What do people think about the NHS banning the fax machine and the suggestion that their use is absurd
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46497526
Fax machines are still a thing?? Haven't seen one since the 90's!
Bryce.
It is more a MSX technology, rather than CPC :D
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/technology/personaltech/robots-fax-machines-japan.html
Their reason is safety? Really!?! :laugh: :laugh:
And by the way... is scanning, emailing and printing really more quick than to send a fax? :laugh:
I haven't seen a standalone fax machine in years, even the humble telephone is becoming rare, my work office no longer has any desk phones, I guess they assume everyone has a mobile of some online systems. I think something is missing when one can't just pickup a handset and dial someone, but that's progress. As for fax machines, I'm not convinced they need banning, if they were good enough in the past then they are probably still good enough now.
Quote from: GUNHED on 16:27, 09 December 18
Their reason is safety? Really!?! :laugh: :laugh:
And by the way... is scanning, emailing and printing really more quick than to send a fax? :laugh:
Two of those involve paper, another blast from the past. Rarely have that stuff in the office either.
Bryce.
Quote from: Bryce on 17:34, 09 December 18
Two of those involve paper, another blast from the past. Rarely have that stuff in the office either.
Bryce.
Paper is pretty much the only long term archive solution, books and text exist from hundred of years ago, I can't see much possibility of reading floppy disks or CDs in the 30th century. I suggested to someone at work in their early 20s they could burning something to DVD and they looked aghast and said I haven't see one of those for years so even what was once amazing modern technology is dying out. We've been moved to O365 at work, now word etc crashes a few times a day and I get the ever spinning egg timer, this is progress.....
Very true, in all men history never ever so much data was lost like during the 'digital' age.
Paper will last for 1000 years or longer (as we know), but only a single blast from the sun will wipe out all electronics (all means 99,99737%). The last big sun flare hitting earth we had during the 19th century, when even telegraph wires spit sparks and fire.
Quote from: GUNHED on 18:06, 09 December 18
Very true, in all men history never ever so much data was lost like during the 'digital' age.
Paper will last for 1000 years or longer (as we know), but only a single blast from the sun will wipe out all electronics (all means 99,99737%). The last big sun flare hitting earth we had during the 19th century, when even telegraph wires spit sparks and fire.
I have an issue with my university dissertation which I wrote on WordPerfect in 96/97, I managed to find the floppy disk which I can still read but I no longer have the software and the format isn't recognised by LibreOffice or word. I still have the bound copy up in my loft though and short of any major incident will last until I die, at which point my kids will throw it away but by then I won't give a toss :)
Well, there should be some way to convert it into something usable today. I mean there is even a Word (PC) to Protext (CPC) converter.
Now, I have to look in which format my dissertation was saved actually....
Quote from: tjohnson on 18:01, 09 December 18
Paper is pretty much the only long term archive solution, books and text exist from hundred of years ago, I can't see much possibility of reading floppy disks or CDs in the 30th century. I suggested to someone at work in their early 20s they could burning something to DVD and they looked aghast and said I haven't see one of those for years so even what was once amazing modern technology is dying out. We've been moved to O365 at work, now word etc crashes a few times a day and I get the ever spinning egg timer, this is progress.....
Yes, O365 is a mess. Luckily for confidentiality reasons, we can't use any cloud services. The problem with data in the digital age is that we once only stored what was important, now we store anything and everything.
Bryce.
I say go for it. In the last company that a fax was used regularly, its use was to spit out daily menus from diners around the area. So, spam.
At an age where hospitals and whole Health Systems unterake huge projects to digitise patient data it sounds absurd to keep faxes around...
Quote from: Gryzor on 13:45, 13 December 18
I say go for it. In the last company that a fax was used regularly, its use was to spit out daily menus from diners around the area. So, spam.
At an age where hospitals and whole Health Systems unterake huge projects to digitise patient data it sounds absurd to keep faxes around...
My view is that while the NHS probably should invest in more Fax technology I don't think there is a need to ban them. My hospital still send me letters through the post when I visit them, that must be an older antiquated method of communication but to me it feels safer than email.
Faxing stuff is insanely expensive compared to emailing it. Even ignoring the costs of paper, that you would presumably eradicate without it, the costs of line rental and phone charges necessary to run a fax infrastructure are silly. It might seem extreme, but I can see how outright banning it is the only way to get the last hold-out civil servants who fax things "because that's what we have always done" to enter the modern world.
Let's say I got this document here and my employee need it tonite. Now I can just fax it, this takes me one minute and it's gone! Finish! :)
Or do I really need to boot the computer serving the scanner, then scan it, then compress it, then protect it via some sort of encryption or not (depends), then hope that my email can take such a (still too) big file with it, email it; and maybe in one or two days somebody will find it in his/her email - but just in case it didn't get lost in some kind of spam folder - or some crazy raging anti-virus program killed it. Seriously? :laugh:
Quote from: GUNHED on 19:08, 16 December 18
Let's say I got this document here and my employee need it tonite. Now I can just fax it, this takes me one minute and it's gone! Finish! :)
Or do I really need to boot the computer serving the scanner, then scan it, then compress it, then protect it via some sort of encryption or not (depends), then hope that my email can take such a (still too) big file with it, email it; and maybe in one or two days somebody will find it in his/her email - but just in case it didn't get lost in some kind of spam folder - or some crazy raging anti-virus program killed it. Seriously? :laugh:
Good point on costs although one suspects the full running costs of a fax machine is substantially lower than the cost of running and maintaining the IT systems.
Quote from: GUNHED on 19:08, 16 December 18
Let's say I got this document here and my employee need it tonite. Now I can just fax it, this takes me one minute and it's gone! Finish! :)
Or do I really need to boot the computer serving the scanner, then scan it, then compress it, then protect it via some sort of encryption or not (depends), then hope that my email can take such a (still too) big file with it, email it; and maybe in one or two days somebody will find it in his/her email - but just in case it didn't get lost in some kind of spam folder - or some crazy raging anti-virus program killed it. Seriously? :laugh:
But why would you ever have a paper document that you didn't already have in digital form?
Bryce.
My doctor at the hospital writes out the form for the blood test by hand, maybe there is still slot of paperwork that is like that
I imagine that the NHS fax machines were worth having when the 2017 WannaCry hack occurred.
From Wikipedia:
"The ransomware campaign was unprecedented in scale according to Europol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europol), which estimates that around 200,000 computers were infected across 150 countries. According to Kaspersky Lab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab), the four most affected countries were Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia), Ukraine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine), India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India) and Taiwan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan).
One of the largest agencies struck by the attack was the National Health Service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service) hospitals in England and Scotland, and up to 70,000 devices – including computers, MRI scanners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging), blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment – may have been affected. On 12 May, some NHS services had to turn away non-critical emergencies, and some ambulances were diverted. In 2016, thousands of computers in 42 separate NHS trusts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_trust) in England were reported to be still running Windows XP. In 2018 a report by Members of Parliament concluded that all 200 NHS hospitals or other organizations checked in the wake of the WannaCry attack still failed cyber security checks. NHS hospitals in Wales and Northern Ireland were unaffected by the attack."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack#Affected_organizations
Another good point, while the IT systems were in melt down one could revert back to the good ol' FAX machine.
Quote from: Bryce on 08:50, 17 December 18
But why would you ever have a paper document that you didn't already have in digital form?
Bryce.
That's funny! :)
Why should I have something digital before I have it on paper? The originals are always on paper. And any employer (EU, not USA) wants all things on paper (as I just recently experienced). I wish I would have a fax here, but no, I need to waste a small fortune for stamps... :-X
Another good point, I think FAX machine are generally acceptable for legal documents e.g. signed contracts where as that is not always the case with emails and electronic documents.
Will we see a resurgence in the FAX in a few years a bit like LPs are a big back in fashion.
Quote from: GUNHED on 21:30, 17 December 18
That's funny! :)
Why should I have something digital before I have it on paper? The originals are always on paper. And any employer (EU, not USA) wants all things on paper (as I just recently experienced). I wish I would have a fax here, but no, I need to waste a small fortune for stamps... :-X
"The originals are always on paper" ?? Was the ink already embedded in the tree? :D Someone used a word processor / excel or whatever to create it before it got onto the paper. So the digital version existed first unless they are handwritten notes/sketches.
Possibly in your industry paper is still quite common, but in my business (and many others) paper is an absolute rarity and printing things out is frowned upon. Not just because of the environment, but also for security reasons. You can't password protect a piece of paper.
Bryce.
Yes I can. They call it signature. ;)
Quote from: GUNHED on 20:56, 18 December 18
Yes I can. They call it signature. ;)
And by signing something it can then only be read by authorised people? That's one powerful pen you've got there, I need one of those! :D
Bryce.
I'll think about it...
However, everything you got on a computer can be seen be everybody who is NOT supposed to see it. The few others who actually can't see it are not that important.
Just to clarify this... every PC OS will transmit everything _before_ encryption. My knowledge about this is outdated quite for few years, but I know at least seven 'services' paid by governments who have direct access to everything _before_ any encryption level.
Boiled down to a nutshell: Paper is save, electronics are not.
My last comment to this topic, there is other stuff to do...
You know who are still big users of fax machines? Football clubs.
Come transfer deadline day faxes will go back and forth. Secure, point to point and you can sign one, fax it back and it's legally acceptable for a player transfer.
Quote from: tjohnson on 22:00, 16 December 18
Good point on costs although one suspects the full running costs of a fax machine is substantially lower than the cost of running and maintaining the IT systems.
Capital Expenditure vs Operational Expenditure. Accountants can drone on for hours about the relative merits of the two but, particularly in public sector organisations with rigid budgeting, many prefer predictable up-front costs over difficult to quantify running expenses.
Quote from: GUNHED on 17:54, 19 December 18
Just to clarify this... every PC OS will transmit everything _before_ encryption. My knowledge about this is outdated quite for few years, but I know at least seven 'services' paid by governments who have direct access to everything _before_ any encryption level.
Sure things can be sent unencrypted electronically, but equally you can fax a confidential document to the wrong number fairly easily too. From an IT perspective it's easier to have technical solutions in place for document classification that can block emailing documents out if they aren't properly classified/encrypted and to restrict who they can be sent to as well. And again if you have physical copies of things on paper, properly disposing of them becomes more difficult - either staff spend time shredding things (which costs money in lost time) or you out-source it to a third party disposal company. Electronically deleting things is a lot easier, as is recovering something destroyed in error - and retention policies are again a lot easier to enforce in the digital world.
Good point.