Send faxes anywhere in the world with lightning!

[nullama]

Check it out here: Bitcoin Fax.

This is a cool project from Simon Males, an Aussie living in Europe.

It was first announced in 2015, but it stopped working at the end of 2018 because of hardware issues. Now it's back and thanks to lightning the total price is very cheap.

You basically just put the fax number and a pdf file and pay a fixed fee per page.

It's a simple and useful project.

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[dkbit98]

Faxes are being used less and less every year so I don't know how much usable Bitcoin Fax will be in reality.
Cool thing is that you can send pdf fax to anyone who owns fax machine even if you don't have fax machine yourself.
I checked prices on their website and they are very affordable (except maybe zone 7 countries), especially if you pay with Lightning Network they accept.

[simonmales]

Thanks for the mention!

Back in 2015 I also posted on bitcointalk.org: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1041074.msg11225277#msg11225277

[decodx]

Unfortunately, dkbit98 is right, faxes are being used less and less every day, especially at home, where smart phones and web-connected devices allow the Internet of Things to exist. However, I hope we can grow the crypto community to increase adoption so any new idea or use for cryptocurrencies is welcomed.

[SFR10]

~Snipped~

As someone who pays a certain shop a few times in a year, to send faxes on my behalf, such services will certainly come in handy but I'd like to ask a couple of questions:

• Faxes are sent by a third party who will have access to the original uploaded document and destination number.

  Are you fine with disclosing its name?
  
  

• Faxes are destroyed after delivery has been confirmed.

  Is there valid proof that the other involved third party, would do the same?
  ^{- The same thing goes for other things that are listed on your "Privacy Policy" page.}

[hugeblack]

Based on the privacy page, I can quote the following:

Faxes are sent by a third party who will have access to the original uploaded document and destination number.

So the data is shared with an unknown third party and therefore it is not known how to deal with it.
Therefore, I do not think that the files will be destroyed or there is no way to be 100% sure.

Will the IP address be logged because according to this quote it is not mentioned?

It is always up to you whether to disclose your data to us. Bitcoin Fax collects:

Fax documents
Fax numbers
Bitcoin transaction identifiers

Finally, the service is a gateway that accepts payments in Bitcoin and processes them to a third party, right?

[PrimeNumber7]

I don't think anything good will come out of this service.

People in this thread are worried about privacy when using this type of service. However, if someone uses this service to make a prank that is taken the wrong way, or to make an actual threat, this service will have problems if they don't know who the sender is. So this type of service is going to have to keep track of their customers' identities.

I am fairly confident that "faxing" companies are not protected by section 230, so they would be responsible for anything transmitted using their services.

[PrimeNumber7]

I am fairly confident that "faxing" companies are not protected by section 230, so they would be responsible for anything transmitted using their services.

If you're referring to US law, then it's irrelevant since this service is created on Prague, Czech Republic (according to https://bitcoinfax.net/en/about).

The US claims to have worldwide jurisdiction in enforcing its laws. The US has also signed treaties with various countries, including with the Czech Republic, that require other countries to extradite people charged with serious crimes.

So if a person (or company) is doing something from the Czech Republic that is breaking US laws, they can potentially be subjected to punishment by the US government. This would include the types of things I described above.

[dkbit98]

The US claims to have worldwide jurisdiction in enforcing its laws. The US has also signed treaties with various countries, including with the Czech Republic, that require other countries to extradite people charged with serious crimes.

I don't know know when exactly pranking and sending faxes became a serious crime in United States or anywhere else in the world.
There are services for hiding your phone numbers when calling, or using anonymous emails for sending text messages, that works just fine today, so I don't know why would faxes be any different.
Nobody should be asking you to KYC your emails, you can buy prepaid burner phones in many countries, and same thing can be done with faxes and Lightning Network now.

[PrimeNumber7]

The US claims to have worldwide jurisdiction in enforcing its laws. The US has also signed treaties with various countries, including with the Czech Republic, that require other countries to extradite people charged with serious crimes.

I don't know know when exactly pranking and sending faxes became a serious crime in United States or anywhere else in the world.
There are services for hiding your phone numbers when calling, or using anonymous emails for sending text messages, that works just fine today, so I don't know why would faxes be any different.
Nobody should be asking you to KYC your emails, you can buy prepaid burner phones in many countries, and same thing can be done with faxes and Lightning Network now.

I am not sure how using anonymous emails for sending texts works. However, if someone were to do something like "fax-in" a bomb threat or say there will be a specific horrible event in a specific location (as a prank), it would likely elicit a serious response by the local government (they would have no way of knowing if the threat is a prank or not), and after the fact, law enforcement is going to put serious resources into finding who sent the threat.

[dkbit98]

I am not sure how using anonymous emails for sending texts works. However, if someone were to do something like "fax-in" a bomb threat or say there will be a specific horrible event in a specific location (as a prank), it would likely elicit a serious response by the local government (they would have no way of knowing if the threat is a prank or not), and after the fact, law enforcement is going to put serious resources into finding who sent the threat.

You have a very vivid imagination  
That has nothing to do with Fax Bomb Mass Killing Machine, and I said before that I can call from anonymous burner phone or simply write and send anonymous letter, that nobody can track.
Government apparatus is the real dangerous parasite in this case, not regular people sending fax messages.
They also can't do anything to identify the guy who is sending Bitcoin to some other guy with non-custodial wallets, that are not connected with their identity.

[cryptoQueez]

Check it out here: Bitcoin Fax.

This is a cool project from Simon Males, an Aussie living in Europe.

It was first announced in 2015, but it stopped working at the end of 2018 because of hardware issues. Now it's back and thanks to lightning the total price is very cheap.

You basically just put the fax number and a pdf file and pay a fixed fee per page.

It's a simple and useful project.

Thanks for mentioning!! Faxes are being used less and less every year so I don't know how much usable Bitcoin Fax will be in reality.

[Kakmakr]

The nice thing about traditional fax machines are the "proof of send" that are generated.. after the fax was send. In my work.. we have to send reports to our Head Office on a regular basis and they also require us to send them the "Proof of send" via Vax. (Some of the remote offices do not have Internet and email ..so they rely on faxes for those reports)

It is an outdated technology, but when the Internet fail or if you do not have the infrastructure for it... then faxes on copper telephone lines will solve the problem. Will this work without Internet access .... or does this send directly to fax machines?

Also, remember the fee is per page.... so it can become very costly if you send something with a lot of pages.... where the cost of the traditional faxes locally are very inexpensive.