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Japan IT Technology

Japanese Fax Fans Rally To Defence of Much-Maligned Machine (theguardian.com) 99

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Ministers back down after hundreds of government offices insist banishing fax would be impossible. From a report: Most bureaucrats might be expected to welcome the chance to be freed from the tyranny of the fax machine. But in Japan, government plans to send the must-have item of 1980s office equipment the way of telex have in effect been scrapped after they encountered resistance from "faxophile" officials. A cabinet body that promotes administrative reform said in June it had decided to abolish the use of fax machines "as a rule" by the end of the month and switch to emails at ministries and agencies in the Tokyo district of Kasumigaseki, Japan's bureaucratic nerve centre. The move would enable more people to work from home, it said, citing concerns that too many people were still going to the office during the coronavirus pandemic to send and receive faxes. Exceptions would be made for disaster response and interactions with the public and businesses that had traditionally depended on faxes. Instead of embracing the digital age, however, hundreds of government offices mounted a defence of the much-maligned machine, insisting that banishing them would be "impossible," according to the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper.

The backlash has forced the government to abandon its mission to turn officialdom into a digital-only operation, the newspaper said on Wednesday. Members of the resistance said there were concerns over the security of sensitive information and "anxiety over the communication environment" if, as the government had requested, they switched exclusively to email. Japanese ministries and agencies use faxes when handling highly confidential information, including court procedures and police work, and the Hokkaido Shimbun said there were fears that exclusively online communication would result in security lapses. "Although many ministries and agencies may have stopped using fax machines, I can't say with pride that we managed to get rid of most of them," an official at the cabinet body told the newspaper.
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Japanese Fax Fans Rally To Defence of Much-Maligned Machine More

Japanese Fax Fans Rally To Defence of Much-Maligned Machine

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  • "digital-only operation"... (Score:3)

    by Casandro ( 751346 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @02:53PM (#61567095)

    ... but Japan uses Group 3 fax machines almost exclusively. Those are fully digital.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      ...and terribly insecure if anyone is motivated to take the effort to tap the phone line.

  • Could someone please show these guys the miracle of a scanner and PDF?

    How can anyone argue that the abolishing of fax is impossible?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bws111 ( 1216812 )

      How does that solve their security concerns?

      • I don't have this specific model but it does do signed PDFs [brother-usa.com].

      • Faxes are not even close to secure.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )

        I can absolutely guarantee that all faxes sent over the public phone network in every modern country are getting scanned and saved by at least one intelligence agency. It is trivially easy to intercept, far easier than modern email.

        I am not sure what their threat model is, but faxing is generally less secure than sending it as a postcard.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      You can use a computer with a modem as well.
      They're often called faxmodems for a reason.

    • There are lots of use cases where paper-to-paper is the most secure and reliable.
      How do I take a PDF with me without a computer or electronic device?
      How do I give or serve another person with a document or page without knowing what electronic device or application they have?

      There are still valid use cases for dial-up modems too. Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they can be got rid of.

    • Depending on exactly which scanning program I use, I've found that scanning the same document with the same settings (e.g., letter size [8.5" x 11"], 300 dpi, black-and-white) can produce PDFs varying in size by a factor of *50*! And every Internet site has different rules on what uploaded file sizes and types are acceptable, and they require countless usernames and passwords to juggle, each with different rules on acceptable usernames and passwords. I waste hours, and hours, and hours, and hours on such cr

  • What other techonology could let you remote copy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tekram ( 8023518 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:11PM (#61567143)
    creating a physical copy thousands of miles away for a penny or two and not subject to phishing and security breaches of your smart phone or computer? The copy is also persistent for a short time and could be destroyed forever easily by almost anyone without much training.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by u19925 ( 613350 )

      Even better if they will extend faxing send/recv on cellphones. Built in apps can act convert the cell phones to fax machines.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      not subject to phishing and security breaches of your smart phone or computer

      Fax machines receive plenty of phishing attacks and since the phone numbers can be faked, they can work pretty well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Seems ideal for phishing. How many people bother to check the phone number?

  • Nostalgic bias (Score:4, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:14PM (#61567147)

    People like to stick to the old way of doing things because it worked for them. My grandpa swore that the best way to write stuff down was by carving it into stone tablets. Paper sucks in comparison to good old embossed granite. We should switch back to stone tablets because that stuff lasts literally forever and is far more durable. They are also safer to transport because the donkey won't eat them.

    • 'My grandpa swore that the best way to write stuff down was by carving it into stone tablets': Metusalah? Is that yooo?

    • People like to change things because nothing works good enough for them, or they're bored. My grandpa swore that the best thing to eat was soy food cubes. Regular food sucks in comparison to sustainable, efficient, tasteless gel. We should switch to soy food cubes because it will allow us to sustain higher population densities while being better for the environment. They also suffer less loss during transport because the donkey won't eat them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      There's still use cases for stone tablets.

  • Email has no reliable confirmation of receipt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Striek ( 1811980 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:14PM (#61567149)

    One thing often missed in the push to obsolete fax machines is that they provide irrefutable (AFAIK) confirmation of receipt. As such, they can be used to serve legal documents. The sending fax will, if appropriately configured, print a copy of exactly what the the receiving fax printed on its end. This confirmation of receipt can be, and is, used in legal proceedings - lawsuits, divorce papers, subpoenas, etc, in many jurisdictions.

    Email lacks this feature. While there are options available for read receipts, there is no guarantee the message was received in its entirety, or that it wasn't altered in transit.

    Also, a fax works anywhere a phone line is present, with no Internet requirement. While I imagine this isn't much of an issue in Japan, it likely is elsewhere.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by u19925 ( 613350 )

      Nothing prevents it from implementing it either. Many companies have auto-reply saying they got the email and that can serve as a confirmation. If you send an email from account like gmail/yahoo/hotmail and have the confirmation from the recipient, it will be extremely hard to dispute it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Striek ( 1811980 )

        Nothing prevents it from implementing it either. Many companies have auto-reply saying they got the email and that can serve as a confirmation. If you send an email from account like gmail/yahoo/hotmail and have the confirmation from the recipient, it will be extremely hard to dispute it.

        Unless they copy the entire original email, not so much (but that is certainly possible). But faxes send a "message received completely" to the sending fax machine. In many jurisdictions this has the same legal standing as registered mail.

        You're right in that such a mechanism could be built into email, but as of yet, it hasn't been. Until there's some kind of verification process, perhaps with a checksum sent back to the sender, fax machines will continue to see use.

        And to my earlier point, something like 5

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          And to my earlier point, something like 50% of the world is not online yet (I don't have the actual numbers). In all those locations, fax machines work. They're completely plug-and-play, anywhere you have a phone line.

          Tokyo, Japan is not in that 50% so it's a completely irrelevant point.

          And why stop at fax machines? They still need a phone line and electricity. Human messengers work everywhere, including in places with no electricity or phone lines. They even work when your recipient is illiterate or doesn't want to hear your message. Should the Japanese government should switch back to using ninjas?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Striek ( 1811980 )

            And to my earlier point, something like 50% of the world is not online yet (I don't have the actual numbers). In all those locations, fax machines work. They're completely plug-and-play, anywhere you have a phone line.

            Tokyo, Japan is not in that 50% so it's a completely irrelevant point.

            It's relevant because it's at least one reason why, in general, fax machines are still used.

            And why stop at fax machines? They still need a phone line and electricity. Human messengers work everywhere, including in places with no electricity or phone lines. They even work when your recipient is illiterate or doesn't want to hear your message. Should the Japanese government should switch back to using ninjas?

            True - and that is precisely why human messengers are still used - and much like fax machines, often to send legally binding documents.

          • Should the Japanese government should switch back to using ninjas?

            How do we know that they didn't? Just because you didn't see the ninjas doesn't mean they weren't there.

            Tokyo, Japan is not in that 50% so it's a completely irrelevant point.

            The point about much of the world lacking in internet access does not negate the other points. The fact that a fax machine is low cost, requires little training to operate, and has inherent security about its operation are all good reasons to keep them around.

            As much as we would like to have a "paperless office" that will likely be impossible. A paper trail is an easy way to provide a backup to the ele

            • If the fax machine disappears then it will be because a very similar device comes along to replace it. Something that is highly self contained, requires little training to operate, offers an inherently secure transfer, is low cost (both in initial investment and per transmission), and just in general as bulletproof as what exists now. I'll see people send photos by MMS/SMS as an alternative to a fax. Build a device that scans standard sizes of paper, and can print them out, and put a cellphone modem and SIM in it and you might just have the replacement for the old fax machine. It's backward and forward compatible with MMS, requires minimal training, and maybe with a bit of work can be backward and forward compatible with the old style fax too.

              I just had a "eureka moment" there. The fax machine will likely be replaced with the smartphone and MMS.

              I wish I have mod points today.

              If we want fax system to be replaced in a culture that treasures paper-and-ink (and stamps) because there is no fax machine in people's home, then someone shall build a new fax-like machine that can send/recieve MMS/SMS messages by scanning/printing. Then whatever personal mobile phone number can receive this new "fax" and also send this new "fax" at home. Meanwhile those old-style business/government offices can keep the paper trails they want and get documents across inde

          • Should the Japanese government should switch back to using ninjas?

            If you think ninjas are the ideal vehicle for communicating with people, either you don't know what a ninja is or your definition of "communication" is very concerning for all of us.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

              All I'm saying is, if Inigo Montoya had been a Japanese noble, he would've asked a ninja to deliver his message. A fax simply wouldn't have the same impact.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          Unless they copy the entire original email, not so much

          That's a cosmetic difference, the transmitting machine prints out what it scanned with the 'I sent it' printout. The receiving fax machine didn't 'fax back' the message, the sending fax machine just saw that a fax machine answered and the communcation reached the end successfuly. The same amount of technical information an email server has when it transmits the end of 'DATA' segment.

          A FAX being sent is if anything less of a guarantee than email, since there is an assumption of the printing process actually

          • Technically, so is the internet, if you have a dial-up modem.

            Having had to help people set up dial-up internet before the use of dial-up internet is far from "plug-n-play".

            First the modem has to be set up. Early modems were easy enough, those that were pre-56K, some of the 56K modems as I recall got to be quite fickle. If I was lucky enough where the computer had an internal "hard modem" then a lot of the problems of setup went away, there was no confusion on getting the serial port to talk the same language as the modem as the two parts were now one and the same.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by u19925 ( 613350 )

          I am not just saying that it is possible to built ack system in email, I am saying that it is already there. Many companies sent you auto response like "that you for contacting.... we will respond you ...". I have used such respond to dispute CC charges telling the CC bank that I had contacted the merchant and they haven't respsonded (apart from ack) in 72 hours. My bank refunded me money immediately with a warning that I will have to pay if the merchant disputes and provides sufficient proof that I am liab

        • "They're completely plug-and-play, anywhere you have a phone line."

          But many of these places don't have phone lines either. They have mobile phones. Setting up cell towers is cheaper than putting down phone lines. No place to plug your fax machine into.

      • The problem here is that the recipient has to cooperate in giving you the receipt. If the recipient wants, it's trivial to prevent you from ever getting a receipt. If the fax is received, the recipient cannot prevent the sender from having confirmation.

    • My printer has I-FAX [brother-usa.com] built in which is handy since I don't have a landline. Once that's set up the rest is just like operating a fax machine.

      I also have a FAX service through my VOIP provider (better than chasing down a free service).

    • What are you talking about? While you might be right about the legal aspect, it needs to change ASAP. Faxes are not encrypted, they can definitely be modified in transit by someone with access to your phone line and the right equipment. Email, on the other hand, can actually be encrypted and digitally signed with integrity provable. Also, faxes do actually get lost all the time. There is no way to actually prove someone saw your fax --short of video surveillance --- but the same can be done for email (check

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You can also DDoS a fax machine by sending it a continuous loop of black paper.

        • Haha yeah, I remember that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Striek ( 1811980 )

          I was actually a victim of that one. It's far less likely now, as fax machines tend to work with discrete pages, but it can still happen.

        • Not only did that tie up the machine, it also blew through all the toner, and also burned out the fusor. It wasn't just annoying, it was expensive!

    • It's certainly the case that a lot of email configurations are way too shoddy to be trusted for things like confirmation of receipt (it's not like S/MIME or equivalent is nearly as common as one would like); but it's also the case that fax machines enjoy a lot of misplaced trust stemming from the fact that people commonly treat phone lines as trusted channels; despite the fact that they have never been particularly resistant to eavesdropping(annoying, if you actually need to have someone tap the copper some

    • Fax machines do not provide irrefutable confirmation of receipt. You, the sender, can know that some machine somewhere received your fax, but you can't prove that, because the receipt is easily forged. There is no guarantee that what you sent is received uncorrupted either, so even if you have the receipt, you don't know if the recipient got your message. This was true with actual fax machines and it is certainly the case with modern fax-to-email systems. Fax is not encrypted or authenticated. Listening in

    • TBH I think receive receipts are a privacy concern. I'd honestly rather somebody, especially spammers, not know whether I actually got the message.

      Now nonrepudiation on the other hand, is universally useful. It's only given if you want to give it. Email has plenty of ways of doing that. Fax machines do not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Incorrect, the FAX machine prints out a copy of what it transmitted, it confirms that it transmitted. It says nothing about what the printer on the other end of the phone line actually did, or even what the device claims to have done. Notably, if a fax machine print head is clogged, it'll spit out a blank sheet of paper, with no way to prove that wasn't what happened. Further, it could well be the target is a fax to email gateway, and never print anything instead just making it an email.

      By the same token th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Striek ( 1811980 )

        Incorrect, the FAX machine prints out a copy of what it transmitted, it confirms that it transmitted. It says nothing about what the printer on the other end of the phone line actually did, or even what the device claims to have done. Notably, if a fax machine print head is clogged, it'll spit out a blank sheet of paper, with no way to prove that wasn't what happened. Further, it could well be the target is a fax to email gateway, and never print anything instead just making it an email.

        By the same token that it works anywhere where a phone line is present, the same could be said of internet. It may shock some young folk, but we actually used to usually 'dial up' to the internet.

        Hence the AFAIK qualifier. I may have been wrong about that. And you make a rather valid point about the print heads - even if the transmission report is what the receiving fax thinks it printed, it may be wrong; I hadn't considered that in my comment. The case of a fax to email gateway would still hold water, if I'm correct in my confirmation of receipt. It would still provide proof of receipt.

        Not a young dude here though (did you really think I was, when I'm defending the utility of fax machines?). I star

    • You can't verify the receiving fax had ink, toner, or ribbon left. It could have printed out a blank page.

      Many "modern" faxes store the data in memory and give you the option to email it instead of printing. No guarantee of delivery there. All you know is the receiving modem acknowledged all the data that was sent to it.

  • US Govts uses fax too. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:22PM (#61567175)

    US Govts (federal and state) still uses land lines and fax machines for many critical operations. I have used fax machines even in 2021 to communicate with govt agencies. I wish cell phones have these capability and have built in apps. My volume is not too high to subscribe to fax service and I am not happy paying exhorbitant prices at UPS and like places. My workplace allows fax machine usage even for personal usage but they are closed due to pandemic.

    • US Govts (federal and state) still uses land lines and fax machines for many critical operations. I have used fax machines even in 2021 to communicate with govt agencies. I wish cell phones have these capability and have built in apps. My volume is not too high to subscribe to fax service and I am not happy paying exhorbitant prices at UPS and like places. My workplace allows fax machine usage even for personal usage but they are closed due to pandemic.

      I have a similar problem, as did my mom. We need to send faxes once in a great while to some government office and a fax machine is a convenient way to do that. Mom has a land line phone and a multi-function printer/fax/etc. which I was able to set up for send only operation. I canceled my landline some time ago but sometimes wished to get it back. Landline service got real expensive, or so it seems. I recall getting an offer for VOIP service that claimed to be compatible with a fax machine but when I

  • Offtopic CSB (Score:3)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:47PM (#61567261)
    Back in the early 90s the company I worked for was making a fax machine based on the National 16032 (or 32016, they renamed it but didn't change anything) (and Wikipedia is off by 10 years). I had a limited time to run the stepper motor to the next line and read the dots. My C code couldn't do it, so I turned to assembly (I was pretty spiffy in several assemblers back then).

    This was the first time I could not get hand tuned assembly code to be faster than the C compiler.

    We ended up increasing the CPU clock speed to make it work.

  • ... isn't that much of an upgrade. I can see where fax actually might be more secure and be more reliable. I'd replace email first, then move from fax to that. AFAIK email is just about as old as fax, if not older.

  • Create a better alternative. (Score:3)

    by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Friday July 09, 2021 @04:49PM (#61567415)

    What makes the fax machine still relevant in the Internet Age is that it transfers images on a switched network, as opposed to a packet network, and therefore is far more secure. If people want to see the fax machine go away then offer an alternative that is just as secure.

    I would guess that an equally secure device would be similar in operation to a fax machine, as in it is a device with limited functionality. A general purpose computer can be far more easily hacked than a device that has a limited function, limited room to add more function, and therefore has no room for some kind of spyware or means to store and forward what was sent or received.

    A fax machine replacement does not have to operate on a switched network, but working on a switched network has inherent security. This replacement device could use a virtual private network system, a kind of one time pad system, or some other means to protect the communications. For some people the concern is not keeping it secret but to have some assurance of the source and destination, and a digital signature system can provide that.

    A fax machine replacement could offer different levels of security. It could have a "post card mode" which can offer no encryption. The next level might be a digital signature, where the message is not obfuscated in any way but the source can be verified with a digital key. (Side note: This has been debated as necessary for Amateur radio digital communications for things like remote control systems, especially satellites in orbit, and passing messages in an emergency communications network. Obfuscating the communications is prohibited in Amateur radio but that does not rule out signatures.) The next level of security may be a something on the level of a cell phone or WiFi security, not bullet proof but would take weeks of constant surveillance and an impractical level of computing power to break. Then there can be something of greater security, like heat death of the universe before it is broken. Then comes the one time pad, there is no breaking this.

    I can imagine a fax machine like device with slots for add-in cards for adding security. I recall a secure phone system like this which used something like a PCMCIA card for the crypto, but today might use something like a credit/debit card. The security levels might take numbers like RAID levels, with "Sec0" or something being in the clear, and something like "Sec7" being the most secure. Standardize the protocol, the key management, and so on, then publish it for people to build devices to that standard. My guess is that it could catch on quickly.

    • Except the Japanese faxes work over IP.
      They're shutting down their pstn networks.

    • That is at best hopelessly outdated info. The assumption that the PSTN is secure is completely bogus, but even if it were: The PSTN has ceased to be. It's all packet switched networks now, and has been for a long time. You do not ever get a switched circuit between your fax and the remote fax anymore. Nowadays the PSTN is simulated on top of IP networks. Fax is transmitted completely in the clear, unencrypted and unauthenticated. An otherwise unencrypted and unauthenticated email sent over TLS from your MUA

  • Lots of documents people want to transfer are still on paper.

    With a fax you put the documents in, then enter a phone number and you're done.

    With scanners, pdfs, and emails the number of steps, the possibility of making mistakes or getting confused, and the time it all takes is high in comparison: for a lot (most?) people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Striek ( 1811980 )

      To be fair, once you have scan to email st up, it's just as easy. Load the paper, enter an email address, push send, and you're done.

      It's not as easy to get to that point, what with all the comptery setup required, but once you have it set up, it's pretty idiotproof.

  • The main reason (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jrumney ( 197329 )

    All the talk of security is obviously shenanigans. There is no security by modern standards in fax transmissions or the ISDN or analog lines they are transmitted over.

    The main reason managers are objecting is that fax is an excuse to call their staff into the office when the government is trying to encourage working from home. Probably even managers in the Ministry of Health are pulling this stunt, desperate to maintain their toxic working culture.

  • I've been working on fax machines, since the early 80's. I hate the damn things! Customer will call up complaining my fax doesn't work. They can fax to 999 phone numbers perfectly, but ONE won't fax and it is the machines fault? If I knew then, what I know now, I would never had accepted my boss who said would you rather learn an ink based Risograph machine, or a fax. I said I'd take fax because (back then) they had no toner or ink. Just e-stat paper. I had to learn a LOT about the phone system on my o

  • I can't explain why, but I've had several visits to various doctors over the last couple of years, and virtually every document had to be Faxed...seriously WTF?

  • Every medical gang I deal with uses fax. Fax is secure. In addition, it doesn't require ridiculous nonsensical stuff like the EHR secure systems for patients, and most offices refuse to use internet email due to security fears and/or laws. Also, they don't need to pay some vendor every month for upgrades and tech support.

    • "....laws." There's your problem. Laws are made by politicians and lawyers.

      The last FAX I sent was some privacy gobbledegook to Walgreens that they insisted on. I signed their form, scanned it, and sent it via FreeFax or some service. Because I threw out our FAX machine in 1997. Whatever floats their boat.

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