I was watching a round table with Ridley Scott the other day where he admitted he still uses fax because it's more secure than e-mail [0]. Does anyone know how valid that claim is?
However, superficially, fax is more secure because there are no stored copies (maybe depending on the machine?). There's the original, and the copy that gets printed out on the other end. If you were to fax over a script for a movie, there wouldn't be a copy sitting on a disk on the receiving end, there would only be a printout. That's what Ridley Scott is alluding to in that video.
Seems like fax has fewer folks targeting that system.
How is the encryption done? Password?
I've never heard about anything like this; fax machines have always been the POTS analog kind over in Australia.
in the us these are standard in scif locations.
Though no reason why such an approach could be utilised for pots based FAX machines.
As for the encryption - was pre-shared key type affair and unable to elaborate further.
So, if we go from there and then take something like https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hub... and consider the complexity of that, then ponder XKEYSCORE and so forth, yes, absolutely ISPs store faxes __precisely because they're unencrypted__ and __precisely because they're routinely used for medical and other sensitive data__.
Or the NSA isn't worth its $1B/yr.
I don't know Ridley Scott, but he needs to talk to a nice security researcher at some point, someone whose feet are on the ground and who likes sharing honestly.