[TriLUG] Fax vs. .pdf - calling all IT gurus

[Tim Jowers]

Hi Mike,

  FWIW, I recently sold and bought a house on PDF was the way to go. There
were no physical documents until we went to the attorney's office. The RE
agents and the mortgage company all worked with online PDF's. I used three
different document signing sites/technologies. Docusign and don't remember
the others. eLend had the best and also the best rates. The attorney's
office did email me a draft PDF.  The only faxing was some personal
documents I faxed to eLend and that only because my automated scanner is
down and I didn't want to hand-feed so many documents through the flatbed
scanner.

Certainly one can argue the Fax is much less secure as the typical fax
setup is an open office. If I were to rank security I would say:
Least: Fax
Medium: Emailed PDF
Slightly Better: online PDF
Decent: Emailed PDF with password (accountant uses this)
Best: online PDF requiring SSL login to access
Most: online PDF with PDF password requiring SSL login to access

Tim


On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 11:21 AM, M. R. <13miketele at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Special to IT savants:
>
> Is there security basis for preferring faxes to .pdfs attached to emails
> as a method for putting documents (hand-signed or otherwise) into the hands
> of agencies*?
>
> *Agencies: such as brokerage firms, banks, insurance companies, government
> offices, etc.
>
> To my untutored mind faxes and .pdfs are both the output of a document
> scan. The only difference is the mode of delivery. What have I missed and
> how much effort is needed to get the system off its fax-fixation?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Mike R.
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