
Criticism of paper-and-fax coronavirus infection reports spark change in Japan - doener
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200502/p2a/00m/0na/022000c
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mikekchar
While crazy, this shows another example of the ways things change in Japan.
Nothing ever changes until one day it changes overnight. April 23rd someone
tweets the bleeding obvious. May 17th (apparently), the entire country is
using a different system. But for decades before that, there would be
absolutely nothing you would have been able to do to incite change. It would
have been absolutely impossible. I always find it amazing that change always
goes from 0 to 100 in a matter of days.

~~~
JimiofEden
Do you have other examples of this? I've heard this anecdotally over and over
again, but I would be interested in reading actual instances where this is the
case

~~~
mikekchar
The biggest one I've seen with my own eyes is smoking outside in public. When
I first came to Japan you would see lots of people smoking while walking, or
smoking on outside train platforms. Then one day somebody put up a big
billboard all over the place that had a drawing of a person holding a
cigarette and a child. It said, "You hold a cigarette at the height of a
child's eye" or something to that effect. From that day on, practically
everyone stopped smoking and walking. It's really incredibly rare to see it
now. It might have been a localised effect around where I lived, but other
people I've talked to from around the country remarked on it as well.

I've seen other things like it, but this was the most remarkable to me. The
government seems to randomly put up signs like that to see if they take hold.
It never seems to go gradually -- with early adopters, etc, etc. Either
everybody goes with it or nobody does.

I'm trying to think of something that is easy to verify, but it's nearly
midnight here and I can't think of anything off hand. If I remember I'll try
to post back later.

~~~
njwi332
Another one I've seen recently is the reaction to covid. I live in Tokyo, and
being in tech circles was doing my prep shopping and isolating a few weeks
before everyone else. I had one Japanese friend invite me out for drinks like
3 times in a week, I turned her down saying I was isolating due to covid and
got a 'wow you're so strict!' reaction. Not two weeks later and the government
declares a state of emergency. Suddenly this same friend, and all her friends,
are filling Instagram with 'Stay home' stories and virtual workouts. Granted,
not everyone in Tokyo took it seriously, but the change in behaviour within
the majority of my personal circle was literally overnight.

For another one - bubble tea. A year or so back it went from not popular at
all to lines over an hour long outside most bubble tea places, and the word
'tapiru' from tapioca and suru - roughly 'to bubble tea' was one of Japans hot
phrases for the year [1]

[1] [https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-
japan%...](https://japantoday.com/category/national/nominees-for-
japan%E2%80%99s-2019-buzzwords-include-kutoo-tapiru-and-paprika)

------
microcolonel
Given the things I've seen exposed to the public internet from Japan, I really
don't think it's wise to rush computerizing this system.

Even here in Canada, and I'm sure in much of the world, fax is a common tool
used by doctors' offices on a daily basis. It has some definite downsides, but
at the end of the day when you replace it, you should have to provide an
alternative that doesn't compromise workflows, interoperability, or standards.

In fax-based systems, anyone who can prepare the paper document can, in
principle, participate; because the fax protocol is built on long-expired
patents and widely-published standards implemented by many vendors.

When it comes to other forms of document filling and transfer, the standards
now vary widely; when they say the fax system is outdated, are they imagining
the replacement is a straightforward cookie-based html form website backed by
a database, or do the want something more "up to date" than that?

~~~
wolrah
> you should have to provide an alternative that doesn't compromise workflows,
> interoperability, or standards.

The thing is that it's absolutely trivial to set up a workflow that from a
user standpoint operates identically to fax, but it still doesn't happen
because of institutional inertia.

Standalone fax machines almost don't exist anymore. You can still find one if
you look for it, but the majority of them these days are multifunction
print/scan/copy/fax devices. Almost all of these devices can be given
credentials to an email account and configured to automatically print messages
and supported attachments received in that account. Likewise, they can almost
always have a "speed dial" button configured to scan a document and email it
to someone as an attachment in some standard format.

Put those two things together and as far as the users on each end are
concerned the icon on their speed dial button might have changed but
everything else appears to operate the same. One end sets a document on a
machine and presses a button, the document feeds in, and a short time later it
spits out at the other end. It's more reliable, higher quality, and
potentially even faster if it's a large document.

It's equal or better in every single way, but if you actually try to implement
this you'll almost always get pushback from one end or the other, if not both.

I say if an organization requires fax for anything in 2020, not just as an
option but as the only way to do a specific thing, that organization should be
considered unfixable and just thrown away to be replaced wholesale. Even if
they default to fax for anything, that should be a huge red flag that things
need to change.

Fax is evil and should have been dead a decade ago.

~~~
microcolonel
> _that organization should be considered unfixable and just thrown away to be
> replaced wholesale_

what?

> _Fax is evil and should have been dead a decade ago._

why?

Paper document facsimile is a useful facility basically as long as people fill
or sign things out by hand or with stamps, and with Japanese even just coding
people's names correctly into a computer is a task that requires both
specialized skills and tools.

These sweeping statements just strike me as ignorant and devoid of empathy.

~~~
wolrah
> what?

You're skipping the key part: "I say if an organization requires fax for
anything in 2020, not just as an option but as the only way to do a specific
thing,"

If they haven't bothered to provide a non-fax option for submitting data by
now what would make you believe they ever will unless forced? If you don't
understand how that's a problem then we don't exist in the same universe. I
can't explain it to you.

> Paper document facsimile is a useful facility basically as long as people
> fill or sign things out by hand or with stamps, and with Japanese even just
> coding people's names correctly into a computer is a task that requires both
> specialized skills and tools.

That's what scanners are for. Scanning documents to store or email is
perfectly fine.

I'm talking about the specific act of using facsimile technology to transmit
said document at low resolution in pseudo-realtime (but not really in most
modern implementations) over telephone lines.

There is no situation where there's not a better answer unless one party
refuses to use more modern technology.

> These sweeping statements just strike me as ignorant and devoid of empathy.

As someone who has to support fax users, yea, I'm devoid of empathy for them.
Entirely. Faxes have all kinds of problems that are a pain in the ass to prove
to the user that it's just the horrible ancient tech they insist on using.

------
AznHisoka
Japan has also relied on traditions like using a seal called a hanko to sign
contracts.
[https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn2020042836711/](https://www.nippon.com/en/news/fnn2020042836711/)

Covid is forcing many of these companies to transition to electronic
signatures like Docusign.

~~~
jacquesm
What could possibly go wrong? Let's all use an online service that is
perfectly positioned make it seem like someone signed a document when in fact
it is about as valid as a 'card not present' credit card transaction.

Electronic signatures should have a lower level of trust than those performed
in front of notaries and other officials. There is no way to check for
coercion and many other ways in which the signature would normally be
invalidated.

~~~
jfoster
What are the ways in which a signature would normally be invalidated? (and how
do you check for coercion?)

~~~
magicsmoke
If you're coerced into signing a contract, you can always breach it later and
when sued for breach of contract bring up evidence of coercion. Courts will
not enforce contracts signed under coercion.

At the end of the day, a contract is just a piece of paper and your signature
is just some ink. Contracts only have power if courts enforce them. (At least
for private entities. International law and sovereign entities are a whole
other ballgame)

~~~
jacquesm
Proving coercion or lack thereof is hard. If it wasn't everybody and their
brother would weasel out of contracts unfavorable to them. Well, not
everybody, but still, plenty of people would.

------
brazzy
Germany's reporting system is also fax based, and while there has now been
some talk about it needing to be improved, I'm not aware of any concrete
changes or even plans.

