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What's something that's seen as Obsolete, but isn't?

1y 3mon ago by lemmy.world/u/VirusMaster3073 in asklemmy@lemmy.ml

RSS feeds

I started self hosting my own RSS feed a few years ago, and I couldn't live without it. It's the best way to get timely info.

And then you can be the first one to post it on lemmy.

Came here to say this

I setup tinyrss a month or so ago, I just can't get into it. Any tips?

Into your instance or into RSS in general?

Generally what are you using it for? I've had trouble finding uses outside of youtube and a handful of news sites.

I follow some blogs, news sites, and GitHub project releases so I'm up to date to what I'm interested in.

github is a good one, I didn't think of that. Thank you

I loved netvibes to get daily comics and blog posts. Unfortunately people stopped writing blogs and netvibes is also gone

Blogs are having a timid resurgence I would say. Also not everyone stopped writing blogs, I have been following some since 2008 or so... When Google Reader was a thing lol

I think they are a lot more obscure because we prioritise social networks over blogs, so do search indexers. But they are still there!

Comics are now mostly on Instagram, but you can make Instagram RSS feeds with things like rss-bridge

Friends stopped writing their blogs. I slowly stopped reading most comics, now only Questionable Content and the occasional xkcd remains

He really should bring back blogging and that shit was awesome

Your caveman brain. People think they're educated an enlightened and everything they do now is so well thought out. Nope, the caveman is in the driving seat for all of us. Even your most high level meetings and interviews are influenced by how hungry, horny, or hurt you are by a teasing comment yesterday. Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don't really need to.

Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don’t really need to.

You know, I see the rest, but I don't see this. A lot of people are straight-up doormats.

Caring about your employees as if they were humans.

Caring about other people in general really

So how about that SPORTING EVENT last weekend?

Something something ludicrous display.

That implies it was ever the norm. At best it's had moments.

As if! 😂

Buttons, knobs, plastic bezels.

At least according to the industry those are all in the past. The future is screens that go to the very edge of the device and absolutely nothing tactile.

And it is bullshit. It is less reliable, less convenient, less cool -- To say nothing of the safety disaster that nailing a tablet computer to the dashboard of every car has been.

One of my problems with phones over the last few years is touchscreens that go all the way to the edge combined with UX elements that require swiping from the very edge. It basically becomes impossible to use if you have a case.

I used to be able to send my girlfriend a T9 text just by feel, without taking my eyes off the road. Probably had a 95% accuracy rate, but "I like your bombs" still makes sense.

Eliminating an entire sense (touch) from being used to control things seems to be foolish.

I'm just waiting for tactile screens to show up in this role.

OP doesn't like them, but screens have the huge advantage they can display an unlimited amount of widgets organised any way you like.

Absolutely hate cars with those stupid big screens on the console. Give me buttons and knobs any day.

Safty razors! Why would anyone spend 20$ on the new fangled 30 million blade razor that mighy last one shave? When you can spend pennies even if you change blades every shave.

Switched to a safety razor recently after years of using Gillette’s… It’s life changing! No more bumps or breaking out. Also it’s cheap!

I recently switched to a Leaf one and love it. It's about the same as my Harry's razor, but a hell of a lot less expensive when even Costco is selling their reloads at $27. The leaf blades are way less expensive, and they aren't even proprietary.

Oh that is a BEAUTY

I got two of these security razors back in 2017 for less than $50 bucks altogether. Best investment ever. Then, last year I got a Philip razor but I have since just stopped shaving at home. I ask the barber from time to time

Yeah, expensive up front, but the blades are cheap. I got on the Harry's train before they got bought up and were cheap. Now, whoever bought them has been jacking up prices, which had me looking for a cheaper alternative.

Harry's also gave me plastic guilt. There is a lot of waste. :p

Uh oh, what broke on it?

Hmm, good to know. I'll be sure to not overtorque it. Thank you!

At some point about a decade ago I realized I'm much happier just paying the extra $8 every couple months when I go to get a haircut and otherwise just letting it grow out.

Safety* $20* newfangled* might*

It's like you consciously added misspellings and bad grammar.

I don not know of no 30 million blad razor to.

Edit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

Paper; Notebooks. Key only physical door locks. Manual transmission cars. Not having any IoT appliances, and not connecting everything you own to WiFi. Hard drive full of MP3s. Cash. Not being available for a call if you're not at home.

Source: work tangential enough to cybersecurity.

Cash

I heard of some drug dealers not accepting cash where I live

What are they taking? Monero? Gift cards?

Cashapp I'd assume.

Lol, might as well hang a sign out front that says "I share data with cops."

\_( ツ )_/

It's almost like they didn't get any training before they became drug dealers. /s

I'm sure they have a group chat, right?

"Guys, how much are you selling your yay for these days? I've had negative feedback from three people now about prices. I can handle these bad Yelp reviews."

Now hold on, maybe they're onto something. The highest levels of drug dealers most likely aren't accepting cash, they're laundering their money through legitimate fronts. Small time dealers setting up some simple LLC or something for a relatively small fee and funneling money through that could actually shield you better from local law enforcement. I'm pretty sure Cashapp and their ilk offer business accounts nowadays, haven't checked myself.

Block, the company that owns Cash App, lost a court case and had to pay an $80m fine for failing to adhere to anti-money laundering laws. The Feds have been all over it for a year. Maybe 3 years ago it was possible to fake the KYC, but not a much so anymore.

The only truly non-tracable financial system is Monero, and many exchanges won't touch it because it has such a close connection to crime.

Marijuana is legal here. Dispensaries can ONLY accept cash, because they're locked out of the federal banking system.

I think some states are offering workarounds for that dilemma now, but I really do wish the US federal would just legalize it already. We have 24 states that have already legalized it, as well as 3 territories and D.C.. Around 33 states have for medical purposes.

When 2/3 of a country has legalized something in some form, it should become the de facto law of the land at the federal level. Those other states can continue keeping it illegal if their citizens so choose, but the Federal government should be forced to at least decriminalize it if it's something that isn't directly harming people against their will.

Hard drive full of MP3s is love, hard drive full of MP3s is life.

Although ATM my folder is just 1.1GB including the music videos, so I could probably store it on a thumb drive or carefully-chosen dishwasher; it doesn't have to be a hard drive.

IRC: simplest way of communicating online, and a bouncer can be availed for free

Forums: great store of knowledge and friendly, helpful people. If you ask a question in discord, nobody will ever see the answer again.

I can't related more on the second one. Slack and Microsoft Teams seems to be the default way to communicate in corporate environments.

Because setting up an IRC server is way, way easier than setting up a matrix server. It's also a lot more reliable. The downside is that it's text only

Because even IRC is better than matrix

Man, I really want to get back into IRC. Is there any good client you can recommend?

Halloy seems to be a popular choice on desktop. Goguma on android according to https://libera.chat/guides/clients

Thank you!

Forums: great store of knowledge and friendly, helpful people. If you ask a question in discord, nobody will ever see the answer again.

The search functions in forums are notoriously terrible though (although someone will inevitably ask you to try using it), so finding anything useful relies on "outside" search engines.

And the linear thread format has been terrible since it was invented (which is probably why discord uses it). You basically need to ignore half the posts to follow the one interesting side line that might end up with a solution.

Guillotines

Wrist watches. Extremely convenient, even when your phone is buried or you don't want to be distracted.

Yep plus if you take your phone out you leave yourself vulnerable to being robbed.

  • for the wristwatch, if you wear a 10$ casio people will think you’re poor

Oooh nice one. Bonus points if it's a dirty strap.

Or a terrorist

I wear a cheapish waterproof one while swimming. The pool has a clock but I can't see it without my specs.

Yep. And it doesn't need to be charged every night like apple watch or similar.

Am looking for a new one if you have any recommendations.

If you find a G-Shock that doesnt incorporate bluetooth and you happen to think of me, pass the name along will ya?

The one I have goes like this. Start stopwatch... Stop stopwatch... Choose between save/delete/resume.........................deleting..........................................................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand deleted... *returns to watch function.

Don't get the one I got, lol. I'm probably going back to a non-smartwatch after problems with my tic watch.

Oh yeah for sure it'll be an old fashioned normal watch. Ditched my smartwatch last year.

I have one that uses the gaps between chain links to form a 7-segment display and it's dope.

Magnetic tape. It's one of the better long-term offline backup solutions. It is compact, inexpensive, has no moving parts (bearings, motors, reader heads), no scratchable surfaces, and can last for decades in a moderately climate-controlled room.

Just keep it away from magnets... or iron vaults. According to an anecdote (that I can't find right now), a large bank vault was repurposed as an offsite backup storage, except it kept wiping the magnetic tapes because the thick iron walls reacted to changes in the geomagnetic field.

Correlary: always test your backups and don't just assume that they will work when you need them.

If you aren't testing your backups then you don't have backups.

I'd love to get into tape backups for my stuff. But the price for the drives is absolutely unjustifiable for hobbyists unfortunately.

We used to do tape backups up until about 6 years ago, but our higher headquarters decided they wanted to go all in on Rubrik instead. I will say that it is a lot easier to maintain and conduct restores from, and we have all of our various sites' Rubriks backing up to each other for redundancy. But you're definitely right that tape is far cheaper per GiB of storage than anything else.

CDs/DVDs/BluRays

I don't want to support Spotify, which is owned by tencent. I don't want to spend a fortune on streaming services. I don't want to sell my data to google by using YouTube, and I want to be able to listen to music/ watch movies when offline.

Spotify is not owned by Tencent. It’s publicly traded, and tencent owns part of it.

There are a lot of reasons to hate Spotify (and Daniel Ek) but this is not one of it.

The short version: Tencent Holdings is about to own 10 percent of Universal, which in turns owns around 3.5 percent in Spotify, which in turn owns around nine percent in Tencent Music Entertainment, which in turn is part-owned by Universal’s two main rivals (Warner and Sony), but remains majority owned by Tencent Holdings, which in turn owns 9.1 percent of Spotify. (And, yes, no kidding, that’s the short version.)

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/who-really-owns-spotify-955388/

I collect all them. Want to get into Laserdisc as well

I want a new Blu-ray format but with the size of Laserdisc. Vinyl coming back into style shows that a large disc doesn't matter if playing at home. Would be fun to have the Laserdisc vibe for movies and even whole seasons of TV using the tech of Blu-ray. Just think of how much uncompressed media could fit on something that size! It has no chance of happening of course, but Laserdiscs look sick. I loved when teachers would show educational stuff on them and see the size of those things. I plan to get a player sometime if I have the spare funds, but I did get Aliens on LD just to have and show off.

Is that a recent development?

For me personally? I have been steadily changing the way I source media over the past 2-3 years. Also I lately read more of other ppl going back to physical media for the same-ish reasons.

Just pirate it after you have subscribed to it a few times. The author has got their share. The only party you're harming by doing this is the streaming platform. Illegal, but not immoral.

I love all of those things! Whenever I hit up a thrift store, the media section is my first stop. I've gotten so many great CDs and movies for next to nothing that way.

Obligatory thought to cobol, which is stil the backbone of banking computers.

I would also think to the good old electromechanical relay which are still pretty common

More political, but whatever what imperator Musk thinks Privacy isn't obsolete

Not only is privacy not obsolete, it's easier now than eight years ago when I started degoogling, there are so many decent alternatives nowadays to all kinds of services and apps.

The latest version of COBOL came out in 2023.

Grace Hopper lives on

Measles

Tape drives. Remember those big reels of tape on mainframes in the 80s? They don't look exactly like that anymore, but tape is still used for backups/long term archival because they offer the lowest cost per gigabyte and decent longevity without needing to be powered, as long as you don't need to access the data all that fast or often.

Those dank memes and cat videos you posted in 2010 are probably on tape in a data centre somewhere

Im obsessed with tape storage, but for audio. Nothing more real than audio on tape! Luckily it's catching on again. Music is so disposable now, I hope we can keep physical formats alive and keep corporations away from it (digital offers them unlimited control over us).

Can you drop some tape player recs to save me on tape spaghetti?

Oh sorry, I meant more reel tape not really casettes, but I love the otari mx5050, and the teac 2340sx. Good machines and 1/4" tape is still affordable. PM me if you'd like more tape info, I love to share.

Ah okay haha. Ive been buying vinyls lately and there's a lot of people with casette merch too. I didnt remember tape being that amazing but was willing to give it a shot. I don't have reel to reel space at my place unfortunately. Thanks for putting it out there though!

Well I'll say cassette quality can never really be good becaise of the slow speed and narrow width. . But 1/4" tape is about the best analog quality you can get (feasibly cost wise) if you go 15 IPS and half track (1 way play, no flipping).

If you want good sound for cassettes you can't beat a Nakamichi deck, best there are.

Tape is rad for long term storage

Tape itself is cheap, but buying the other equipment for it costs a fortune.

Writing your passwords in a piece of paper. Safer than storing it digitally and easier for people that don't know how to use password managers or computers in general to understand what to do to access your stuff if you're under a difficult situation or dead.

Also, physical photos. Yes yes, we all have gigabytes of photos, but almost never check any of them. Physicals catch my glance at home very often, great decoration. I've also took to writing the day, place and people on the back, plus any other important bits of context.

Grandma approved 😂

I have a reel of photos from our kids' album on our TV. Cycles every minute or so. Subs for printed photos fairly well.

Gave a digital photo frame, cycling the same pictures to great grandpa though and he died the next day. Make of this what you will.

Phones from 2000-2010. Linux/PostmarketOS allows you to run these as mini webservers with webcam's built-in (depending on chip support)

Also PostmarketOS are looking for a new name, so if you've got a suggestion put it here: https://nextcloud.postmarketos.org/apps/forms/s/cAYZZrCqLnrfMPEMAAonCWwx

Printing out tickets as a backup. I do this for concerts and travel because then I don't have to worry about batteries dying, wifi/roaming not being available, getting logged out and having trouble getting back to the ticket, etc.

I also print out maps when doing wilderness backpacks because even if you download the map you'll burn through your battery life well before the hike is over but a paper map is just as good. If I really need to confirm my location I can occasionally turn on the app and shut it off. I keep the maps in a gallon ziplock so water isn't an issue.

Ticketmaster is doing their very best to make paper tickets unusable with refreshing barcodes. Funny thing is that "anti-theft" feature is needed because of their own systemic failures. I do like tickets that are just sent to my email or similar (e.g. as an attachment that I can save to my phone) though, it's better than wasting paper when I know my phone won't fail me.

Pretty much anything in a machine shop made in the last 80 years or so. So many people turn up their noses at anything that isn't computer controlled anymore. Yknow what a big old mill can do that a CNC can't? It can make every single part needed to make a new mill. It's a self replicating machine with the right know how. People don't respect that kind of quality anymore.

Can a CNC not do that for just the mechanical parts?

(I know way too much about bootstrapping semiconductor production at small scale, which seems to be viable but highly impractical)

Sure, but it's not as impressive (imo) when you also need a computer control system, a bunch of circuitry and electronics, and a whole mess of software to make it work in the end. A mill just needs enough spin and it runs exactly as intended.

Oh yeah, I have a copy of the Gingery books and I love it.

I haven't seen Gingery into how much power you need exactly, or what blend of RPM vs. torque is ideal. What would be your guess, since it sounds like you might know?

Torque is the real limiting factor. You can always gear up or down for whatever you're working on, but at the end of the day you need enough torque to get the work done. And a proper milling machine needs A LOT of torque.

Can you give me some typical values, maybe? That would be a big help.

There are no "typical values" when you're running a mill or lathe. You could look up "speeds and feeds", but that's really just a table that you plug into an equation to figure out how to set the machine. It all depends on what you're doing and what you're doing it with. Drilling a hole with a high speed steel drill bit is going to be a bit different than drilling it with a carbide spade, and all that is going to depend heavily on whether you're trying to run through titanium or tin. You need to fine tune running "x" bit through "y" material for a "z" sized cut.

Essentially, this is the knowledge that separates skilled labor from manual labor, and machining is (was, RIP cnc button pushers) skilled labor.

At the end of the day for most metal machining you'll need between 50hp and 100hp to be up to modern standards. If you want to get that through steam or electric motors or whatever that's up to you

Thanks, that's really helpful. I suppose it makes sense that not just material but cut size and bit would matter. They usually focus just on the geometry on YouTube.

Out of curiosity, what's the lowest you've ever gone? It's hard to picture machining happening at something like 60RPM.

If you want to get that through steam or electric motors or whatever that’s up to you

Since I'm interested in technological bootstrapping more generally, I think most about water wheels, actually! Steam engines need to be machined, which is a chicken-and-egg problem (or I guess crafted freehand to a machining-like precision, like Vaucanson's lathe). Electric motors don't necessarily, but they need a source of electricity, and that's either a lot of batteries or another rotating power source, which again doesn't solve the problem.

Waterwheels can be made with hand tools - maybe even primitive tools - and can achieve surprisingly modern efficiency and power density. They do require the right topography, but then again they spin indefinitely without needing to be fueled. 50hp is still a sizable wheel, near the top of what existed in pre-modern times, but I'm guessing you can do basic things with an underpowered machine.

You'd be surprised how slow machining can be. Cutting speeds are all in sfm (surface feet per minute) and when you have a BIG part, them feets add up quick. Check out videos of big old vertical lathes running big parts. You can get down to a quarter of an rpm but the flange or fitting is so fucking huge that you're still pushing 100-200 sfm at the bit.

Yes, they make massive CNCs.

I don't think a mill can make the copper windings in the motor and isolate them. Same with the power cable.

You don't need an electric motor. You just need enough spin. I've seen old mills and lathes that run on steam. An electric motor just happens to be very convenient with our current technology.

Developers. Yes, AI can sling a lot of code, but it can't make business decisions and it can't please a difficult customer.

Honestly, developers shouldn't be the front line for that if you're medium-sized or bigger anyway.

It's even simpler: AI can't really even begin with architecting, and will stubbornly defend nonsense code 5% of the time when you need >99% correctness for the thing to run at a basic level.

Pencils. The ones where you need a pencil sharpener to sharpen them every so often. Mechanical pencils just aren't the same.

Have you tried an auto rotating mechanical pencil?

Other mechanical pencils suck because you get a flat side on the lead. An auto rotating one fixes this problem and makes it like new everytime you pick up and put down the tip to write.

Oh man reading the previous comment instantly reminded me of this problem I haven't had any encounter with since I left high school. I've never heard of that, but if I ever had any reason to write anything I would love it to be one of these.

The only writing I've done in YEARS is signing my name on screens at doctor offices and pharmacies.

Aren't mechanical pencils incompatible with scantrons?

Shouldn't be. As long as you are on the same hardness scale it should be fine. The standard number 2 pencil just means its a medium-hardness graphite or HB on the grading scale. An argument can be made for the finer tip of the mechanical pencil can damage the scantron paper, but one should be able to fill in a circle without pressing so hard it damages the paper.

I'd say vinyl. Looks like a thing from the 60s but it's still pretty relevant today

I put vinyl siding on my house 15 years ago. Still looks brand new. Vinyl is here to stay.

I want tot go one further and say music cassettes. Love their sound and way more compact than vinyl. Sadly, there's no good new hardware being made at the moment, although I really like my We Are Rewind player, it's far from HiFi.

Nah, gotta got vinyl because cassettes deteriorate just sitting in their cases while vinyl stays pristine ... until you actually play it, anyway -- but if you want to store an audio recording for longevity, press a gold version of a vinyl album.

With both, it also matters how you store it. But like I said, (modern) cassettes are not for HiFi. If I really want to immerse myself in a record, I need the vinyl. The whole experience is just so much fun.

Analogue clocks, particularly clock towers in towns, but also just basic clocks on the wall in your home. With smart devices everywhere, it seems like they're not needed and probably old-fashioned. The circular 12-hour clock face probably feels like the floppy disk icon or the rotary telephone, in terms of how 'of another era' it is, but it's still a fantastic and resilient form factor for the purpose of visualising the passage of time. Digital is great, but analogue will be with us for the foreseeable future (and I'm including in that the representation of analogue in a digital form, e.g. on smartwatches that provide a classic clock face graphic).

Wired headphones

Leeches are still used in some surgeries.

Letting maggots into wounds, too. And bloodletting in certian niche cases. You could make the case for trephination (putting a hole in the skull), even if they put you back together once your brain stops swelling now.

However, mercury as a medicine is right out.

Small phones, structuralism, and Mr. Rogers.

I love Technology Connections

Fortran, probably

Alive and... well alive in scientific computing

I'd probably say something like my Sony Discman or any other CD player, if we're talking the general public. CDs aren't anywhere near as popular as they used to be thanks to streaming, but if you're collecting like I am, a dedicated CD player is a necessity.

Those impracticaly large fragile things, failing in cars with the slightest shock? Never cared for them.
Casettes you could throw around, tape them if necessary.
Later minidisc for a short time and digital mp3/flac... So no thank you, like DVD's spoiling plenty of movies by giving up in the middle due to a tiny scratch these things were a mistake.

It was so cool. Until that moment the train doors close and you realise your very expensive player is on its way to the next station... Yes, it's still a trauma.

I loved minidisc. It was just too late to the game with mp3s hot on its heels.

I hate that music nowadays is supposed to go through my phone. I'm on my phone constantly. It's ridiculous that I can't do that while listening to music. A dedicated music player is essential.

Although I eventually gave up on CDs and now I just use an old phone.

The first ever concert I ever went to November of last year I got super lucky. Headliner band, a local hometown Rock group, had a few different CDs for merch sales. All the other acts had vinyl if they were selling their music on physical media, which was a real bummer because I would have totally gotten a CD from one of the other acts I really liked.

I've also been seeing vinyl at walmart any time I am unfortunate enough to have to go there. It doesn't feel right. Totally agree on the space thing since I can currently fit all my CDs (for now) in a small drawer in my desk but would absolutely struggle to fit vinyl just about anywhere on/in my desk without it sticking out like a sore thumb.

Being kind to one another

Fax machines. Government and medical offices would grind to a halt without them. That's just reality.

Because it can do something that the alternatives can't do or because they refuse to use something more modern?

"It can't be hacked"

Of course, it can, and a lot more easily than a TLS stream, but try convincing them of that. So, more like they refuse to use something more modern.

Everyone even tangentially related to healthcare is terrified of violating HIPAA in a way that leaves evidence that can be traced back to them. So the corps force dumb shit like this, while the employees are perfectly happy to tell all kinds of private health information to anyone who will listen. Especially if it's funny or gross.

Believe it or not, Canadian health services do this shit too.

I always thought email was more secure if it was encrypted. I also don't understand the difference between a virtual fax (sent as a scan, from the computer, via a phone number but literally just some kinda email like thing) or from a low tech low res scan over the phone line that likely is a voip line anyway. I don't even know the finer details of how those work, but the differences seem pretty minute to someone just staring at the parts.

Yes, email isn't actually less transparent. If you're using webmail over HTTPS it's harder for a small adversary to intercept, but that's it. Fax is way less efficient, though, while having no advantages I can think of.

Even worse, the US military, at least, is still using teletype machines and COBOL.

Came to say this. Fax just refuses to die.

That's basically the answer to the opposite question: what is something that someone thinks isn't obsolete, but really is?

Magnetic tape. Datacenters use it for long term storage.

measles..

Apparently trains for some people

...how are trains obsolete to anybody?

Hundred of billions of tonnes of freight are moved by rail each year globally, and people travel hundreds of billions of kilometers by rail.

This is what annoys me too. Freight is so crucial and it still moves plenty of people in many countries both in the north and global south. I guess they will think of steam era trains.

Trackballs

You might think of them as this old mouse that you had 20 years ago, but actually the technology is still being used for all kinds of things, including ergonomic mouse

I can actually game with one, and I've outright worn out 3. They last longer than traditional mice too.

Fax machines and overhead projectors, if you live in Germany. Basically every office here still has a (frequently used) Fax machine and all schools still use overhead projectors.

It was actually quite a shock to me when my University retired their projectors in 2023. They sent an email to each and every student as a warning. Life‘s crazy here.

As a stupid american that took a few German classes in highschool many years ago, I must know, do you call it "der Projektor" or "der Bildwerfer"?

100% „der Projektor“. Bildwerfer makes sense as well, but I have never heard anyone use that word before.

It actually reminds me of the German version of me_irl (ich_iel) where they try to use German words exclusively even if it sounds completely silly.

Projectors that use actual acetates? Wow.

clapper. plug it in and its good to go. don't want to block it in to much though and muffle sound getting to it.

Fax machines. Phone lines are pretty private, and sending a fax is usually more secure than emailing something, especially if someone else manages your email.

Counterpoint, fax is not encrypted and wire taps are very easy. At least e-mail can be encrypted so Joe shmoe on the street can't see it.

Besides, all faxing these days is going through VOIP and computers anyways.

Having to physically wire tap the phone line is a lot more difficult and requires local bad actors. Email’s exposure to the internet makes it easier to hack. Yes, email can be encrypted, but if your server is compromised, that doesn’t matter. End to end encryption for email is much harder, and isn’t really used by any institutions (and usually can’t be because of data retention regulations), so the server has complete access to the unencrypted email in almost all cases. Compromising a fax machine that isn’t connected to the internet is a lot harder.

Not all faxes go through VoIP. Your everyday home fax machine probably uses VoIP, because having a landline installed in your home is stupid expensive and unnecessary, but faxes in institutions probably use the PSTN. These institutions most likely need landlines anyway, so having a dedicated fax line makes a lot more sense.

And if a fax goes through VoIP, it’ll be encrypted the same way email is. So in that case, it’s the same level of security as email, which is to say, easier to compromise. At least you can’t trick someone into clicking a link in a fax though.

you can choose whatever email provider you trust, and then they apply encryption on the transport level. but there is often very few phone companies, and zero encryption. they don't have to install any kind of wiretaps, they can just record everything automatically that passes through

That is true that they have the technical ability to do that, but it is also illegal if they disclose that information to anyone, and it’s unnecessary to run the service, so it simply puts them in a lot of legal jeopardy and adds to service costs.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511

I personally trust AT&T with a fax line a lot more than I trust Google with an email.

Google specifically discloses that it does record the contents of every email (obviously), and that when you delete an email, it’s not really gone from their servers. AT&T (as well as any phone company in the US) is not allowed to disclose the contents of your phone call or fax without a valid wiretap order (which don’t apply to privileged communications), so they almost never record call content. Keep in mind, email providers must also hand over any emails covered under a valid search warrant.

So when you send an email, your document is 100% definitely recorded by at least two companies (or one if you use the same provider as the recipient). When you send a fax, it’s highly unlikely that the contents of your document are recorded at all, except on the printed page at the receiving end. It’s just not necessary and puts the phone company at risk, so it doesn’t make any business sense.

Proton mail is encrypted on the server with your key and proton does not have access to it. If you lose your login credentials and have to reset then you lose your old email because that key is not getting recovered.

The email comes into their server unencrypted. They promise that they will encrypt it for you, though. Of course, you’re also relying on the sending server to keep the message secure as well.

Proton Mail's end-to-end encryption and zero-access encryption ensure only you can see your emails. Not even Proton can view the content of your emails and attachments.

The vast majority of senders do not send email using end to end encryption. If you’re sending an email from a PM address to another PM address, sure, it’s end to end encrypted. If you’re sending to another service, it’s not end to end encrypted unless you’ve both gone through the painful steps of setting up PGP encryption. Same as if you’re receiving from another service.

You can read about it here:

https://proton.me/support/proton-mail-encryption-explained

So that quote you just responded with is saying exactly what I had just said above it. They promise that they’ll encrypt that unencrypted email that just came into their server for you. And they promise that they’ll encrypt that unencrypted email you just sent outside their service.

I know, but I was answering the question about encryption, rather than users. Proton also allows sending encrypted to non participating receivers. They get a weblink and have to open it to view the email a with password if supplied. That decrypts the email at the browser, and has an expiry time on the link.

That’s a very different use case than a fax. I mean, why even use email for that?

I wouldn't, fax is gone once it has arrived, assuming store transmissions is off. Email is sitting in limbo on a server waiting for an exploit

Secure fax is encrypted: it’s sent via https.

Thats just scan to email with extra steps

Technically true Only in transit though.

And at least email is ostensibly locked behind a password on a computer. Not just sitting in a paper tray ready to be nabbed by Anyone walking by.

Also all of german bureaucracy still works only with fax

Japan as well

It somehow suprises me but also not really thinking how traditionalist they are

They say that in Japan, they live in the year 2000, but have done so since about 1970.

In my county (midwest America) communication between lawyers and courts is still entirely by fax. I don't know if that's the case of other counties in my state, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

I want to throw a shout out to the site that cloned the old Google reader by making theoldreader.com

Thanks for this, I was so disappointed when Google cancelled Reader.

xmpp

Wii console: remote controler plus informatic knowledge make this a trustfull smartTV

Isn’t Wii 720p? Raspberry pi 4 would be better

480p

I know, crazy right? The thing must be 20 years old now. Shows how versatile it is.

The Wii can only do 480p though

Handtools in woodworking. There are some people who refuse use a tool without a cord.

Ota analog signals.

Me

I agree.

Writing down your thoughts! It’s not the same as typing things down, writing really makes me feel lighter and somehow reduces my stress levels.

Mediums matter. I think it's because a laptop or phone can sometimes be heavier and slower than a single post it or piece of paper. Just a thought though.

Interesting take. Thanks for sharing.

cds

I love collecting CDs

NATO according to the previous article

Darcs VCS

Me.

Your mom