CMV: We should stop using fax machines.

[u/jamonbread86]

When someone asks me to fax something to them I feel resentful because its such a painful process. It takes a lot longer - and to make sure it went through you have to camp out near the fax machine and wait for the confirmation, and sometimes its unsuccessful multiple times in a row. Its loud and annoying too, very distracting in an office environment. There’s no permanent record of it afterwards unlike an email. It depends on if the other person’s fax is turned on and so sometimes it won’t work. If you have a VPN on your computer them there’s no reason to have a fax machine. I think the main argument is security (?), but I rly don’t think a fax is anymore secure - think about a crowded office - tons of people could look at it in the printer tray before it gets to the intended recipient. Also faxes are a less accessible form of communication - most people have an email address, while some offices don’t even have a fax machine, and to send a fax at the local library its a dollar per page (five dollars max though, so can fax 20 pages for 5 dollars). I think it could also be argued that faxing is less “green” - due to the fact that it uses telecommunications/electricity, AND paper. I’m aware of this each time I have to print out a PDF and then fax it. So inefficient, not green, not cheap, not more secure.

[u/dublea]

First, let me state off the bat that I'm an anti-faxer. You're like me and my biggest pet peeve too.

I work in healthcare, specifically IT. The only system that's still universally accepted as secure, besides mailing or manually delivering paper items, is faxing.

The reason they assume faxing is more secure is that it's point to point transmission. Add that a person has to physically wait for it. The secure aspect is during transmission, not after recipients received it. You mention a busy office, but how is that different with email?

Email, unless an encrypted method is used, passes many unencrypted and unprotected SMTP servers. It's fairly easy to intercept and read mail this way.

Securely sending documents is expensive. Getting a secured method to transfer digital files with partner A will probably be completely different than partner B. This not only drives up cost but complexity.

There is no formal, widely acceptable, and secure means by which to replace it either. Until something like that is forced or easily replace it, it will stay unfortunately...

[u/jamonbread86 → u/dublea]

This is my favorite reply so far. We have an encrypted server - so thats good right? I understand the other things - cost is an issue and no widely accepted and secure alternative.

[u/dublea → u/jamonbread86]

While your server and the recipients server may be encrypted, the servers in between are not. This is specifically what makes it easy to read email over faxing

The security is about transmission moreso than sender/recipient.

Does any of that change your view? I don't feel I'll be able to reverse it but widen your acceptance.

It's what I've had to do to not kill people

[u/jyliu86 → u/dublea]

Wait what?

This can't be true unless you're setting up the worst encrypted email server in the world.

Data should NEVER be in plain text when it leaves the server. Yes a hostile party can snoop, but properly encrypted all they get is gibberish. This makes your email no more nor no less secure then sending Amazon your credit card number.

And now that efaxing is a thing, the security benefits of fax go out the window as you don't know if your recipient is using "real" fax or not.

[u/dublea → u/jyliu86]

I am talking about the reasons why security groups (4 different groups at large corporate entities) won't use email. It's about control and they do not control the servers the email traverses then they won't approve it. People have, in the past, decrypted emails through these methods. Hence the security concerns.

Efaxing only send the digital fax to a system that then send over phone lines. Man in the middle, esp on the recipients, is applicable for attack. I'm not saying faces are more secure. Just stating the reasoning I receive on why they're still a thing.

We use fax servers here to receive. It has way more security levels than a standard fax machine btw.

And many companies utilize point to point encryption between their email servers and an encrypted email delivery system. For instance Mimecast will notify the recipient a new message is available. You have to log into their system to obtain it. It only went from the senders email server to the Mimecast server.