Gaines Kilpatrick of Zilker Ventures, LLC recently sat down with Steve Adams of Internet fax leader MyFax, to ask 20 questions about the present and future of MyFax and the Internet fax industry in general. Adams delves into the world of Internet fax and speaks about assuaging fax machine users’ fears about online faxing. This is Part 3 of 10.
Austin, TX (PRWEB)—July 25, 2008 –
Gaines Kilpatrick: Are Internet fax transmissions secure? And what types of security measures are taken when sending and receiving Internet fax transmissions? As a third part to that question, how does this level of security compare with that of traditional fax or email transmissions?
Steve Adams: Let me start with the third part of your question. When you think about a regular fax, [the transmissions] actually have lots of security issues. [For example] your doctor faxes you lab results, or your real estate broker faxes you information about the house you’re purchasing. And typically that fax is sitting on a shared fax machine out by a secretary’s office where everybody can walk by and see what it is. It’s difficult to protect confidential information in that kind of environment.
There was a bank, actually, about a year ago that was sending all sorts of confidential information to a junk yard in Pennsylvania, simply because [the bank employees] had programmed their fax machine incorrectly, and it just kept sending [the faxes] all out. Traditional faxes aren’t all that secure, and we see a lot of customers [who are] often in a medical space or financial space, where protection of privacy really matters. Those customers are [using] Internet fax for their security.
One big part of that security is simply that faxes go directly to the person who receives them. Rather than having a whole company share fax machine, each individual user has their own fax number, and their documents are delivered directly to their email. And that means that you don’t have the risk of other people seeing the document.
On top of that, there’s electronic security—and this goes with the earlier parts of your question—electronic security measure that protect that fax while it’s in transmission. These are things like HTDPS, which is the same security you use for online banking, etc., and layers of encryption on top of that, TLS or PTP encryption. Depending on how concerned the user is about security, there are various levels of options they can use.
But Internet faxing is very secure, and many industries that are concerned about that security and protection of private information are among the leaders in moving toward Internet fax.
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To read the entire interview or to learn more about efax services and online fax, visit FaxCompare.com.
Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.
Contact:
Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031
Going Green with Internet Fax: A Convenient Truth
July 21, 2008
Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?
Austin, Texas (PRWEB) May 29, 2008 — Remember the final scene between Louis and Lestat in the 1994 movie Interview with the Vampire? Years after he’s explored the world and all it has to offer, Louis returns to a decrepit New Orleans house to find Lestat, the vampire who sired him, hiding in shadows and living a miserable existence. Lestat asks his former companion to rejoin him, but Louis refuses, obviously having moved on from a purposeless past.
Traditional fax machines and offices are not unlike Lestat and Louis. For years people have regarded their old fax machines with the same disdain that Louis has for Lestat, and now, businesses are parting ways with their long-used standards.
But leaving the fax machine behind is a process. Whoever said that fax machines aren’t really dead may have been right. How can you kill something that won’t die?
In the wake of new Internet fax services, such as eFax, MyFax and Ring Central, reports have surfaced of fax machines tucked into dusty office corners, hidden from sight, but still running and often used by businesses professionals who have not yet seen the light.
Experts call them “vampire loads”—energy-sucking devices that still consume wattage while lying dormant or idle. One of the most notorious of these devices is the fax machine, the Lestat of office equipment, which needs to be kept running in case it receives a fax.
“If you run a fax machine 24/7, you create 80 Kg of greenhouse gas per year in our area. That’s a lot considering how infrequently it’s actually used,” says DJ MacIntyre, President of renewable energy advocate Le Boisé Alternatives.
Greenhouse gases lead to global warming. Global warming leaves polar bears stranded on ice chunks. And the rest is history—literally, the most alarming environmental crisis in the books.
In addition to consuming energy, fax machines also use paper, which is too often wasted on unnecessary cover pages, fax reports and faulty fax transmissions. Internet fax industry leader MyFax recognizes this fact, reporting that “[if] 1% of all paper faxes sent in America each year were sent electronically, 73.5 million trees would be saved.”
Of course, there have been naysayers, people who have touted phrases like “the myth of the paperless society,” and arguments that electronic mediums have only increased paper usage.
But while paper waste has indeed proliferated in recent years, studies are now showing a decline. The speculated reasons have been various. Perhaps the post-Inconvenient Truth generation is simply becoming more serious about going green. Perhaps people are also more quickly embracing electronic copies, which can be saved on a computer or PDA and do not have to be printed.
This mobile aspect of email and electronic documents is appearing more and more desirable and environmentally responsible to consumers. People are also becoming more comfortable with Email fax or E fax services, especially since the majority of email servers and Internet fax sites provide secure archives of stored information that can be accessed “anywhere one can access the internet.”
Though there is not yet a paperless society, there is, instead, a myth that traditional fax machines are still desirable.
“[The] biggest challenge that people have is the lack of the familiarity of [electronic versions]. When people think of a fax, they think of a physical piece of paper and a machine that spits out… so there is a general reluctance or a bit of concern about what works—and that’s a concern up until people use the service,” says Steve Adams, Vice President of Marketing for Protus, owner of MyFax.
The truth is that the world is moving much faster than the naysayers would have people believe. Network connections are becoming more secure. Consumers are buying iPhones and Blackberries, carrying hundreds of electronic pages in their pockets. And we are supposed to believe that using a paper-jammed, whirring, buzzing energy-sucker is faster, more reliable and more convenient than the alternatives?
If the fax machine is still alive, it is, like Lestat, prone to abandonment. As MyFax says, “Fax online. Save a tree.” It doesn’t get any simpler.
Says Steve Adams: “[A] lot of people are surprised to see how easy it is once they get going.”
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For additional information regarding online fax services, visit FaxCompare.com.
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Zilker Ventures, LLC is a web publisher that consolidates information and reviews various business and financial products.
Contact:
Jennifer Silva
Zilker Ventures, LLC
(512) 448-9031
