Cyberattack on Kansas Courts Leaves Lawyers Filing 'Everything by Fax'
wsj.com
wsj.com
(Yes, I'm bitter.)
It's a hassle and can take minutes to get the "sent" confirmation coming out of the printer chute. Although I don't know what the other end of the fax call looks like; a virtual inbox or a real fax machine sitting in some office spitting out these forms from >100 stores, though I suspect it's the former because of the potential volume of fax messages.
They could digitize it, but this person would just be staring at the screen the whole day, and then has to click print and people have to wait, etc. Maybe they could amazonize it and have e-ink QR codes and scanners and robots that scan a code and fetch the next job over WiFi or 5G, but, hey, the whole idea's been discussed in the C-level for 5 years now! Especially if there's hundreds of such depots.
Although obviously the input side, at your supermarket, could be digitalized, and they could outsource a software that basically prints everything, replacing this person's fax machine, but hey, that idea's going to take 3 years to materialize, and they'll have to put such a computer with the software on each supermarket and it's been there since 2002, so...
You lose your hair thinking about inefficiencies...
Happens, yes. Part of my job is digitizing analog processes, mainly for technicians in the field. And often you have the problem that the back-office really wants to get back the information what they need to reorder, what they cause bill the customer and so on, as fast as possible. But technicians don't want to bother with having to type into their smartphones or tablets while they are in the field. They just want to jot it down onto a paper, load the whole stack of at the end of the week and let the back-office do the rest.
One of the many sources of 'friction' if you make something digital that was done on paper before that, not made easier by the fact that the offices now want the information even faster, cause "you have the machine with you. You should do it the moment you've done the work."
a lot of municipal e-process is bonkers enough that fax is an improvement
back in the day, 'fixed' used the fax machines to automatically dispute parking tickets and the city of SF got rid of fax to block them
e-file gives the institution more control which is not always a good thing
1. Different standards, so if something doesn't go through between you and a party only, each side blames the other. "I'm receiving faxes from others, so the problem is on your end". "My faxes to others are going through, so the problem must be you".
2. Some fax machines would use some OCR tech to "sharpen" faxes. e.g. close the loop on some 6s and turn them into 8s. Exaggerated example:
"I did respond to you. I sent a fax to the number on your own faxes to me. Your fax said your fax number is 1-888-888-8888 and I have the confirmation here". (turns out 888-888-8888 was an unrelated toy store's fax machine in a different city). "I have my letterhead right here and our fax number is 1-666-666-6666, are you drunk?"
http://www.dkriesel.com/en/blog/2013/0802_xerox-workcentres_...
3. If you have two fax machines and aren't receiving any for a while, you can do a thorough self-test by sending a fax from one to the other.
4. Needing to cancel a doctor's appointment, but not getting through over the phone, I just sent a fax.
From the original:
> The following services were marked as having issues after the Kansas Court cyberattack –
* Kansas District Court Public Access
* Appellate Case Inquiry System
* Kansas Attorney Registration
* Kansas online marriage license applications
* Central payment center in the Office of Judicial Administration
* Kansas eCourt Case Management System
* Kansas Protection Order Portal
* Kansas Court eFiling
I'm not sure why they wouldn't have been able to turn things around a lot faster, but maybe they're taking their time for some reason.
This is the culmination of public policies that lead to a brain drain in these sort of states. Not surprising at all.
Works for me using ControlD
But hey 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 (Google DNS) should also work right? or 9.9.9.9? (Quad9)
Good list:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062