Will the paper trail ever go away?

[vdeane]

Medical stuff is complicated by the fact that the electronic records products can't talk to each other, negating the point of using them in the first place.

[jeffandnicole]

The bank might have a point depending on what they need scanned.  Emails are sent in plain text with no encryption; anyone with the ability to sniff the traffic can read them.  That's how the NSA does it.  Perhaps someone should tell the bank about password-protected zip files.

Are faxes any more secure?

[Scott5114]

I would think faxes are less secure. With a fax you have a paper print out that can be accessed by whoever happens to be walking by the fax machine when it prints off. With an email, it goes directly to one person.

[Brandon]

I would think faxes are less secure. With a fax you have a paper print out that can be accessed by whoever happens to be walking by the fax machine when it prints off. With an email, it goes directly to one person.

Depends.  Did you remember not to click "reply all"?   

[Duke87]

I would think faxes are less secure. With a fax you have a paper print out that can be accessed by whoever happens to be walking by the fax machine when it prints off. With an email, it goes directly to one person.

On the other hand, faxes operate via telephone networks rather than via internet networks. This means that to digitally sniff a fax you need a physical wiretap, you can't just hack into it. So as long as the receiving fax machine is in a physically secure location, yes, faxes are absolutely more secure than email.

But it is possible to encrypt emails, which if done properly makes them for all intents and purposes just as secure.