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The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#31

Post by metildaa »

rootusrootus wrote: post #29

My 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.

Inbound fax detection is pretty easy to script, I've gotten lots of sensitive faxes from insurers despite emailing them to cease and desist faxing me. Very annoying!

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#32

Post by metildaa »

dvtrn wrote: post #28
frv103 wrote: post #18

These 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 w…

Internet access outside of cities and suburbs is pretty awful, there are lots of businesses and residences plugging away with flakey, capped internet and lifeline phone service.

Worse yet, those running what service there is can go out oof business or hang up on users they don't want, and your totally SOL: https://www.cnet.com/news/in-rural-farm-country-forget-broad...

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#33

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

petecox wrote: post #17

Only if your telco still supports it. In Australia, perhaps not. Our home phone service was moved from copper to VOIP as part of the NBN rollout. The technician who did the installation confirmed our multifunction laser printer would no longer fax, as the network didn't enable it.

Yeah our building (Melbourne) doesn't even have copper going to it, we just have FTTB then CAT5 to each apartment.

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#34

Post by metildaa »

carlosdp wrote: post #26
codingdave wrote: post #24

Back 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

We had issues faxing rural areas through Twilio, like their SMS offerings (which lack shortcode support) it seems to be a partially baked solution. I asked them about it at SeaGL in Seattle, and the staff at their booth had few suggestions.

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#35

Post by polm23 »

codingdave wrote: post #24

Back 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…

eFax had some patents that it used aggressively for a long time to shut down competitors, though it looks like the main one expired recently.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16660890

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#36

Post by Aloha »

frv103 wrote: post #18

These 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,…

Anyone who does claim that fax works well over VoIP is full of shit - in my opinion. If you're an occasional faxer, and only send short faxes you'll likely have pretty good luck with VoIP - but in most cases, you'll have better luck with a dirty but functional PSTN line (V.34 modems are pretty tolerant of noise) I'll note though, in many cases, the desire by the carriers isn't to replace copper - its just to eliminate PSTN service - see AT&T U-Verse, which is FTTN, not FTTP.

Either because of poor implementation or a lack of universal uptake T.38 doesn't seem to solve the problem well enough to resolve the issues.

E-Fax is the current best end solution - but adoption is slow, or lacking.

What I'd like to see is a universal, easy to use encryption system come into use, so we could just send this stuff over email.

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#38

Post by gpm »

During the hiring process for my previous internship a problem with my credit score was discovered (equifax had someone else under my SIN). This ended up delaying my start date.

The only way to fix it in any "reasonable" (weeks) amount of time was to fax them a bunch of documents.

Re: The Fax Is Not Yet Obsolete

#40

Post by sokoloff »

rustcharm wrote: post #22
sokoloff wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I need my tax guy to be an expert on tax law way more than I need them to be on the cutting edge of computer communications and security.

If he wants to stick to his old-school fax machine and keeps me on the right side of the tax agencies, I can accommodate his preferences on tech.

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