Mentioned it in another comment, but I used to intern at a large physics facility in the UK some 15 years ago, and we had one of such old fax machines on a desk next to mine.
I only ever saw it print some automobile-related ads, about one-two per day, so I'm pretty sure if someone did the thing described in the story to our number, it would absolutely keep printing until the upstream aborted. I also know the whole floor section would be disturbed, and we wouldn't know what to do other than to unplug the machine and file a ticket with IT.
Now, fortunately, that fax machine was not a part of anyone's daily work there. In the situation/story described in the article, however, the fax machine is a critical dependency and disabling it like this pretty much shuts down part of the office. It really only ruins the day of individual employees, and possibly ruins the lives of fellow disabled. To the extent the government will care, they will chase the author/protagonist for misdemeanor, as they should.
I only ever saw it print some automobile-related ads, about one-two per day, so I'm pretty sure if someone did the thing described in the story to our number, it would absolutely keep printing until the upstream aborted. I also know the whole floor section would be disturbed, and we wouldn't know what to do other than to unplug the machine and file a ticket with IT.
Now, fortunately, that fax machine was not a part of anyone's daily work there. In the situation/story described in the article, however, the fax machine is a critical dependency and disabling it like this pretty much shuts down part of the office. It really only ruins the day of individual employees, and possibly ruins the lives of fellow disabled. To the extent the government will care, they will chase the author/protagonist for misdemeanor, as they should.