VsiFax and filePro -- frustration! --- RE: Filepro-list Digest, Vol 79, Issue 39

[Fairlight]

Simon--er, no...it was Bill Campbell--said:
> 
> The first fax software I used was Unifax by Stuart Lynne, then of
> Vancouver BC.  Another Vancouver product is Faximum.

I think the only fax software I bothered with was efax for linux.
Somewhere along the line I've touched VSI, but it was abysmally designed,
for my money.

> Size might be a factor.  E-mailing a 25+ page PDF file might run
> into maximum file size limits in many MTAs.

Fair point, although it'd be really easy to change those limits.

> Another factor might be privacy.  Anything sent unencrypted via
> normal e-mail is visible at one or more points along the way,
> in particular to NSA that has splitters at most/all of the major
> Internet hubs (see James Bamford's boot ``The Shadow Factor'' for
> more on this).

Lovely to know that Big Brother is alive and well.  NOT.  :/

General SSL/TLS is readily usable with SMTP nowadays.  Most sites allow it,
GMail even requires it.

I wonder if the NSA can crack 256-bit SSL in any sane amount of time.
That's like a 32-byte password.  They're just now recommending a move to
12-character strong passwords in IT for the masses, in general, and the
computational time I saw on that was pretty hefty (years), even tossing
dozens of CUDA GPUs at it.  Every character exponentially increases the
time, so I'm kind of doubting the NSA could really crack it.

Then again, some people claim the NSA has the resources to do anything they
want.

I won't even recommend PDF encryption...wasn't that broken fairly readily?

> My wife frequently has to fax information on her patients to
> so-called ``Insurance'' providers, where the telco connection
> might be considered more private (but not really if Big Brother
> really wants to watch/listen).

I'm waiting for encrypted VOIP.

> If I were to provide better security for document transfers, I
> would put the document on a secure web or ftp site, requiring
> https, or ssl connections, then send a link to the file in an
> e-mail.  Not only is it more secure, but it's about 1/3 smaller
> than sending the encoded file in e-mail.

I agree that it's usually the safer way to go, and I prefer it for file
transfers.  But in the name of convenience, I still don't see why you
couldn't just send using SSL with the MTA.  Sendmail has supported it for
years, and I'd be shocked if Postfix didn't support something sendmail and
exim both do.  Exchange's capabilities might be another thing entirely, but
anyone willingly using Exchange deserves their headaches.

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.