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Is there a way to send or receive faxes directly to/from the phone without routing through a web-based service?

There are times when I've needed to send or receive a document image without going through e-mail or a third-party service. It may be a recipient without an e-mail option for a document I need to submit (e.g., a particular government agency) or it may contain sensitive information that I do not want going through other hands. When I checked the app store, everything I found seemed to involve a web-based service (I could've missed one, though).

With a device that can take images and make phone calls, it seems like a natural extension of the capabilities to be able to communicate with a fax machine directly.

ale
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BrianCooksey
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  • fax? why not simply send an eMail or the captured image to a webservice? – Ben Weiss Oct 11 '10 at 00:51
  • Under some circumstances fax can be more secure. I don't want signatures or identity info going through e-mail or a third party. (I realize an app or SD file could be a risk, too). And sometimes the recipient doesn't do e-mail. – BrianCooksey Oct 11 '10 at 01:33
  • Did you search the Market before asking this question? I see at least 20 apps that come up with the keyword "fax". – ale Oct 11 '10 at 12:17
  • Yes, I did. I may have missed it, but I didn't see any that looked like they were direct by phone. Everything I saw looked it went through a web-based service. – BrianCooksey Oct 11 '10 at 12:28
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    @Keyboard: Certain organizations (banks, hospitals and such) still work only with faxes, and email is not an option. – Nathan Fellman Dec 23 '10 at 08:03
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    Are you sure fax over mobile network are actually secure? You're sending unencrypted data over the air, and you can't use encryption since that will break any unmodified fax system. GSM/3G offers only moderate level of security, and it is possible for a determined hacker with some processing power to break GSM/3G's voice and data transmission. GSM/3G transmission passes unencrypted through your mobile operator (a third party you may or may not trust) and the receiver's operator, if you are concerned about privacy/security, you need an end-to-end encryption, e.g. PGP. – Lie Ryan Feb 11 '11 at 08:22
  • On the other hand, if you need to work with legacy systems that still relies on fax and does not accept emails at all; then you shouldn't need to worry about sending through web-based service? – Lie Ryan Feb 11 '11 at 08:24
  • I guess I figure that there's a lot more sniffing of web traffic than GSM/3G call traffic. I'm not worried about determined hackers because my usage is to infrequent and random to justify the effort - it would be FAR less work to break into my house and take it info. I'm concerned about casual and I guess I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that I'm likely enough to be the victim of un-determined hacking on my calls. – BrianCooksey Feb 24 '11 at 19:12
  • Risk is not the same as security. Sending email over an insecure connection is probably more risky than faxing, yes. But sending email over a secure connection is less risky than faxing. What are the chances someone breaks into the receiver's account (as opposed to walking past the fax machine) or cracks GMail's security (for example) and steals your message in particular? Not high. – Matthew Read Feb 24 '11 at 19:21
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    E-mail is not an option for some use cases, so acceptable risk with e-mail is irrelevant for my objectives. Being able to send a fax image to a recipient is the point and I'm OK with the risk and have had more then one occasion when I would've appreciated an application that allowed me to send one. – BrianCooksey Feb 24 '11 at 21:08

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As others have noted, this is not any more secure than email. But yes, it is possible. (See http://navasgroup.com/attwireless/fax.htm for an ancient example). Has anyone written an app to do this with an Android phone? That's incredibly unlikely.

Matthew Read
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