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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?

#151

Post by drdeadringer »

anticensor wrote: post #103
toast0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is not based on reality. If I sent you a fax, and your fax machine (of whatever type) printed it out, that copy is legally as good as the original. If I scan, then email, and you print it out, it is not legally as good as the original. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, it is what it is.

Legally admissible digital signatures do exist, and you can infinitely photocopy a digitally signed document, though. Not so with fax, where a photocopy would count as a different document.

I have done this and am thankful for it.

I have gone so far as to have a digital copy of my analogue signature to drag-drop into an electronic document. And this has been accepted as legal. Courtroom legal. IRS legal. "Don't fuck with this" type of legal.

I hope this continues into the future.

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

#152

Post by diggernet »

drdeadringer wrote: post #142
tinus_hn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again most phone lines run over the internet these days. No idea how that works out with snooping laws.

My home phone is VOIP [I'm one of those early-adopter Ooma people]. I accept that when power goes out my phone dies with it just as I accept the warrant issue. Perhaps this is an unintended "transparency issue" so I won't be fooled thinking that my phone conversations are legally sacred, but at origin it was simply a "I'm not paying for that" deal. Side Note: Yes I am just old enough to want, and actively go out to h…

And, to bring this back around to the topic, you can send a fax with Ooma. :)

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

#153

Post by anticensor »

drdeadringer wrote: post #151
anticensor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally admissible digital signatures do exist, and you can infinitely photocopy a digitally signed document, though. Not so with fax, where a photocopy would count as a different document.

I have done this and am thankful for it. I have gone so far as to have a digital copy of my analogue signature to drag-drop into an electronic document. And this has been accepted as legal. Courtroom legal. IRS legal. "Don't fuck with this" type of legal. I hope this continues into the future.

> digital copy of my analogue signature to drag-drop into an electronic document

This will not work in Europe. You need proper public-key cryptosigning here. That was what I meant when I wrote "legally admissible digital signature". What you wrote is called "digitised signature" here, and would only be useful as a decorative sign.

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

#155

Post by closeparen »

numpad0 wrote: post #114
closeparen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The digital telephone network is exclusively a switched (not packet-based) network, so you're guaranteed near-zero latency. Seems like this fact could be exploited more often in internet applications. High bandwidth channel for static assets, low latency channel for e.g. player movement data?

One of the professors when I was in a university was from ex-national telco R&D, and he was very vocal about those “real” bandwidth/latency/privacy assured telecom techs, “far superior” than “toys” like TCP/IP. And that was for the sake of education. He’d hold his lab meetings in Skype, not over a multipoint ISDN video calls on circuit switched wireless ATM. Only when the show is on, speaking to us undergrads through…

Low jitter is a luxury for the document web, but if approximately all human social interaction is going to be through digital video for the foreseeable future, we might start to care...

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

#156

Post by tinus_hn »

drdeadringer wrote: post #142
tinus_hn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again most phone lines run over the internet these days. No idea how that works out with snooping laws.

My home phone is VOIP [I'm one of those early-adopter Ooma people]. I accept that when power goes out my phone dies with it just as I accept the warrant issue. Perhaps this is an unintended "transparency issue" so I won't be fooled thinking that my phone conversations are legally sacred, but at origin it was simply a "I'm not paying for that" deal. Side Note: Yes I am just old enough to want, and actively go out to h…

What I mean is that even if you have an old school POTS landline (if these are still offered) most of your calls are going to be at least partly routed over the internet, just because it is so much cheaper than maintaining the analog infrastructure.

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

#157

Post by apotatopot »

I remember a long time ago when I worked for a voip phone company, two of our customers asked for fax-to-email and email-to-fax.

I found out they were trying to fax each other documents because of some archaic requirement and thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. Totally just sending each other emails with extra steps for no reason.

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

#158

Post by perl4ever »

bawolff wrote: post #119
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?

What type of threat model is this? Even standard unencrypted email is largely opportunisticly encrypted these days. Security properties of that is "debatable", but a fax isn't encrypted at all...

I think it's about the difference between being able to expect a certain level of service or not; regardless of what the actual average is.

And about the worst-case scenario and the perception for me of a point-to-point architecture.

If I email something, then if it's "largely" encrypted, that is no consolation if that doesn't hold. I'd feel it was on me for doing it.

On the other hand, if I fax something, and someone who shouldn't sees it, it's likely an insider at the destination location, and in any case, it's not my fault as long as faxing is regarded as reasonably secure.

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

#159

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

TylerE wrote: post #88
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize the fax predates POTS. But to say "When computers became common fax was already well established" is not really accurate. If you mean the 1970s (personal/home computer revolution), then no one had a fax machine at home back then. They just were not around. Few offices had them, too -- teletypes were more common than fax machines, even though teletypes didnt do graphics like fax. I've read that police depart…

Faxes date from just after the civil war area. They were in common usage for transmitting contracts by the 1880s . Photographic material by the 1920s This equipment would have typically been installed at a telegraph office, not at the end user site, but the basic technology is far older than most people assume.

I know how old the technology is. You completely missed my point. They were NOT in coomon use even in the 1970s, even if am article on the internet claims it. I was there. Were you?

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

#160

Post by hiergiltdiestfu »

perl4ever wrote: post #139
hiergiltdiestfu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, automated character recognition / word alerts in FAX transmissions has been built-in in Echelon since the 1970ies. FAX is as insecure as emails are, under certain threat models. Pretty sure this is mentioned in this nice crypto history overview: https://alternativlos.org/30/

I am not concerned if the NSA knows my SSN.

Nothing to hide, I see. :)
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