5 ms·

Faxes Still “Big in Japan”

32 points by zabzonk 5y ago

HardwareLust 5y ago
My boss, who is in his 60's, still insists on having his AIO printer hooked up to a copper phone line (!) so that we can receive or send a fax "just in case" lol. He still gets spam faxes on occasion, but we're never had to use it in the 4 years I've been here and counting.
zabzonk 5y ago
... and in the UK apparently. I just took delivery of a new HP colour laser printer/scanner which comes with fax software and a phone jack & cable. I can't see me using it though.
mkl95 5y ago
Sending a fax is a great way to legally prove someone has received a message without having to physically deliver it. I once worked for a company that was very unreliable when it came to paying their employees, and I tried to terminate my contract with a fax. There was only a small issue, they didn't have a fax machine.
- jasonlaramburu 5y ago
  Is a received fax any more legally binding than an email read receipt/pixel tracker?
  - ale42 5y ago
    Read receipt pixel/trackers can't prove something has been read. Thunderbird for example doesn't load remote images by default, by design, as they can be used for tracking purposes (including by spammers).
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    IANAL, but last year a bought a house in the UK, and all the conveyancing was done by email, except for one digital signature which used some third-party secure stuff for one particular document (can't remember exactly what, I'm afraid). No faxes.
    - tupac_speedrap 5y ago
      Ha, I bet the estate agent charged you thousands for that too even though its all remote.
      - zabzonk 5y ago
        Nope, about 800.00 GPB, which is a lot, but you are also buying insurance in case they f*ck up. The price was the same if they used paper. I don't normally like to say good things about solicitors (not estate agents, I was buying, so I didn't have to pay them, but I hate them too), but mostly they did OK.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    In some countries like Austria: yes. We still support fax machines there for that reason
- Iv 5y ago
  Yes, that's related to what I call the religion of paper. Here is its credo: Paper is official. Paper is non-falsifiable, especially if you stamp it. Paper can't lie. Paper comes with a date that is trustworthy. Paper can be sent through mail of fax. Paper can't be sent by email. Computers are where fakes are made, don't trust computers.
gingerlime 5y ago
anecdote time: A few weeks ago I was frantically trying to find an available covid vaccination slot. I found one doctor who was supposed to have some doses available. Emailed with no response. Phone line was either busy or no answer. I sent a fax! Even asked my son to draw a corona vaccination to get their attention. Wrote a nice handwritten note that I hope to get on the waiting list. Got a phone call back with an appointment after 20 min :) I guess they hardly get any faxes, and those who come in are super boring. So I managed to get through.
- kotaKat 5y ago
  Similar story I've heard with applying to jobs - blasting resumes over fax (thanks, Windows Fax and Scan!). From what I heard it was an extremely successful tactic landing quite a few callbacks and interviews, compared to blasting them out online.
- ale42 5y ago
  Similar story with a company I was struggling to contact (in 2019?) to solve an invoicing problem. Phone calls and e-mails were no success, I was always getting useless answers (when I got any) and interminable wait lines. Magically the problem solved a day after I faxed them a letter. Thing is, nowadays faxes are used so rarely that when they are, they immediately catch the attention of the recipient (assuming they don't end up as PDF in some mailbox that nobody opens... this happens too).
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    One reason they get so much attention is that they are a sign that this person is trying to create a legal paper trail that they reached out and contacted you or submitted something to you and you received it.
lloydatkinson 5y ago
Why can't they just be replaced with what is essentially a normal/embedded PC, in the form factor of a printer/fax machine? Sending the "fax" simply emails a PDF of the scanned pages over the internet and then prints the "fax" automatically?
- zabzonk 5y ago
  > Why can't they just be replaced with what is essentially a normal/embedded PC, in the form factor of a printer/fax machine? That is effectively what a modern dedicated fax machine is. They are very cheap commodity items. The issue here is not the hardware, but the use of faxes at all.
- ale42 5y ago
  Possibly because the channel on which the "fax" would travel (e-mailed PDF) is not the same as an actual fax (although nowadays it is probably going to be over T.38 transported over IP, so in the end probably not much changes in terms of security). If those PDFs were properly encrypted using a widely available PKI, then it would be a better replacement for an outdated technology. There might also be legal requirements preventing the unencrypted transmission of some type of documents (e.g. court documents) over the Internet. There is also iFax, which is supported by several vendors, which is essentially like a fax over e-mail. Many multipurpose fax/printer/scanner machines support it.
- apostacy 5y ago
  This question reminds me of the now infamous comment[1] asking why Dropbox exists when you can just use an SFTP server. Just because there are technologically superior solutions is hardly what matters. You need to factor in the experience of the users. Besides that, there is still no replacement for phone numbers. A phone number immediately returns if it is available to receive a transmission, and a fax on the other end confirms that it is set up, and you can be pretty sure that it isn't just going to languish in an unread mailbox somewhere. A phone number also takes more effort to set up, so will probably be treated better. Under certain circumstances, I would be more comfortable faxing documents somewhere than emailing a pdf somewhere. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
ElViajero 5y ago
> Ministers back down after hundreds of government offices insist banishing fax would be impossible That is the problem of having a system that works. It is expensive to replace, a pain to learn for users and difficult to justify the initial investment. Even if long-term, obviously, digital signatures and electronic mail will be a better system, that initial cost overshadows future gains. > 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. And, they are not wrong. The simplicity of a one-to-one communication makes it harder to misuse. Efficiency usually is an antitheses to safety. The digitization of Japan is inevitable. But, it is going to take a long time until a new system has the trust, the user-base and acceptance of the old fax one.
CTOSian 5y ago
Fax is epic... esp for revenge ! (see: Fax bomb)
tenfourwookie 5y ago
Big In Japan by Tom Waits : https://youtu.be/FVdfDoXHdZc https://youtu.be/FVdfDoXHdZc
rwoerz 5y ago
My most romantic memories go back to that fax machine that called me at 3 a.m. every f*** night (without revealing its number). I was almost about to learn its hiss language just to end this.
axaxs 5y ago
They are still surprisingly common in the US, also. Mostly Government and other regulated things. I remember having to fax things to Ally bank as recently as last year. After rejecting it twice for being 'too dark', they let me email it, which seems to defeat the purpose. I started my career in Medicare claims processing, which I guess has been nearly 15 years now. All claims had to be sent by dial up modem, and documents by fax at the time, for 'security reasons.' I'm unsure if that's changed, but that was a huge surprise to new billers. Many complained they couldn't even find a dial up modem to buy anymore.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  A few years back, I was refinancing my house, and they wanted me to sign something and fax it back to them. I asked them what millennium they thought it was. They looked a bit surprised, but they said "Well, you can email it to us..." I think that many places have their workflow that they want to keep using, because it's more convenient to them. But as a customer, I don't care. I'm paying you; you can use a workflow that's convenient for me, even if it's less convenient for you.
- swiley 5y ago
  College board only fairly recently stopped requiring faxes for requesting CLEP transcripts.
ksec 5y ago
>> 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. I like this. I used to be Anti-Fax, or basically Pro Digital All things when I was young. Now increasingly I want to go back to the good old Analog world.
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
Fax initially was used to transmit writing when the code space was too large. It was huge in Asia before it became popular in the West, because at the time there was too small a Morse Code (or other telegraph encoding) code space to capture many Asian languages. I believe they used a wax cylinder and a make-or-break stylus switch. The cylinder rotated, the stylus progressed down the image in a slow spiral fashion, dropping into the grooves the author had made in the wax. The signal was used on the other end in a similar apparatus with a pen, which would make marks when the stylus dropped into a wax divot (part of a letter) and raise the pen when no mark was detected. The resulting image was a sort of raster-scan of the original.
pomian 5y ago
I remember using weather fax on the Pacific Ocean. Far away from shore, using a short wave radio, you could receive weather forecasts and even weather maps, black and white. There were thermal paper printers connected to the radio, and voila, you had a satellite weather map. Later on you could connect it to your laptop. I wonder if they still transmit?

32 points by zabzonk 5y ago

My boss, who is in his 60's, still insists on having his AIO printer hooked up to a copper phone line (!) so that we can receive or send a fax "just in case" lol. He still gets spam faxes on occasion, but we're never had to use it in the 4 years I've been here and counting.

zabzonk 5y ago

... and in the UK apparently. I just took delivery of a new HP colour laser printer/scanner which comes with fax software and a phone jack & cable. I can't see me using it though.

mkl95 5y ago

Sending a fax is a great way to legally prove someone has received a message without having to physically deliver it. I once worked for a company that was very unreliable when it came to paying their employees, and I tried to terminate my contract with a fax. There was only a small issue, they didn't have a fax machine.

jasonlaramburu 5y ago
Is a received fax any more legally binding than an email read receipt/pixel tracker?
- ale42 5y ago
  Read receipt pixel/trackers can't prove something has been read. Thunderbird for example doesn't load remote images by default, by design, as they can be used for tracking purposes (including by spammers).
- zabzonk 5y ago
  IANAL, but last year a bought a house in the UK, and all the conveyancing was done by email, except for one digital signature which used some third-party secure stuff for one particular document (can't remember exactly what, I'm afraid). No faxes.
  - tupac_speedrap 5y ago
    Ha, I bet the estate agent charged you thousands for that too even though its all remote.
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      Nope, about 800.00 GPB, which is a lot, but you are also buying insurance in case they f*ck up. The price was the same if they used paper. I don't normally like to say good things about solicitors (not estate agents, I was buying, so I didn't have to pay them, but I hate them too), but mostly they did OK.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  In some countries like Austria: yes. We still support fax machines there for that reason
Iv 5y ago
Yes, that's related to what I call the religion of paper. Here is its credo: Paper is official. Paper is non-falsifiable, especially if you stamp it. Paper can't lie. Paper comes with a date that is trustworthy. Paper can be sent through mail of fax. Paper can't be sent by email. Computers are where fakes are made, don't trust computers.

gingerlime 5y ago

anecdote time: A few weeks ago I was frantically trying to find an available covid vaccination slot. I found one doctor who was supposed to have some doses available. Emailed with no response. Phone line was either busy or no answer. I sent a fax! Even asked my son to draw a corona vaccination to get their attention. Wrote a nice handwritten note that I hope to get on the waiting list. Got a phone call back with an appointment after 20 min :) I guess they hardly get any faxes, and those who come in are super boring. So I managed to get through.

kotaKat 5y ago
Similar story I've heard with applying to jobs - blasting resumes over fax (thanks, Windows Fax and Scan!). From what I heard it was an extremely successful tactic landing quite a few callbacks and interviews, compared to blasting them out online.
ale42 5y ago
Similar story with a company I was struggling to contact (in 2019?) to solve an invoicing problem. Phone calls and e-mails were no success, I was always getting useless answers (when I got any) and interminable wait lines. Magically the problem solved a day after I faxed them a letter. Thing is, nowadays faxes are used so rarely that when they are, they immediately catch the attention of the recipient (assuming they don't end up as PDF in some mailbox that nobody opens... this happens too).
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  One reason they get so much attention is that they are a sign that this person is trying to create a legal paper trail that they reached out and contacted you or submitted something to you and you received it.

lloydatkinson 5y ago

Why can't they just be replaced with what is essentially a normal/embedded PC, in the form factor of a printer/fax machine? Sending the "fax" simply emails a PDF of the scanned pages over the internet and then prints the "fax" automatically?

zabzonk 5y ago
> Why can't they just be replaced with what is essentially a normal/embedded PC, in the form factor of a printer/fax machine? That is effectively what a modern dedicated fax machine is. They are very cheap commodity items. The issue here is not the hardware, but the use of faxes at all.
ale42 5y ago
Possibly because the channel on which the "fax" would travel (e-mailed PDF) is not the same as an actual fax (although nowadays it is probably going to be over T.38 transported over IP, so in the end probably not much changes in terms of security). If those PDFs were properly encrypted using a widely available PKI, then it would be a better replacement for an outdated technology. There might also be legal requirements preventing the unencrypted transmission of some type of documents (e.g. court documents) over the Internet. There is also iFax, which is supported by several vendors, which is essentially like a fax over e-mail. Many multipurpose fax/printer/scanner machines support it.
apostacy 5y ago
This question reminds me of the now infamous comment[1] asking why Dropbox exists when you can just use an SFTP server. Just because there are technologically superior solutions is hardly what matters. You need to factor in the experience of the users. Besides that, there is still no replacement for phone numbers. A phone number immediately returns if it is available to receive a transmission, and a fax on the other end confirms that it is set up, and you can be pretty sure that it isn't just going to languish in an unread mailbox somewhere. A phone number also takes more effort to set up, so will probably be treated better. Under certain circumstances, I would be more comfortable faxing documents somewhere than emailing a pdf somewhere. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

ElViajero 5y ago

> Ministers back down after hundreds of government offices insist banishing fax would be impossible That is the problem of having a system that works. It is expensive to replace, a pain to learn for users and difficult to justify the initial investment. Even if long-term, obviously, digital signatures and electronic mail will be a better system, that initial cost overshadows future gains. > 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. And, they are not wrong. The simplicity of a one-to-one communication makes it harder to misuse. Efficiency usually is an antitheses to safety. The digitization of Japan is inevitable. But, it is going to take a long time until a new system has the trust, the user-base and acceptance of the old fax one.

CTOSian 5y ago

Fax is epic... esp for revenge ! (see: Fax bomb)

tenfourwookie 5y ago

Big In Japan by Tom Waits : https://youtu.be/FVdfDoXHdZc https://youtu.be/FVdfDoXHdZc

rwoerz 5y ago

My most romantic memories go back to that fax machine that called me at 3 a.m. every f*** night (without revealing its number). I was almost about to learn its hiss language just to end this.

axaxs 5y ago

They are still surprisingly common in the US, also. Mostly Government and other regulated things. I remember having to fax things to Ally bank as recently as last year. After rejecting it twice for being 'too dark', they let me email it, which seems to defeat the purpose. I started my career in Medicare claims processing, which I guess has been nearly 15 years now. All claims had to be sent by dial up modem, and documents by fax at the time, for 'security reasons.' I'm unsure if that's changed, but that was a huge surprise to new billers. Many complained they couldn't even find a dial up modem to buy anymore.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
A few years back, I was refinancing my house, and they wanted me to sign something and fax it back to them. I asked them what millennium they thought it was. They looked a bit surprised, but they said "Well, you can email it to us..." I think that many places have their workflow that they want to keep using, because it's more convenient to them. But as a customer, I don't care. I'm paying you; you can use a workflow that's convenient for me, even if it's less convenient for you.
swiley 5y ago
College board only fairly recently stopped requiring faxes for requesting CLEP transcripts.

ksec 5y ago

>> 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. I like this. I used to be Anti-Fax, or basically Pro Digital All things when I was young. Now increasingly I want to go back to the good old Analog world.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

Fax initially was used to transmit writing when the code space was too large. It was huge in Asia before it became popular in the West, because at the time there was too small a Morse Code (or other telegraph encoding) code space to capture many Asian languages. I believe they used a wax cylinder and a make-or-break stylus switch. The cylinder rotated, the stylus progressed down the image in a slow spiral fashion, dropping into the grooves the author had made in the wax. The signal was used on the other end in a similar apparatus with a pen, which would make marks when the stylus dropped into a wax divot (part of a letter) and raise the pen when no mark was detected. The resulting image was a sort of raster-scan of the original.

pomian 5y ago

I remember using weather fax on the Pacific Ocean. Far away from shore, using a short wave radio, you could receive weather forecasts and even weather maps, black and white. There were thermal paper printers connected to the radio, and voila, you had a satellite weather map. Later on you could connect it to your laptop. I wonder if they still transmit?