News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’. Parent comment

Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by cosmodisk on Friday June 05, 2020 @08:03AM (#23427521)
We had a funny situation with a fax couple of years ago.My bosses were opening a new company and because of some situation in the bank,they did request to fax the paperwork to them(email not safe, f2f wasn't an option).I asked my manager how is he going to do it,as he seemed quite puzzled. Eventually,he found one dumped behind all the cleaning equipment in the office. Dusted it off and managed to fax it somehow.This was for one of the largest banks operating in the UK. Fintech it's not.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by jpfr on Friday June 05, 2020 @09:38AM (#23428355)
Faxes are "signature-proof" for contracts. Scanned documents in an email are not.

That's the law being broken. Not the tech.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by jason0597 on Friday June 05, 2020 @10:34AM (#23429012)
Why not scan a signed document and send it over an encrypted connection via the internet? Why do we have to send it over fax specifically?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech s... by Nasrudith on Friday June 05, 2020 @10:58AM (#23429299)
Because the law was a special case for fax machines essentially instead of a generic one and they didn't understand the then very esoteric mathematical concept of converting arbitrary inputs to data and sending it in arbitrary ways.

We don't see laws today for unimagined hypotheticals like if governments if carrying a box with a stable frame of reference anchored wormhole inside that leads to a remote island with 1 ton of heroin is drug smuggling or not.

[ Parent | on HN ]