Is Fax Dead Yet?

We stopped loading paper into the home fax because it was always being exhausted by fax spam (I thought those were illegal?). We only use it for copying and outgoing fax, and incoming by special arrangement (usually an email). So now it sits in the patio room, beeping lonelily most days.

So you just copy and paste your signature into it?

You have to add a little of Jack's Secret Sauce ;-)

... In Adobe it's "watermark or background"

...Jim Thompson

Right now we prefer a Whiskey-based barbeque sauce :-)

That's IMHO not safer than a copied and pasted signature. AFAIR even the Foxit Software allows you to edit watermarks. It does then tag the modified file with a new red watermark but I bet there is or is soon going to be software out there that wouldn't do that.

After you "sign" it, you "lock" it with a password.

...Jim Thompson

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As long as the next software in line won't mess with the file on a graphics level I would assume.

If there's enough information in the file to display it on the screen (and of course, there is) then it's possible to run the pdf through another app to "unsecure" it and scrub the password off. I do this quite often to manufacturer's secured data sheets so that I can add notes and highlights to my personal copies.

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PDF??

...Jim Thompson

_Anything_ can be cracked. That's why I keep an original to compare against any copy. But I've never had a problem.

...Jim Thompson

Of course someone can paste your name onto a fax too.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Would you have a recommended "app"?

My usual way is to print to a PostScript file, then re-PDF; but some people have become smart enough to allow printing on a physical printer but forbid printing to a PostScript _file_ :-(

...Jim Thompson

yet

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PDF

Why not? So far just about anything has been hacked.

I've been using PDF Split and Merge and discovered that passing a single file through the "merge" operation produced a modifiable output. I'm sure that there are "black hat" apps that can do more but all I need/want to do is to add highlights or amplifying notes to my personal reference copies.

For some bizarre reason, many places will accept an order FAXed with a signature but won't take a PDF containing a (scanned) signature.

And of course very few places understand the whole concept of digital signatures and accept them. :-(

Yes, but for digital signatures the whole point is to DETECT when something in the file has been changed.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Elcomsoft Advacned eBook Processor?

Doesn't work on the latest and greatest versions of PDF security, though... and since the company was shut down there won't be any new versions (at least from them...).

Thanks!

...Jim Thompson

PGP encrypted e-mail is one heck of a lot more secure than any FAX transmission!

Even 128-bit encrypted FAX? Best regards, Spehro Pefhany