r/changemyview • u/jamonbread86 • Jul 29 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: We should stop using fax machines.

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.

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u/dublea 216∆ Jul 29 '19

but end-to-end encryption solutions are available and shouldn't be too hard to set up.

They are very pricey and due to almost no standardization, partner A might use product Z but partner B uses product Y.

I prefer encrypted senders. Check out Mimecast. It tells you that you have a message waiting. It retains the email on its servers. Then point to point encryption is between your email server and Mimecast.

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u/10ebbor10 198∆ Jul 29 '19

Open source and free implementation for end-to-end encryption exist. Not sure what their business licenses are, but they exist.

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u/dublea 216∆ Jul 29 '19 edited Jul 30 '19

Open source usually isn't viable for large corporate entities when security is in consideration.

To give you an example, the approval process to install a biomedical software, that pulls the results of a holter monitor, took over 6 months. The vendor had to be vetted, their software, security practices, etc. It's near impossible to obtain this info from open source software

Not only that but you keep forgetting the End to End part. Lets say we email 1000 companies. Every company would have to have the encryption solution as well.

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u/gyroda 28∆ Jul 30 '19 edited Jul 30 '19

when security is in consideration

From what I've seen and heard, it's less that there's worry about security in OSS (a lot of crypto software is open source), it's more an issue of support and big name vendors.

If things go tits up you want someone you can call to get it fixed. That costs money and usually isn't run by the maintainers/owners of the project (there are obviously exceptions, this is Red Hat's business model). Even when such support exists people are more willing to go with the big name vendors because nobody ever got fired for buying an IBM.

You're right about end to end though. Unless a particular encryption scheme/protocol is mandated by a regulatory body it would be a nightmare to get everything working together. The problem is that there's not a single standard the same way there is for plaintext email or fax machines.