[vox-tech] Email vs. FAX Security

[Peter Jay Salzman]

The answer to all of these questions is "it depends".


But I'll make sweeping generalizations.  Keep in mind that almost all
sweeping generalizations are untrue.

On Wed 02 Feb 05, 10:20 AM, Robert G. Scofield <rscofield at afes.com> said:
> I think I know the answer to this, but I want to make sure.  I believe
> that it is more secure to FAX a document than it is to email a document or
> message, right?  This assumes that one does not use email encryption.
 
Yeah, that's probably correct.  Encryption changes that dramatically.

> I realize that someone can tap a phone line, and that would enable a
> person to intercept a FAX.  But at least a FAX does not sit on a server
> waiting to be downloaded, like an email message does.

True.  It also depends on how you collect your email, who has access to the
fax, etc.

> It would seem easy for an ISP's system administrator to use the root
> password to read the email of the ISP's customers. ( I know I can log in
> as root on my Linux system and use the "more" command to read my
> downloaded email.)  Does anybody here believe that ISP system
> administrator's ever do such a thing?
 
Yes, but in the same kind of way that 16 year old McDonalds employees spit
into the hamburgers (or worse).

It's probably VERY rare.

The statistics are such that it would (probably) NEVER happen to you.

But I'm sure it happens.

Pete

-- 
The mathematics of physics has become ever more abstract, rather than more
complicated.  The mind of God appears to be abstract but not complicated.
He also appears to like group theory.  --  Tony Zee's "Fearful Symmetry"

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