrypted email or something, then I'd rather use the fax option. And I don't trust any internet gateway, I go to some local store with actual fax machines. I kinda sorta think of it as more secure than the internet, still?

As far as I know, most modern fax machines keep a record of things received and transmitted on them. At least the ones at my old work did. We could bring up a week's worth of faxes or something and reprint them.

So your threat vector is still like maybe a few dozen people who have access to the fax machine vs. the entire world?

And all those fax machines have a "private" mode where the images don't get saved. On the machines I used. And most only save the cover sheet for sent faxes.

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

#96

Post by ballenf »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #72
uranium wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's point-to-point. Unless someone is tapping your phone line, or you dial the wrong number, where's the insecurity? Contrast that with email, which goes through any number of emails, sits in queues, gets backed up, etc. Of course some of the time you're actually faxing a fax-to-email gateway, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

> where's the insecurity? All of the other security issues aside, how about simply walking over to the unprotected fax machine and leaving with a stack of "private" records? Not sure you want to die on the hill of defending fax security.

Again the threat vector is the people within physical vicinity. People who would then be subject to trespassing or theft charges. And likely caught on camera.

Versus the entire world on the internet.

Yeah, I'll take fax security over normal email security, thanks.

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

#98

Post by LeoPanthera »

perl4ever wrote: post #83
snarfy wrote: post #43

I give up and tell them I can't send a fax where I'm from. When they ask where I'm from, I tell them I'm from the year 2020.

The thing is, when I'm asked to send sensitive documents over unencrypted email or something, then I'd rather use the fax option. And I don't trust any internet gateway, I go to some local store with actual fax machines. I kinda sorta think of it as more secure than the internet, still?

It’s more secure in one specific way, a warrant is required to wiretap a phone line, but not the internet.

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

#99

Post by throw03172019 »

rabidonrails wrote: post #16

Founder of Phaxio here. Doing fax well is an annoying problem because the protocols are finicy and the carriers don't usually want to spend time troubleshooting issues. Give our API a shot and shoot me a note for some extra credits as a h/t to a fellow HNer. (See profile for email.)

Good to see HIPAA compliance. I will sign up and give it a try for our product.

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

#100

Post by redisman »

paultopia wrote: post #92
na85 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These exist! They're not cheap and probably ripe for disruption.

Disrupting fax over internet? Why not just disrupt fax?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email

More seriously though, the organizations still using faxes are not interested in "disruption", or anything else that is newer than the 80s.

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