fax machines, both in Germany and Japan.
They’re common in the US too in doctors offices and hospitals because of the security requirements of transmitting patient records and such.
Legally defined as secure, not actually secure.
They are fairly insecure in practice, since they are throwing the data at misdialed numbers and they are frequently placed in shared and insecure locations in the building where lots of people can access whatever comes through.
Sure. But as someone who used to work IT with a focus on cybersecurity, physical access to anything trumps everything else, and people who put fax machines in insecure locations will also put email servers or whatever in them. Also throwing data at misdialed numbers is a tiny threat because the odds of transposing a number or whatever and also getting a fax machine are pretty tiny.
Although the guy above you was just talking about how he works in the industry and they mostly do efax now, which… Iono how that’s supposed to be more secure than just email or whatever. I guess if you’re sending to physical machines it’s more secure on that end, but if the senders are using efax some of the receivers prolly are too, at which point we’ve lost the whole point of using fax machines.
In the US they cannot be in “insecure locations” legally. And sending HIPAA materials to the wrong number is a reportable offense.
As someone who directly manages faxing in the company i work for, yup! In Healthcare and we send out results to doctors and hospitals through faxing all day every day. We have mostly converted to electronic fax. We still control the servers on prem but the account is linked to a cloud solution so all the faxes are created with the servers and instead of using our own telephony solution like we used to, we send directly over internet to the provider who then sends out to the clients at the last leg. Hundreds of thousands of pages every month. From my understanding, it’s still the easiest solution to get away with not having to implement some new system that will be subjected to audits. Faxes are accepted, and little is required to show for compliance.
Interesting, how is eFax any more secure than email? The advantage of fax is it’s one machine to one machine, no possibility of interception without physically tapping the POTS line.
It’s not. Information is secure at rest and encrypted during transfer, but once it reaches the part where it is sent over voip using a telecom provider, it has the same issues as it always did. We use it because its the best way to send this many faxes, as well as automate things using our internal applications to send faxes through it as well as other applications that we leverage its API to use the service. One advantage that makes it semi more secure is if we send a fax to another client that also uses the same service as we are then then it’s actually a secure stream for the entire path.
I used to work at a retail store not even ten years ago, and we would submit delivery orders via fax. It’s weird until you realize they’re great for reliability and record-keeping. No batteries needed, totally existing infrastructure, kinda fun to use tbh.
And it’s WAY older than people think. The first patent for a fax like machine was granted in 1843.
IPv4.
IPv6 became a recognized standard by 1998.
EDIT: https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html#tab=ipv6-adoption
Nearly 30 years later, and less than half of the connections to Google are via IPv6.
Fucking NAT. Never should have been allowed to escape from the lab.
Lolol, you’re not wrong. NAT made IPv6 a later problem
I ❤️ IPv4
There’s no place like 127.0.0.1
There’s no place like
::1I can’t understand that gibberish, speak RFC 791 like a true patriot
I’m almost at the point where all of my connections are IPv6, but still hampered by my mobile provider (ironically, since IPv6 was generally adopted earlier on mobile in many countries).
Based on how ISPs seem to not get their CGNAT setups right, it’s not going away any time soon.
As a South African, I have never even seen IPv6. My university has two /16 blocks and no NATing
IPv6 is such an ugly monster.
It just isn’t and I’m sick of people being scared of hexadecimals lol
You can even spell stuff with them which is way easier to remember, my router’s ULA is fd13:dead:beef::1
:cafe:babe: is another common one. Or :acdc:feed: .
There was a burger joint we did IT for and we made their ULA fd14:dead:beef:cafe::1
I thought it was a bit clever
Steam engines.
The vast majority of our power comes from making something really hot and boiling water. Coal plant? Oil plant? Gas plant? Nuclear fission plant? Geothermal plant? The grand holy grail of energy production that would be a nuclear fusion plant? All steam engines.
Yes, unbeknownst to everyone, this is what a steampunk society realistically looks like.
We made steampunk a reality by developing the technology to transfer steam power efficiently over long distances through metal wires.
After first contact
A: These are our mini neutron star fusion reactors. The most advanced technology to have ever existed. We basically take a chunk of neutron star matter and divide it into two. We neutralize the negative effect and extreme gravity with our space-time bending gravity manipulation technology. We let the two mini neutro spheres accelerate and collide. This generates enough energy to power atleast 3 planets for 1000 cycles. Not onl–
H: Wait a minute. I have a question.
A: Please feel free to ask any questions.
H: How do you convert the raw energy generated into a usable form at that scale?
A: We use utlra high intensity lasers for energy transfer to plane–
H: No. That’s not what I’m asking. How do you convert the raw energy at reactor into a usable form?
A: …
H: …
A: We boil water wi–
H: Motherf-- enrages and loses sanity
Stolen from reddit.
Microsoft Windows
If some of the stories are to be believed, some of the code dates back to 3.1/dos too
Oh you can clearly see that this is true when you launch certain programs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o1x183/the_famous_windows_31_dialogue_is_again_in/
Oh that’s tremendous, I don’t run windows to see this. But come to think of it I have come across some ancient screens doing odbc/data connections ancient popups in excel at work!
UNIX
The Wheel. We should’ve graduated to antigravity by now, don’t you think?
Back to the Future lied to me again!
In fact, it didn’t.
Hoverboards actually do exist. And for bonus points, so do speeder bikes. You probably already know about real-life jetpacks.
I wish I could live another 100 years to see better optimized versions of them.
I found a new exotic propulsion device to hang all my hopes on, so maybe we can get it soon!
we dont posess the knowlegde of how to do that, that isnt done by magnetism. maybe if aliens come to earth than maybe.
Talking to a good friend 20 years ago, very smart guy, and he was thinking we already artificial gravity.
i remember mythbuster tried to experiment with it.
It surprises me how many system utilities I use that are older than I am. I am currently initializing a disk on a cloud server with an application that was written when Ford was the US president.
Can you say which application it is? Does it run on a mainframe? Any idea what language was used to program it?
Sorry this is just quite interesting.
I’m gonna hazard a guess at
ddSnot Flickerman was right, it’s dd. It was in the docs I linked to show the commands. It runs on anything with storage devices and an operating system. I mainly use it on Windows servers running on AWS.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned jack plugs yet. Basically unchanged since 1877 when it was invented for phone switchboards, roughly as old as safety pins or modern hairpins (give or take a few decades)
That can’t be the actual name of those, is it?
I’ve always kinda wondered, and generally call them TRS or something (I’m audio engineering background, American, millennial), so looked it up:
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio) under the “other terms” section:
The 1902 International Library of Technology simply uses jack for the female and plug for the male connector.[3] The 1989 Sound Reinforcement Handbook uses phone jack for the female and phone plug for the male connector.[4] Robert McLeish, who worked at the BBC, uses jack or jack socket for the female and jack plug for the male connector in his 2005 book Radio Production.[5] The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, as of 2007, says the more fixed electrical connector is the jack, while the less fixed connector is the plug, without regard to the gender of the connector contacts.[6] The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1975 also made a standard that was withdrawn in 1997.[7]
The intended application for a phone connector has also resulted in names such as audio jack, headphone jack, stereo plug, microphone jack, aux input, etc. Among audio engineers, the connector may often simply be called a quarter-inch to distinguish it from XLR, another frequently used audio connector. These naming variations are also used for the 3.5 mm connectors, which have been called mini-phone, mini-stereo, mini jack, etc.
RCA connectors are differently shaped, but confusingly are similarly named as phono plugs and phono jacks (or in the UK, phono sockets). 3.5 mm connectors are sometimes—counter to the connector manufacturers’ nomenclature[8]—referred to as mini phonos.[9]
Confusion also arises because phone jack and phone plug may sometimes refer to the RJ11 and various older telephone sockets and plugs that connect wired telephones to wall outlets.
Yeah, these days I just call them 3.5mm audio plug, or quarter inch audio plug.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Car thermostats for the radiator. You don’t want the coolant flowing when the engine first starts, because it will run like shit. So you have a cylinder filled with wax that expands with heat. That controls a valve to set the flow of coolant. Low tech, works fine, no particular reason to change it.
I thought it was just a spring that expanded with heat and opened/closed with the expansion?
Every one I’ve seen or replaced was just that. No idea what the wax thing is about so I looked it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_thermostatic_element
OP’s right!
Is that how the covers over the radiator are operated as well
There’s a used bookstore near me that has the oldest cash register I’ve ever seen. It has keys like a typewriter, and makes the most satisfying “ka-ching” sound when it opens. They always use it to add up your purchase and print a receipt, even when you’re paying with a credit card. But I always try to bring cash when I’m there so that the drawer gets used. (And also, y’know, screw credit card companies taking their cut.)
I know that’s not really “in widespread use” today, which is probably what the question meant, but that was the first thing that came to mind for me.
Wow. Many years ago I bought an old cash register to use as a prop in a play, sounds like the type you’re talking about, and it was already way outdated then. Thing was amazingly heavy, like a refrigerator.
Air traffic control still uses floppy disks, windows 95, and a plastic board of paper tag numbers to keep track of shit instead of a computer.
To be fair I have infinity more confidence in the system you just described than whatever tech bro disruptor was going to pitch
Not all of them, most of ATC in EASA airspace is Linux based and use electronic strips instead of the plastic paper strips.
But the foundation of the ground/ground communication is still AFTN based on x400 network (Europe used to have an X.25 network for its CIDIN communications).
The latest and newest tech for international data exchange is AMHS based on X400, often it is x400 over IP ok, but still a 50 years or so tech.
The main idea behind ATC and aviation tech is reliability and compatibility with countries with less money to upgrade tech.
Fax, still in official use in Germany.
It’s considered a secure method of document transfer over email, despite email being able to be secured and fax can be hacked with like a length of wire and a knife. Fucking irks me.
Because how many attackers are actually interested in attacking fax? Like… have you ever heard of hackers hacking physical mail? It’s to old for people to care, and “people not caring” is implicitely secure by ignorance.
Also there is fax spam. I get all these random advertisements faxed to me for companies for window replacement services that don’t actually exist, and sometimes fortune tellers. I have no idea why.
I mean, if all the good secret information is going over fax and everyone knows it, sure, people will hack it. Blackhats are in it for the money, not to work with the newest technology. Most of what they do is already mind-numbing grinding.
The main security there is just the security of whatever phone line it’s going over. And that’s assuming you never dial a wrong number…
Yeah for sure, but security through obscurity only works until it’s actually important or exploitable for monetary gain. I wouldn’t even mind that, but e-mail can do so much better and it’s treated like a giant security risk.
Because it doesn’t have encryption by default, and encryption is not a setting in many public providers + if security works, then only within a single provider, not between them.
How does one hack fax in that fashion?
Fax operates as data over phone line, similar to dialup. If you can get a wiretap on a phone line, you essentially can get everything that passes over it. Technically you could encrypt it, but it’s usually not required you do legally.
Very common in the US medical field as well
Fax is too simple to completely die.
It will never go away in health care and government departments in Canada.
The IRS still use COBOL.
So does pretty much the whole banking and credit industry. When you get money out of an ATM there’s usually some COBOL code involved.
True, we stack old technologies on top of older technologies, and somewhere at the bottom, there is z/OS with COBOL running. A young person right now learning COBOL has a secure future with big paychecks.
Depends on your tolerance for code spelunking. Back in the 90s I was encouraged to do Y2K prep because I had some COBOL experience, but I really hated pawing through old code. To be fair, COBOL was designed to be self documenting and English-like. But I’m glad I got into web dev instead back then. It was right at the dawn of “dynamic HTML” when web pages started actually doing things. Very cool time. Right now I’d be more inclined to go into helping companies recover from failed AI projects.
That’s not even a government thing. It’s a finance/banking thing, as most major banks are still using mainframes and legacy COBOL code for most of their business logic.
Reminds me I have to catalogue 2 Tandem Non-stop! Systems at work… I don’t need to meddle with the cobol code atop but still, this was quite a surprise to stumble upon.
Steam turbines.
Like those damn nuclear reactors!
I mean, that’s 20th century, or (IIRC) just before depending on the level of tech maturity you require. The 19th century ran on pistons.
Steam engines? Plenty of those ran the Industrial Revolution factories.
You said turbines specifically. Parsons invented those around the turn of the 20th century.
Before that, it was the chugga-chugga kind of steam engine. They’re a lot simpler to design and machine, and don’t require the really high RPMs to operate, but then again can break in many different ways a turbine can’t.
SS7, part of the old ass 2g and 3g networks
Kinda surprised this doesn’t have more upvotes considering it seems that it continues to be a massive security vulnerability.
Yep and a family member of mine was a victim of a SS7 attack yesterday
Are they a CEO or something?
If they are just an average person, this is kinda unsettling… 😬
Average person, nothing special. Got a SMS OTP code for their Uber account and changed the information (email, phone #).
Pagers
Hospitals use pagers because the frequency band they run on is better at penetrating walls. Shorter waves carry more data, but are easily blocked by walls. Pagers don’t need a lot of data, so they use really long waves.
And hospitals are built like bunkers, to avoid the potential need to evacuate patients during an emergency. Things like fire breaks between individual rooms, earthquake protections, being strong enough to stand up during a hurricane, etc… The goal is to be able to shelter in place instead of evacuating, because a mass evacuation of bedridden patients who all need monitoring equipment would be a logistical nightmare.
But this also means hospitals are really good at blocking wireless signals, because the walls are all super thick and sturdy. So they use pagers, which use long waves and can reliably penetrate the bunker-like walls. You don’t want a doctor to miss an emergency call because they were sitting in the basement; Hospitals need a wireless connection that reliably works every time. And pagers just happen to fit that specific niche.
Seems like a good level of digital freedom actually. Be connected, but only just enough.
Meshtastic > Pagers
Didn’t think I’d ever see THAT again. Damn lol
Have you used one before? If so, how did it go? What are the pros and cons?
That’s a good one. Why would companies give employees special purpose gizmos that just tell them to use the phone in their pocket to call the office.
