Is a faxed document any different to a scanned one?

[westernman]

We send faxes by scanning them and then sending them with our IP telephone provider's software on the computer.
When we get sent faxes to our dedicated fax number, they arrive as a pdf file by email.

 

[CreakyDecks]

I don't think it has anything to do with "forging" things at your end. It is so that you can't accuse them of altering the document at a later date. It's much harder to do that with a fax than a computer file.

 

[prv]

I don't think it has anything to do with "forging" things at your end. It is so that you can't accuse them of altering the document at a later date. It's much harder to do that with a fax than a computer file.

So what if you send your fax to me at work, where it gets saved as an image file and turns up in my email?

The OP wasn't sending them a Word document they might edit, he was sending them a digitised image of the document. They're asking him to send them another digitised image, albeit in a different format and via a different network, because they're technologically illiterate and can't see that the two are almost exactly the same thing.

Pete

 

[elton]

A fax scan is a digitisation process so therefore must be lossy. Look at it another way, is the received image as good as the original? There are compressive processes at work, prove it by sending a blank sheet and then a sheet with some stuff on it, the one with stuff on takes far longer.

No, you are wrong. Jpeg is a lossy compression format. TIFF images and fax scanning are not lossy. Lossy image formats aren't accepted as valid documents from a legal perspective by many, many organisations. Compression can be lossless, or it can be lossy, dependent upon the compression algorithm. "run length encoding" is one example of a compression technique that isn't lossy.

 

[prv]

No, you are wrong. Jpeg is a lossy compression format. TIFF images and fax scanning are not lossy. Lossy image formats aren't accepted as valid documents from a legal perspective by many, many organisations. Compression can be lossless, or it can be lossy, dependent upon the compression algorithm. "run length encoding" is one example of a compression technique that isn't lossy.

You are of course correct on the technical points. Although the digitisation itself, even if the resulting bits are then compressed losslessly, is likely to lose information through sampling, which I think is what seadog was getting at.

Regardless, it surprises me that the encoding scheme used is considered to have a legal impact on the status of the document. A case of lawyers getting the wrong end of the stick, I suspect.

Pete

 

[nigelmercier]

Lossy image formats aren't accepted as valid documents from a legal perspective by many, many organisations...

Which is odd, because a JPEG is much harder to alter seamlessly than a TIFF.

 

[prv]

Which is odd, because a JPEG is much harder to alter seamlessly than a TIFF.

You can't expect lawyers to understand that sort of thing, surely?

Pete

 

[Lakesailor]

I'll check with my Mrs....as a solicitor, it's clearly all her fault, personally, if this is, indeed, some stupid legal nicety!

Does she answer your queries at "mates-rates"?

 

[colind3782]

A fax machine is just a scanner with a phone socket.

 

[Leighb]

I seem to recall that back in the day when faxes were cutting edge technology and first accepted as legal documents, that there was a problem caused by the early fax paper not retaining the image for all that long. Your signed contract became a blank sheet after a short period of time, thus causing all sports of work for lawyers.

 

[dunedin]

In the day job (at a bank) we put more reliance on faxes than scanned images via email (and always get a hardcopy too eventually). A fax is that much more neanderthal and therefore harder to forge.

That said a hardcopy is essential wherever we take any action of substance.

I think your bank needs to review its risk assessments. Dead easy to photoshop / alter a document before faxing.

It is also odd that many (IMHO ill informed) "risk experts" insist on physical documents with wet signatures, when properly thought through digital authentication is much much more secure.

 

[prv]

I think your bank needs to review its risk assessments. Dead easy to photoshop / alter a document before faxing.

That reminds me of my only experience with banks and faxes. A few years ago, Natwest head office used to sometimes dial my work number instead of the number of their Winchester branch, and end up faxing me various internal documents. Two of the more interesting ones were details of a security audit they were going to conduct (if I'd been minded to, I could have turned up posing as their auditor, to be shown all branch security arrangements. Hopefully they'd have asked for ID, but even so...) and the personnel report, dress sizes (for ordering uniform) and rather amateurish CV for a new teller due to start soon. Obviously the first couple of times I phoned them up to report it, and suggest that they stop faxing internal papers to all and sundry, but it was completely impossible to get through to anybody capable of understanding the problem, so I stopped bothering. Fortunately they seem to have corrected their internal phone book, or moved the fax operator with fat fingers elsewhere, and I haven't had any for about five years.

Yeah, dead secure that old-fashioned fax system

Pete

 

[macd]

It runs deeper than that. I'm sure I can't be alone in being phoned by my bank (legitimately, it turned out) and then asked to 'prove' who I was. The callers simply couldn't get their head around my reason for insisting that they should prove who they were, not the other way round.

Mind you, this one works for cold-callers:
Stop them in mid-spiel and ask for their home number.
"Why do you want that?"
"So I can interrupt you when you're having your dinner."

One actually said "Well, if you're going to be rude about it", before hanging up. Job done.

 

[prv]

It runs deeper than that. I'm sure I can't be alone in being phoned by my bank (legitimately, it turned out) and then asked to 'prove' who I was. The callers simply couldn't get their head around my reason for insisting that they should prove who they were, not the other way round.

Mind you, this one works for cold-callers:
Stop them in mid-spiel and ask for their home number.
"Why do you want that?"
"So I can interrupt you when you're having your dinner."

One actually said "Well, if you're going to be rude about it", before hanging up. Job done.

To their credit, Halifax were actually prepared for that when they phoned me.

As for the cold callers, how come you're still talking to them after "**** off"?

Pete

 

[ianj99]

+ 1
With a fax, the sender cannot dispute the fax that was received by the recipient.

Whereas, with any image sent by email, there's always the possibility the recipient could edit it: how seamless the edit would be is simply down to their skill and patience.

 

[nigelmercier]

With a fax, the sender cannot dispute the fax that was received by the recipient...

I could very easily send a fax appearing to come from elsewhere, in fact I do with every fax I send.

 

[prv]

+ 1
With a fax, the sender cannot dispute the fax that was received by the recipient.

Whereas, with any image sent by email, there's always the possibility the recipient could edit it: how seamless the edit would be is simply down to their skill and patience.

Why do you believe there is a difference? If somebody sends me a fax, it ends up as an image file on my computer just the same as if someone had emailed it. The process from then on is identical.

Pete

 

[ianj99]

Why do you believe there is a difference? If somebody sends me a fax, it ends up as an image file on my computer just the same as if someone had emailed it. The process from then on is identical.

Pete

Sorry, I should have made it clear I was referring to a fax sent by and received by a good old fashioned standalone fax machine*, not a PC.
ditto to Nigel.

* these are far from obsolete and I would imagine, still essential for legal documents for the reasons discussed in earlier posts.

 

[nigelmercier]

Sorry, I should have made it clear I was referring to a fax sent by and received by a good old fashioned standalone fax machine*, not a PC.

No difference.

 

[ianj99]

No difference.

I'm obviously outgunned brain cell wise so I wonder if you and Pete and a few others I could name would like to be resident experts on the new help website, its called www.asktheknowitalls.info and its sister site, onlymyopinionmatters.buz
Ian