Washington cybersecurity bill [protesters] are hitting Congress where it hurts: right in the fax machine.
Protesters have programmed eight separate phone lines to convert emails sent from a handy box at FaxBigBrother.com (as well as tweets with the hashtag #faxbigbrother) to individual faxes and send them to all 100 members of the US Senate.
The rationale, said Evan Greer of activist group Fight for the Future, is that Congress doesn’t appear to understand technology invented in the current century.
“Groups like Fight for the Future have sent millions of emails, and they still don’t seem to get it,” said Greer. “Maybe they don’t get it because they’re stuck in 1984, and we figured we’d use some 80s technology to try to get our point across.” All 100 members of Congress will receive each of the faxes.
...
Do US senators really use their fax machines that often, though? “Yes, sadly,” one former Senate staffer told the Guardian. They love their pagers as well. Faxes “all get digitized by the time they get to the office, though”, which bodes ill for senatorial email inboxes.And why is 1979’s hottest tech trend still so popular on Capitol Hill? “One thing that makes faxes – and pagers, for that matter – still good tech is that they are analog and difficult to search. Members love them, especially to transmit data for things like campaign financing records.”
… so, if you're looking for an explanation for why government does things the way it does, the explanation that assumes maximum weasel … factor is nearly always correct?
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Funny) by EQ on Thursday July 30 2015, @03:49AM
Set the Fax Machine to Maximum Weasel Factor!
(Score: 3, Informative) by davester666 on Thursday July 30 2015, @07:04AM
the words "nearly always" are superfluous.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:34AM
Or are these activists just a bunch of morons?
Electronic Mail and the World Wide Web were not invented in the current century.
Young people didn't invent sex, either, you know? Oh right. You don't know, because you're all a bunch of stupid morons. Get off my fucking lawn! I don't want to hear you because I'm busy fucking!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:48AM
Modded down to Troll because SoylentNews is moderated by 14-year-olds, yes? Let's check the ACTUAL DATES.
RFC 822
STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES
August 13, 1982
RFC 1945
Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0
May 1996
Well look here, young trendy hipster Internet Activists are using 20TH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:03AM
Way to miss the point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:10AM
No, you're missing the point. The Internet and the Fax are contemporary technologies. Senators know the Internet is not new. This "protest" is completely stupid and a waste of time for all involved because it will rightfully be ignored as a bunch of stupid ignorant teens being ignorant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:30AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:46AM
The 21st century mainstream Internet is the realm of drunks who post photos of their twats. I wonder why anyone would ever choose to ignore messages from a cesspool of drunken scum?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @07:50AM
Self-criticism seems to be your forte. Good thing, really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @08:06AM
You do know that you took the time to write that message out, hit a preview button, then a submit button on the internet? To the point: you are doing what you are criticizing others of doing by doing it and have some expectation of not being ignored despite being part of your titled "drunken scum".
Congrats, revel in the cesspool. I hear there are free drinks and twat pictures somewhere around here.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:42AM
I just love it when Hairyfeet posts as AC. You can just feel the spittle!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:28AM
You're so right, Anonymous Weasel. That troll sure is missing the point. Say, since we're friends who agree about everything and this site is all about the agreeing about stuff and not disagreeing about anything at all, can I rub up against you so I can be Insightful too? You're so warm and furry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @10:36PM
I'm currently looking for the -1 I wanted to correct while I was at work. These are not the comments I'm looking for. Move along. (I think somebody else got to it first.)
BTW, it was your 3rd paragraph that was your undoing. You might have been informative if not for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:20AM
Send Big Brother a breakup fax! Tell him you don't love him anymore, and you think you should pay your taxes to another government instead. It's not you, Big Bro, it's me.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @05:32AM
Can I get a whole litre of Victory Gin, as a parting gift, before the bullet to the head? I have a powerful thirst.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 30 2015, @06:39AM
Next step: politicians outlaw sending large numbers of faxes to them.
Shades of that EU Congress complaining about their voters sending them their feedback piece, anyone?
How dare those bastards try to contact their duly-elected representatives with their opinions.
P.S: Trying to demonstrate to our government that they don't understand technology is an exercise in futility anyway. We finally got a judge who could find his ass with both hands (Allsup, the Oracle case, more power to him) and they promptly appealed it to some judge who was more ignorant and buyable, and reversed it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 30 2015, @08:25AM
Just the Fax: Internet Activists go Analog
Faxes have been digital since the 80s.
At my old job one of the first things I did was move the office from a paper-printing stand-alone fax machine to a server with a modem attached. That way it stays digital from the sender to the receiver.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @10:38AM
Fax machines have always been digital. They just didn't seem digital to the vast unwashed masses who were following Author C. Clarke's statement that: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". So to those who did not know, they seem like magic, and since 'those who do not know' also 'do not want to learn [because learning is hard in their view], faxes always seem magical.
Fax machines used the the analog phone system to transmit the digital data, but that was the closest a Fax ever was to being 'analog'.
(Score: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 30 2015, @11:24AM
Fax machines have always been digital.
No, not always:
Group 1 and 2 faxes are sent in the same manner as a frame of analog television, with each scanned line transmitted as a continuous analog signal. Horizontal resolution depended upon the quality of the scanner, transmission line, and the printer.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2015, @01:51PM
Paper is not that bad.
Look we may lambast them for 'not using tech'. But think about this. It may actually save them time.
If they get an email (of which they get thousands a day probably). Some intern has to print it out and highlight 'this is worth looking at'.
They can then scribble notes on it and pass it around.
It would be akin to me coming into your office and saying 'everything you do is wrong, here use my process'.
They have a process and yeah it sucks.
Think about this every day I still use paper (postit notes and notepads). It is great for sketching out things. It sounds like they use it as a prioritization system. If it is on paper it must be more important. Email is not that important. These guys are trying to play the system. But all it will do is give some intern more work and the senator/congress critter will get a 'summary' report.