[Tridus]

Yeah this happened here in NB in the pandemic. The system to get tests relied on referrals that were sent to the testing center via fax. When things got busy, it got overwhelmed and tons of referrals got lost. AFAIK they use email now and that isn't a problem anymore.

My credit card provider asked me to fax something to them a couple of years ago and I just laughed and asked "seriously?" The idea that fax is secure is a joke: it makes no attempt to be secure. It's archaic at this point.

 

[17671]

Maybe it was secure in some ways maybe it wasn't but it was for sure widely used mainly by medical professionals only. It was very rare for patients to have access to a fax machine or line, but it was no surprise when they asked patients to "fax" some medical documents people would scramble to figure out where to go to find a fax machine to fax some documents. Back when I did have a landline AND a Fax machine, Almost Every relative of mine would come to me to Fax documents, and not just medical, they would fax documents to their car insurance, lawyer, etc. they knew I was the go to guy with a fax

 

[JamesK]

They may have been "secure" in the days before those "Win modems", internal modems where software was installed on them after power up. It would be fairly easy for someone to make one of those modems copy a FAX. Also, the phone lines have never been secure. It's a trivial matter for a tech, such as myself, to bridge onto a phone line. I was even doing that when I was a kid. In office buildings, there is are cross connect blocks, where the individual lines come from the office and are connected to the phone cable.

 

[ExDilbert]

I could send and receive faxes in the 1990s using a PC modem and scanner. Originally, I used Unix and open source software but a few years later it was possible with software included with Windows. Documents created on the PC came out of the remote fax machine looking like they were done on a printer.

It was easy to tap into phone lines in some high rises. Bell would install a 25 or 50 pair cable that went through every unit on the way up. All that was needed was to open up the wall box and start tapping into pairs.

 

[17671]

If you use that analogy then Any telephone call is not secure and can be intercepted. This is already widely known about phone lines. The thing is if someone really wanted to intercept a fax then let them do it, the amount of resources they would spend to intercept a fax would it really be worth it in the end? what information would they find? would it be worth their time? If I was a bad guy, I would not waste my time to intercept a fax of someone's bone density results or my poop test? some times there might not be hardly any useful personal identifying information on those, for example my lab results didnt even have my name but just my unique cluent number and date of teste, but instead I would rather intercept a fax of someone buying shares or their bank statement or credit card bill or something more useful for financial gain.

So in the end we already know this, lets not waste time trying to discus secure vs unsecure. We know for a fact less people have access to a fax machine and a landline phone connection, so yes its getting more rare. Its also a pain in the you know what when your doctor still insists you send stuff to them via fax.

 

[ExDilbert]

When you consider the number of internet server hacks taking place, fax is probably very secure.

Canadian lab test provider pays ransom to secure hacked data

The Canadian lab test provider LifeLabs says it paid a ransom to secure data for customers that was stolen in a data breach in late October

abcnews.go.com