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USPS To Offer Free E-Mail
RobHornick writes: "Supposedly, the US Postal Service is going to begin offering free e-mail addresses to all 120 million of the nation's residential addresses. MSNBC thinks it could be 'the most efficient spam delivery tool ever created.' I don't know, but their business model certainly seems like it would be selling the addresses to mass-marketers, who probably wouldn't mind not having to pay 33 cents per letter." I love programs run by the government the signing up for which "would be strictly voluntary." But don't worry about the security of that data or any privacy implications: Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan says "We'll be as secure, or more secure, than other sites in terms of the privacy people can expect from us."
The address does not have to be exact. They could use pattern matching so:
John_Smith-123-elm-kalamzoo-mi-48330@usps.gov
someone-123-elm-mi-48330@usps.gov
would both go to the same place. Actually you probably only need the street address and zip.
You (the recipient) would either recieve a printed copy in the mail (postage due?), or would register an email forwarding address with the USPS.
-josh
They only have a little bit more to do with the government than UPS or FedEx.
Odd, those were US Federal Gov't checks I got when I worked for USPS.
As for the posts mentioning missing or damaged mail, you're doing business with a company when you send a letter. If you dissatisfied with the service, find an alternative means to do so.
Find one that can handle first class letter legally and is as pervasive as USPS - there are places UPS and FedEX don't go.
That said, USPS does general do a helluva job (yes, even considering my rant about them elsewhere) and often is better than UPS, at least.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Does anybody else recall the Seinfeld episode when Kramer, angry about junk-mail catalogs, wanted to discontinue his mail completely? I've come awful close to trying the same thing myself on several occations. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
homer.simpson@742.evergreen-terrace.springfield.il .us? Or what?
(not that they're really in Illinois)
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
damn <b> tag
Sorry
I don't know about the rest of you but the idea of being able to send an E-mail that is printed then delivered sounds great to me. Finally I'll keep in contact with the relitives that have sworn of computers until they die.
Its not so much the security I'm worried about as what happens when the sysadmin goes postal. Those BOFH stories were meant to remain apocryphal.
Couple of years ago in Chicago a group of nine postal workers were caught after running thousand of pounds of mail through a clearing house where they were pillfered and dumped.
Specifically, they were looking for correspondence between migrant workers here in the US and their families in Mexico and Central America. Seems these workers had a habit of putting cash in their letters home for their families and there was a large enough concentration of migrants in Chicago to make this profitable. When they were caught, they had a three bedroom apartment full to the ceiling with missing mail.
A similar case happened in Florida around the same time.
My father in law works for the postal service so I hear these sort of stories often. However, considering the amount of mail delivered and the regular level of service this organization maintains, they actually do a pretty good job. Far better than their counterparts in other countries.
.33 will send a message to anyone in the US in less than a week. Pretty good, really.
As for millions of Americans gaining access to email, there are more free internet services out there than ever before; many people do not have email addresses because they choose not to or do not see a need for it. The postal service wants to enter another market just like they did in the overnight delivery service. They just take a little longer to get mobilized.
Oh, God, how bad off do you have to be before you aspire to be 'as respectable as telemarketing'? :)
Shawn Asmussen
I'd have to agree with MSNBC's evaluation of the "spam-factor" such a service would have. Anyone with a somewhat common hotmail account knows exactly how spammers work when it comes to domains that have a TON of users. Their addressing methodology goes a little something like this:
] @hotmail.com
... which I doubt it will be.
... I took them to the postmaster at my local branch and said "I don't want these in my P.O. Box, take me off the list ...", he said "Sorry, we have a contract with those advertisers to put one of those in each P.O. Box, you CAN'T opt-out."
TO: [anything-that-remotely-resembles-a-possible-name
I know this for a fact since I have never EVER given out or even used my hotmail address, yet I get over 30 pieces of spam there a day. MSN Messenger keeps me aware of this every time I load it.
Now with this Postal Service plan, you can damn sure bet that some slime ball who owns a "residential" database of all the millions and millions of residential addresses will in fact find a way to convert that to email addresses based on the physical address itself, then sell it to the highest spammer bidder. Hell, how hard is it to realize that resident@100-Main-St.New-York.NY.uspo.gov will end up in someone's inbox?
I for one will choose to be UNLISTED just as I choose to be unlisted in the phone book, if that *is* an option
Besides, the Postal Service makes TONS off of junk mail, why would they decline the option to let people SPAM their users after all? I had a P.O. Box one time and I got all sorts of stupid flyers, leaflets, etc. from day 1
Now I'm with Mailboxes ETC for obvious reasons.
They could certainly filter spam, the same way they can currently filter bulk-rate mail if you ask them to. Most people aren't aware that the P.O. has a form that permanently removes your address from bulk mailing lists.
Of course until that time it is the perfect way the government to monitor email trafic. with no 3rd party having to agree to implement monitor software on their server it would be very easy and secret.
-- Hail Eris
You may have the point there, but the problem is USPS did not present that point. They presented the 'great deal cross-country' arguement, which falls flat.
If they wanted to present the point you made, they failed miserably at. Had they said what you did, they would have seem much less silly.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
I personally don't worry a lot about the security issues. At least it is protected by federal mail-tampering laws, whichis more than can be said for what might be sent via, say, a similar service run on an MS.net thingy where the only protection is their word.
The feds are already able to read your mail, if they have a search warrant. The semi-e-mail isn't necessarily any easier to access. The page can be printed and stuffed in an envelope without human intervention (do you think the electric bills are hand stuffed and read by utility workers?).
They seem pretty efficient at making money. iirc they don't use any tax dollars. And frankly, USPS does a heck of a lot better at package delivery than UPS, Fedex gives them a run for it but at exorbitant pricing.
What better place to do stamp collection promotions that the post office? And the convenience of postal money orders is nice.
Come to think of it, I don't have a gripe with the post office except for slow lines.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
But a person may also be postal...
How Jaded Are You?
There is no question that you are basically right, as far as I am concerned. A bureaucracy does not ever die of natural causes... it has to be killed, or it will continue to try to grow. A good example that government policy wonks like to drag out is the United States Helium Reserve, which still exists, IIRC. It was established to ensure that we would have enough Helium supplies for airships in times of war.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
When the canadian postal services discovered e-mail. The offered a free encrypted e-mail account to every canadian. ...but you can only send e-mail to someone with a Canadian Post e-mail account... kind of useless. It's been at least a year, and I haven't heard of that since then. I think it probably dead and buried.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Now I don't personally know anyone who used this, and I also don't know if it's still available. But I have to wonder if people will buy it now, if it wasn't a hit previously...
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
...and presumably Microsoft and their MSN interests. And where is the article? At MSNBC.
Isn't the real reason for this attack on the proposal that Microsoft has failed to monopolise this market? The MSN offering has completely flopped and has not captured the public's imagination, whereas Microsof saw it as yet another monopoly for them.
I doubt Microsoft has any concerns over privacy. I think they just don't like the competition. They want this market.
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
yeah, and year from now, they'll be charging you $.33 per mail. it will take a week to be delivered, assuming that your message was not in the 25% that get lost every day.
joy.
=--- - - .
and you'll have to read it. No kidding. I predict Congress will pass laws saying official government notifications can go out via email but only to your "approved" USPS email address. This is going to be a major pain.
Why? Because nobody's going to use the damned thing when it first gets cranking, so embarassed USPS officials are going to pony up to the testimony table at Congress and beg for official mailings to be sent out only via email to USPS email addresses.
Again, this is going to SUCK big time.
---------------------------------
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Haven't we seen this before, with flat denials by the USPS that they ever intended to provide e-mail of any sort?
That is the reason some con artists ask their victims to send their cash or check via Federal Express instead of the USPS.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Uh-huh. Does you aunt remember your current address (cool as it may be)? Probably it's in her address book (if she uses email) and it wouldn't matter what the actual email address was. Just like your regular address.
True story. Back in 1997 I changed my address. I went to the USPS web site and printed out a change of address form, then I had to take it to the post office and hand it in. Strange that they wouldn't accept online submissions.
Anyway, I get up to the counter, and hand the guy the form. He immediately says "what's this?" I tell him it's a change of address form. He looks at me like I'm from Mars. I tell him that it's a legitimate form for address changes. He tells me that it doesn't look like any form he's ever seen. I tell him that I got it off the internet.
Then he practically yells at me "I DON'T KNOW NOTHIN' ABOUT THE INTERNET!!!!!!"
I didn't know there were so many Gone with the Wind fans working at the USPS! Geez.
I convinced him that it would be a fun experiment to pretend the form looked like a normal form and submit it just like the other forms are normally submitted. He didn't seem happy about it, but my address got changed.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Worried about security? Then don't use this system.
--
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
One reason might be cost compared to demand; perhaps they figured there's not much of a market for anonymous package receiving (unless it's tied to anonymous paying for the package, what's the lure?).
Another is that it makes certain kinds of evil easier.
a) UNABOMer-wannabes no longer need to know the real address of their victim; they just need to learn the forwarding address. If these are systematically derived from information that's poorly guarded (name, SSNs, birthdates, etc), then there are potentially real problems here.
Maybe appending a *random* alphanumberic tag would help. Either that, or let users choose 'em (collision avoidance! aigh!).
Something like
"Ghidrah's Third Head -- 3124tYX"
would be incredibly hard to guess by random, or to associate with any particular person (well, eccentric Godjira fans, but...), but it'd also be a bear for senders to remember or record correctly.
b) Stalking. If have a rough idea of where your victim is, you might be able to follow the parcel to its destination -- say, if you put some kind of tracking signal in it...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
And you know they'll do something stupid like make our home address our e-mail address.
"Yeah, send it to my private e-mail account at 1242main.cleveland.oh@usps.gov"
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Well, I see horrible bad things about the USPS and there new idea are well stated at this point :)
I'd like to give a different perspective:
1) Maybe the USPS is inefficient, etc. Still, I can throw a letter in the mail with a 33 cent stamp here in NY and it will get to CA in less than a week. That's pretty cool. Despite the nay-sayers, I have found the mail to be *extremely* reliable over the years.
2) This email service could be quite handy for keeping in contact with old friends. If a reverse lookup is possible, then perhaps I can take their USPS email and convert it their mailing address and send them that Christmas card, or wedding present, etc. Or the other way - it's pretty hard still to find email addy's on the 'net. Perhaps I can take their physical address and convert it to email and send a quick note to an old college roommate. Basically, it could add one more method for finding friends & family.
3) Oh no! crazy wackos could now use our emails to mailbomb our houses and prank call us!!!! Uhh... They can do that anyway. There is this terrible, public database with *everyone's* address and phone number!!!! It's the (gasp) PHONE BOOK!!!!! If someone wants to harass random people, they can just grab a name/address/number from the phone books (you can get them for all cities at major libraries; or go on line) and then send them bombs or threats or whatever. I suppose for the psychos too cheap to spring for the stamp this will be great, but otherwise it's not giving much that they didn't already have.
Yes, there are some serious issues to address, but in all this idea has some great potential benefits. As a society, nearly everyone has a mailing address, and almost everyone has a phone. Computers are still relatively expensive, difficult to use, and hard to maintain. Email for everyone is still a ways off. This may help provide that service to those who might not otherwise be able to get it.
ShoutingMan.com
It is funny that the USPS needs to bend over backwards to get customers these days. Now, they want to set you up with e-mail to justify their size. People are going through private carriers and other services these days, it's not just the internet. The USPS is a great service and all, but they are a federal business, why should they compete for customers? It's not like they will make more or less money this way. Still, it is a good idea, simply because if everyone has an e-mail address, good things should happen. What happens when we run out of USPS.gov e-mail addys? I mean, I'll probably have 19128232 after my last name as my e-mail. Lots to consider. Should be interesting... Good... They'll work on that. Whatever they develop coming out of this will have to be useful, if it is to work at all...
Eh...
Canrt wait untli the congresscritters decide that everyone needs to have an email adress in order to do stuff like - file taxes, collect social security... that kind of stuff...
Maybe this could be used for legal-binding type of stuff... Positive ID for everyone... binding like signatures... No more anonymity...
Oh yeh - look at those black helicopters...
tagline
... hi bingo
Bells and whistles: you'd have to have some way to prevent spammers from using multiple DSs to circumvent filters and/or the limit on individual-class email. (Deliberate delays in issuing DS certificates? Extensions of Mail Fraud laws?) You would probably want each bulk-mail one (1) chance to contact any given recipient, so (for example) you don't unintentionally filter out mail a customer service department for your favorite ecommerce site (a problem I currently have with Yahoo's Spam filter).
Local post offices will make paper printouts of e-mail messages and deliver them with the snail mail, charging the sender about 41 cents for a two-page document -- an eight-cent premium to first-class mail. This is just what i need, a service in which i pay to see spam!
"It would link the e-mail and real-world addresses in a giant Postal Service database"
...
(1) Is this something that they should be advertising as a good thing?
(2) Why, when I read this, do I involuntarily shiver...
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
When you live in a small town or other remote place, you're making a choice to do without some amenities of big cities... Having to pay a bit more for FedEx pickup doesn't seem unreasonable. What does seem wrong is expecting city-dwellers to subsidize you so you don't have to drive to Denver.
Before you flame my ass, I used to live on a small (~10,000 people) island. There are a lot of perks, and a few drawbacks. It's a choice.
Just so this isn't completely OT, I'd like to point out that the Canadian government already has a system by which every Canadian can get a secure electronic mailbox (they're almost paranoid about the security--they snail-mail you your user ID and password in seperate envelopes). You can use it for bills or other forms of communication email isn't secure enough for...
Does this mean that if the new definition of "going postal" will be crashing the PO's mail server?
The post office is one of the very few government agencies that is self supporting. They are also a business, so like any business they need to make sure their services they offer are what the people would want or need (mostly want people do not always get what they need). They already offer an bill paying service on the internet. They want to look like they are looking into the future. So they are coming out with new product for the public. This is just the begining.
Yeah, but just wait until you have 5 billion different email addresses to differentiate from. I think email addresses are going to become more and more complicated than you think...
The poster said:
>I don't know, but their business model certainly seems like it would be selling the addresses to mass-marketers, who probably wouldn't mind not having to pay 33 cents per letter
The USPS said:
>The Postal Service insists it is planning a no-spamming system.
The facts are:
>Federal law prohibits the Postal Service from selling any of its consumer information.
>and [the USPS] says it won't share any of the data with a third party unless it receives a federal warrant.
I dunno, but it looks (to me) like the USPS threw about the idea of selling it's list to "spammers", figured out that was a bad idea (possibly illegal), and has decided to keep the database to itself.
I think I'll believe the USPS, since it appears it is under the thumb of federal laws about these issues...
Since the USPS is more or less a governmental agency (loosely speaking), and since we all know how well our government agencies tend to fsck-up anything and everything they touch, why doesn't the USPS just buy AOL??? I mean, surely in an election year the Postmaster General can get the goober-heads in D.C. to (mis)appropriate a few billion extra dollars. OK, so maybe the gummit will have to buy a few less Stealth Bombers, but hey, a few hundred laid-off workers at Lockheed-Martin is a small price to pay for sea-to-shining-sea email. (OK, maybe it's not Lockheed-Martin).
So Uncle Sam buys AOL. Of course, they'll have to change the name to prevent any misunderstanding or confusion with AOL's previous identity. The new name should be USPS Rapid Inter-Net Email (URINE). Eventually, of course, the Library of Congress would get jealous of all the power that the USPS bought, so the LoC would start spamming all the URINE folks to go visit the newly opened Federal Electronic Carrier of American Literature (FECAL) servers (all running Win2K, as is fitting). But to make sure the FECAL folks weren't abusing their spamming authority, the FBI would monitor their activities via the FBI Offices OnLine (FOOL) which would be running on the FBI's super-secret, high-powered Mail Online Rapid Observing Network (MORON). Not to be outdone, the Bureau of Standards would have to dictate the successor to IP v7, since most folks using URINE will be accessing from dusty VT220s in public libraries. The Standard Terminal Universal Protocol Identification Division (STUPID) would make sure that all the VT220s could properly connect to the URINE servers to visit the FECAL site.
(That's all. my brain can't do anymore acronyms today)
(well, one more) There's a university in Texas named the Texas Women's University (TWU). Whatever happened to the Texas Women's Agriculture and Technology School???
Windows is dead!
Long Live Tux!!!
Trying to do something like this on a national level is, not trying to understate it, asking for trouble. First, the conspiracy nuts will have a field day with it. Second, suddenly we are taxed to have an email account that we don't need because K-Mart offers free internet access and Yahoo! offers free email. But none-the-less we are taxed, all in the name of closing that Digital Divide.
I was watching Turn Ben Stein On the other night and he had a guest on (some rap singer that I really wish I could remember) who was pushing to close the divide. They had an amazing conversation with Ben stating matter of factly, if the government really wanted to close the digital divide, they could do it by simply buying a computer for each family below the poverty line. A cheap system runs $600 and the overall cost wouldn't even be a billion dollars.
I was surprised this came from Stein but I think he was simply stating that this is only an issue because someone somewhere wants to make it an issue and it is easy enough to rectify.
Giving everyone an email address only creates another complicated layer of bureaucracy in our lives. I can see getting snail-mail telling me my email box is full and it will be emptied. Spending money that doesn't have to be spent just to seem like it is technologically 'with-it' is not what I want from my post office. What I want from the USPS is quite simple. Cheap postage, cool stamps, and my Discover bill delivered to me before it is due.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
The biggest shock for me was seeing that they plan a new service where they will print your email and deliver it to your house for $.41 per piece! That's a 25% premium over first class mail.
In addition to the charge, this also means that they will be accessing and (presumably) reading all your mail for you.
I don't wear a tinfoil hat, and I don't fear the government but I do not want the postal service correlating my physical and email addresses any more than I want my mailman reading my email.
I for one plan on registering an address. I will never give it out to anyone, and I will not use it for anything except e-mail sent to my USPS address. It will be usps@mydomain.com. It will bounce the mail back and auto-send a complaint to the Attorney General. Get 100,000 people doing this, and watch it all hit the fan.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Who will pay 41c for the privilege of relieving the USPS of a significant part of their burden? Is the cost of mass printing and mass envelope-stuffing really about 20 cents per piece?
I can see for a small-time marketing operation, or other small-volume users, the price being worth the effort, but for the mass-mail spammers who send out millions of pieces, and only pay about 20c a piece postage right now, is it worthwhile? After all, will you be able to get decent graphics? You'll only get two pages, and most solicitations run longer these days.
Could someone point a link to documentation that says just how much they get from the tax dollars? Their ads in the post office claim it all comes from postage plus their collectibles stuff. Also, I worked for a small company that did (still does) all of its shipping through USPS. They did business with companies in every country they legally could and only had two shipping problems. In both cases the package had been delivered and the recipient had the package in his mailroom but didn't know about it.
is the kind of emails you'll get at your usps address once the spammers buy the database.
sulli
RTFJ.
No kidding. My prediction: this will become your "official government email address" just like your SSN and you're going to HAVE TO USE IT!
Why? Because when it becomes apparent that nobody is using it initially, USPS officials are going to go crying to Capitol Hill and get this, Congress IS GOING to pass laws stating that official government notifications like: tax liens, notification of tax audits, draft registration, etc. can be sent via email and ONLY TO YOUR OFFICIAL government address.
I'm serious folks, this is really going to suck, because now you're going to be tagged in cyberspace whether you like it or not. When you have to use this damned address to get official government email, it's all going to be an open festival for whoever just like your Social Security number is now.
---------------------------------
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
If you don't want or need USPS email, fine, don't sign up. I know I certainly wouldn't have any good use for it. But does that mean nobody could or would want to use it?
I think the interesting part of the proposal is having portals at post offices; people who don't have a computer could then communicate with all their friends using email. A lot of people buy a computer just so that they can use the internet and email. I think they might appreciate it if they didn't have to throw away money on something with such limited use to them.
My grandfather for instance got a computer a while back mainly because people told him the internet and email was great. He's not exactly enthralled by it but he does email people occasionally. I wouldn't say that the computer was a waste of money, but a free alternative would probably have been preferable.
As an online bill payment type person, I'm probably posting about 5-8 fewer letters each month because Visa automatic drafts my checking account to pay my Visa credit card. And I also have already setup my Visa so that it pays all my utilities, rent, loans, and purchases
There is also a side-benefit in human lives saved. Fewer postal employees means a reduced population of psychos in the mail room which "go postal". ;)
The tree huggers should also be happy since fewer customers will drive their SUV to queue up at the local post office to send stuff in the mail or buy stamps. Because the "experts" believe $17 billion isn't going towards additional mailbox fodder and the resources required to get it there. (stamps/envelopes/return address labels/jeeps/semis) that $17 billion can then be used to fund GreenPeace, The Sierra Club or Shave the Whales.
-- "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in
Not only that, but you can get seriously shitcanned for mail fraud. Interrupting and intercepting mail that is not addressed to you is a federal offense. We're not talking nickel and dime prison sentences here either. I happen to think that USPS email is a great idea. It would bring regulation to the email system.
Those freaks are so nationalistic. They only care about their image and how they compare to the US. Marxist ratbags.
Second, the post office has NO interest in stopping spam. For one thing, their paper-mail revenue stream isn't supported by those silly first-class stamps you've been buying. It is supported by third class 'business mail' aka junk mail. Good side: you get cheap postal mail. Bad side: you get a ream of banner ads in your mailbox every week.
Wrong. First class mail does not subsidize third class mail, nor vice versa, by law. However, short distance mail subsidizes long distance mail; you spend 33 cents to send a letter across town, or across the country.
"Spammers could complain that it's governmental prior restraint to filter their unsolicited ads."
.gov addresses. But then again, these are spammers we're dealing with here :)
Actually, this is a Good Thing(tm). I say, let the spammers have a go at it. Because if they do, then there's going to be a lot of angry people complaining about paying X amount of dollars for the delivery of those e-mails for porn and marketing scams. And if that happens, then maybe the government will be clued in on the problem of spam, and outlaw it outright.
But then again, a lot of spammers claim to filter out
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Really, if I was going to pick any agency to set up a national e-mail system and maintain it, the USPS seems like a great choice.
I'm finding it hard to believe all the negative comments about the postal system that we're getting here. Think about how efficient and quick they usually are -- the prices are very low, and they'll usually get letters and packages across the country in two or three days. Out of thousands or maybe tens of thousands of pieces of mail I've recieved, only a small handful has gotten lost. Their performance record is stellar.
There are very few places in the world that have a postal system anywhere near as good as ours. Most governmental agencies are monsters that do more harm than good, but the USPS really works. I think that it's great that the government is realizing that having an e-mail account should be just as natural as having your own snail-mail box. Maybe it'll turn out well, and maybe it won't -- but it certainly can't hurt you, and has the potential to do a lot of good.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Good idea:
Free ISP service by the FBI
Bad idea:
Cutting taxes
When death looks you in the eye, smile. Someone needs to cheer him up.
Read the article:
"The Postal Service sees the project mainly as an e-mail forwarding service. Signing up would be strictly voluntary, and consumers would have to supply their own Web access, be it via a paid service, such as America Online Inc., or a free one, such as NetZero or SpinWay.com. The Postal Service would forward e-mail arriving in a free account to consumers' existing e-mail addresses. For an extra fee, customers could maintain an account at the Postal Service where messages could be retrieved."
Further, to clear up the bit about paying $0.41 to get it printed out and delivered:
"Local post offices will make paper printouts of e-mail messages and deliver them with the snail mail, charging the sender about 41 cents for a two-page document -- an eight-cent premium to first-class mail."
I sure hope they don't intend to keep up with us. Couse I've changed address about 3 times in the last year.
Why would you give them you SSN?
This ought to be illegal, on the grounds that it's the greatest breach of privacy ever concieved. how is someone knowing your eMail address going to violate you privacy. In all liklyhood, people you don't know walk right past you home! anyone of them could harass you at any moment, lets make that illegal, cause at any moment they could peer into your home! oohh the humanity. why do emailbombs suddendly become a greater threat then they all ready are?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Local post offices will make paper printouts of e-mail messages and deliver them with the snail mail, charging the sender about 41 cents for a two-page document -- an eight-cent premium to first-class mail.
Methinks you really don't have to worry about this.
i like the idea of the .gov trying to get every citizen of the country connected to the internet - i am frightened by the thought of the poor being left even more behind as communication becomes intimately linked to (still very, very expensive, in the scheme of things) technology .
/.ers, our community is an expensive and very very elete one, on a socioeconomic scale.
.gov, that's the kind of stuff i want to see MY tax money going to...)
admit it,
this said, i am not sure the PO giving out email addresses is really a big step forward. one would still need internet access, and a computer, and if you can afford that, well... Ok, it's better than hotmail, in that you don't have to pay via banner-ad-attention schemes.
what i would really want to see is a lot more free internet access, computer grants to underprivileged kids, etcetera (sure, sponsored by the
what i really like, though, is the fact that they are printing out the email and delivering it to the door. that is what i call a cool mutant technology. Once upon a time, XeroxPARC (i think) devloped a system where you would send a fax to a computer, get a fax back on which you could check some boxes, write some commands, fax it back, get another one back with the information you requested and some more options, rince, repeat... imagine surfing slashdot today via fax... weird shit.
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
"I want out!"
Wah!
Well, I happen to be involved with this project. Let me offer a few thoughts, but remember that I'm not advocating anything just because of who pays me.
First, the whole spam problem. I don't know about you, but I get shitloads of spam mail in my mailbox. I mean, I'm having to take out my trash all the time, because it's filled with all of this crap. So, for you to get "spam email," it would be replacing spam you would already be getting. Read that twice; the only way to have email delivered to this mailbox is if:
- You give this address to someone, or it gets confiscated in the same manner your present addresses can be (protect your email addresses better).
- Someone was going to send you spam mail to your mailbox, since they had to know your physical mailing address first, not just your email address.
While I think both methods are extremely annoying, it's a hell of a lot simpler for me to press the 'D' key in pine than it is to chuck a handful of crap in the trash, hoping nothing important is lost in the process. Sometimes "real" mail gets lost in the midst of all the crap, and you mistakenly trash it. I'd jump at the chance to be able to set up a filtering system for *all* of my spam mail.Think of it this way, it is illegal for the USPS to abuse its strict privacy policy, so all you'd have to lose by getting one of these email addresses is you can cut down on your physical junk mail. Hell, don't even use your USPS account., then you can be sure *everything* sent there is trash. Treat it like a virtual
As for privacy, the USPS is really good at keeping information safe. Sure, they've got dumb slogans like "Is it secure? Of course! It's the United States Postal Service!" All those spammers get your mailing address from somewhere aside from the USPS, though, and the same would apply to an email account sponsored by them. If you can't keep from displaying your email address everywhere to be spammed, it's your own fault. I know I've got email accounts that have been in use for years at home with no traces of spam mail. You can't blame all your problems on other people/organizations.
Source code is a lot like a parachute; it needs to be open in order to function properly.
For example, things they used to do (at least in rural early 20th Century America):
The fact was, the local postmaster was a federal officer who could act in behalf of the government, and usually did when nobody else was available in small towns. Yes, in big cities that wasn't always the case, but it has been mainly since WWII that most Americans live in large cities or suburbia.
Even now the USPS still has much of this authority. The budget of the USPS is still a part of the annual federal budget, and every postmaster has to be approved by an act of congress. (Yeah, their names usually get read off in empty chambers, together with the names of all the graduates from the military academies and ROTC programs when they get comissioned officers in the military, but it still takes a congressional vote.)
At least it makes a little bit of sense that this agency delivers mail, but they are still federal employees. Sometimes the other government departments are much more messed up with overlapping authorities that you can't figure out what is really going on.
Turns out that the UK's version mentioned in the article, RelayOne, has proved such a disaster in the UK (no shock that no-one wants to use it - I could have told you that from day one), that they are pulling it on 3rd August 2000 !
It's no wonder MSNBC didn't link to RelayOne, because this joint operation was a 100% failure between Microsoft (MSNBC connection !) and the UK Post Office. The US version will probably go the same way...
carte blanche for employers to read and divulge private correspondence,
I've got one thing to say about this. If you don't want your employer to read your personal correspondence, DON'T USE COMPANY RESOURCES FOR IT. I think you can wait until you get home to send that e-mail to your SO, or mail that attachment to your lawyer. Otherwise, get used to the fact that they can look at it if they want.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Let's see... I'll just scrawl 'CmdrTaco@usps.com' on this here envelope, tack a stamp in the upper right hand corner, and it'll be there in 3-7 days.
WOOPS.... "returned to sender: address [nnohF8o*@usps.com' unknown"
At least they've got one thing in their favor.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
>This ought to be illegal, on the grounds that it's the greatest breach of privacy ever concieved.
Of course, the FBI won't have any form of carnivore system attatched, nor will Eschelon be allowed near it. Of Course.
Calmacil
I can't seem to face up to the facts, I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax... --Talking Heads
This is providing a uniform method of contact for all people. No more dicrimination, ie,*Oh, my God, you've got a HOTMAIL account*, because everyone will have a post office account. S-Mail is slowly becoming a forum only for the old fashioned or poor, and that is not enough to keep the USPS going. So give 'em a chance at doing what they've been good at for a while; keeping America connected.
-Rainbowfyre
Vericon is coming!
Now I am also gonna get spammed to death with e-mails? Geeeeeeeez thanks USPS!
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
Actually, it would probably be done either via official housing tract number (you can find the one out for your property by going to the County Recorder's Office). ie, jcleaver@578.SW.TINKERBELL.SDCA.E3452.CO.SD.CA.US or, via your 9 digit zip code: House # 7320 at 92114-4613 would be: jcleaver@7320.13.46.14.921.CA.US The REALLY cool thing is that this has the potential for: a) city governments that can immediately e-mail EVERY single one if its citizens regarding important local events. ("Warning: Local Beaches shall be closed this Friday due to ...", "Don't forget to vote tomorrow") b) PERMENANT email addresses, provided for the government, one for each citizen... Imagine this senario: I've got an ID number I can use to let people e-mail me, wherever I move to or am located. Say my ID is 3334521. 1) Someone tries to contact me at ID 3334521. 2) The USPS checks to see if the sender is under a restraining order preventing them from contacting me, or if they are a direct mail organization and my direct mail preference specifies no direct mail. 3) If it is approved, the USPS places the mail in my inbox. My ACTUAL e-mail address, known only to me and the USPS's computers (and protected by law just as well as census data is), might be "jcleaver@7320.13.46.14.921.ca.us". This will keep physical locations private, and allow a "buffer zone" between someone's "real address" and their e-address. You could even expand this system and have your regular ISP forward mail to your ID number at the USPS, allowing all your mail to end up at the same location easily w/o compromising your privacy or security.
------------
"...and Maddest of all, to see Life as it Is, and not as it Should Be."
So the feds are going to break my door down and force me to use JohnDoe@usps.gov? I seriously doubt it.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
1234-3456-5678-8888-1201@visa.gov ... that way the spammers can cut out the middle man (you)
I didn't say it was a normal government organization, just that it was one. You are correct, the Post Office, from the cashflow perspective is a free standing organization. I believe someone has already mentioned that this gives us the worst aspects of a corporation and the government. This is a rather acurate description. You get the god-awful organizational mess brought on by the fact that all of its rules and regulations are written by the government, and the tendancy towards greedy and just plain unethical business practices as a product of having to support themselves. That's why we have Elvis on a stamp.
1)I don't know what worries me more - participating means The Man can keep a DB of everyone I come into contact with.... but if I don't participate that means someone may figure out a way to spoof my identity.
2)On the plus side, if I do take a free email account, any unsolicited spam-scams can be reported to the Postmaster General and would be a felony.
So do they accept this? No. Like most beauracracies they have too much momentum to stop when they arn't needed. USPS online bill paying service is first. Now USPS email. Maybe next they'll compete with PayPal. Hell, they might as well just get into the online commerce buisness and call themselves "eUSPS.com". But they'll never IPO. They'll just keep raking in taxpayer money and raise taxes whenever they need more.
The provision for the Postal Service in the US Constituion was a mistake. It made sense that a postal service was needed at the time, but the writers of the constitution didn't forsee that there might be a time when it wasn't needed. (Or at least a time when it wasn't needed and it wouldn't be politically feasible to eliminate it.) Now we're saddled with this beast which has nothing better to do but compete with the private sector. If there actions with snail mail are any indication, they will probably setup barriers against other companies, like ISPs, who compete with their services.
Their claim of privacy is a crock too. Do you think the USPS would refuse an FBI request to install Carnivore? I highly doubt it.
I'm not saying that we're ready to get rid of the USPS yet, but that day could be coming soon. The last thing we need is for it to be expanding it into areas where it competes with legitimate buisnesses which are doing a perfectly good job already. When the government is given something (or takes it) it is very reluctant to give it back. Let's keep email with the people.
-jlg
ps. use Debian! www.debian.org
I don't think so.
Unless the USPS very carefully strips off message headers, anyone who sent spam to (for example) all of the addresses in the USA Addresses cd-rom, and just looked at the "unsubscribe" / "fuck you" / undeliverables coming back from the real recipient could very simply replicate the database.
I for one say no, thanks to this particular security breach. I guess those who really want to get credit card solicitations in email might consider it...
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
But the thing that makes this different from spam is that the sender pays. What a wondrous thing!!! The idiot sends out 1000 e-mails and then gets the postmaster general on his tail because he didn't pay a $41 bill for his messages. This is great. Personally, I wouldn't use it -- printouts defeat the purpose. But it could be useful in the longrun. Just don't give out the address to the college you are accepted to. Otherwise, you'll be spammed with 500 online credit-card applications!
They're planning to charge $0.41 per message. .41 per message, if you want your email on paper. My grandmother goes and signs up for paper email to get email from me--and finds ten copies of "hot young chicks want you" in her mailbox--and a bill for $4.
Exactly. They're planning on charging the recipient
They need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. The need to offer a service where in all of my mail can go to a PO Box and be scanned in to eForm. Once Scanned in to eForm they could forward it to my eMail or I could check it via the web! Think of all the business that would love to receive there mail in eForm then route it to a desk / person / department. The USPS could make a bundle if they did it right and took it seriously! -WildZero
>I think you missed his point. Email doesn't make the USPS irrelevant; companies like FedEx make the USPS irrelevant. Or >would, if the USPS didn't have a legal monopoly on first class mail.
I read somewhere that the USPS, in volume, does what fedex does in a year every day. Does this coincide with your facts? You seem to compare the two as equals here.
I hope you realize that you've just made a "put your money where your mouth is" proposition. It would be quite simple to set up an email server based on your model. Then you could sit back and see how many people would buy into the idea.
The biggest lie they are telling us is that this is free. With government, nothing is free. Given what I get from the government for what I pay in taxes, this is probably the most expensive email address I've ever had.
One nice thing about this address is that I don't have to use it. If some website requires an email address to access some feature, I can give them my postal email address and never check the spam. Suddenly, my regular email account is spam-free. The government provides me with a fed-maintained, carefree spam black hole.
The print-and-deliver service might be nice, if you have your head up your ass. Do you really want some Goddamned federal employee reading your correspondence to Aunt Mary or anyone else? Even if it's innocuous, I still object to the principle of letting others read me mail. I never send postcards.
I don't mind paying $0.33 per message to send email through the account, since sending mail is optional (and I'll never use the damn thing). What I do object to is the fact that, after a short while, the USPS will undoubtedly start charging for mandatory monthly "maintenance" whether or not I use the account. When I get my first bill, that's when I grab my rifle and head to my friendly neighborhood branch of the USPS.
They can't get a monopoly on email service, just like they can't get a monopoly on postal service. For mail, they dictate that a standard letter can't be carried by anyone but the USPS. So companies like UPS, FedEx just make a differently-shaped envelope. It's un-Constitutional to prevent a person from coming to your home, receiving an item, and carrying it to someone else. Extend these principles into the Internet, and you have a postal service that outlaws non-government use of POP3 and SMTP protocols. All we do is develop another set of mail protocols.
Now I'm not a lawyer, but if you ask me, STMP and POP3 are just "foreign languages", which is to say they take English and encode it in some other syntax and format. How is this different from, say, Russian? This means that these protocols should be protected by the first amendment, preventing the USPS from outlawing transmission of them. Of course, some asshole judge determined that programming languages were "functional devices", like a toaster, and weren't protected by the first amendment. Our forefathers would claw there eyes out if they could see what is happening in their country today.
You make a fair point; it'd be a better one if you could cite a source. In any case, you can only make a comparison where competition is legal.
From the Cato article:
Between 1951 and 1974, the volume of parcels handled by the Postal Service fell over 50 percent, while the volume handled by UPS soared. Later: UPS now carries 70 percent of all parcels, and the Postal Service is losing more ground each year. A more recent article I found, and can't find just now, places this at 80%.
Of course, the majority of parcels go by ground delivery, while FedEx is an express air transport company. I don't have statistics handy, but I know they whoop the USPS in that arena... I know some people who work for FedEx, if need be I can get corroborating stats.
The USPS dominates those very large markets where there can be no competition. But maybe they'd prosper in a free market, too; only one way to find out! :-)
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
I'm pretty sure I saw one on slashdot a while ago. New messaging systems are like new VCR standards or video phones; the more wide-spread they are, the more useful they become. If all citizens already had accounts and only needed to activate them, it would quickly become a standard.
The cure for 1933 is 1917.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the Internet Industry Association which doesn't have a web site?
Nah! I'm being unfair. Just because it's a new site, and just because they are an organisation that "provides education on Internet and technology issues, advocates effective public policy for the Internet..." but does not have a privacy statement on it's site, and just because they are affiliate with one of the largest censor organisations in the country (which has "dirversified nto other safety programs to address lifelong injury prevention, including cyber safety, teen impaired driving ...", ...
Just because they are clueles doesn't mean I have any rights to make fun of them. So please completely ignore this post...
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
I love programs run by the government the signing up for which "would be strictly voluntary.
I wouldn't stress too much, since the USPS isn't a government organization. They get a big fat subsidy, but are an independent organization, just like any other delivery service.
It does still irk me that they get to have a .gov address, even if all it does is redirect you to the .com.
Sorry, but I think this is a terrible idea. As I said in a previous post, having some government dim-wit read your mail as it's being scanned runs against every good-judgement bone in my body.
I actually said it was a bad idea to have the print-and deliver service, because then the USPS can read what you send to Aunt Mary (or others). That is actually better than having your received mail being scanned. You can control what you send to Aunt Mary; you can't control what you receive. There might be some significant personal information being disclosed in the mail you receive.
That's worse than having a Carnivore box invading the privacy of every ISP (and therefore every one of their customers) -- it's like having a personal FBI agent standing at your mailbox!
You may say that, because your mail would be openly read, you would not have important information sent to the box. But, if it's not important, why do you need instant access to it through your email account?
This also sets the mood for trouble from Uncle Sam. If your neighbor Bill voluntarily allows his mail to be opened and digitized, what have you got to hide by not taking advantage of this service? Are you a terrorist or other criminal because you don't want your mail digitized?
Or the most terrifying case of all -- when a significant number of people want their mail digitized (it doesn't even have to be half), the government will decide they have the right to intervene in every person's mail delivery. Not only will all mail be opened, read, and digitized by government employees, but a duplicate copy will be made and archived, and the feds may start dictating the non-delivery of "questionable" messages.
All this and more because you were too lazy to go down to the post office. Don't tell me "If you don't want your mail scanned, you don't have to...", because this is a concept we shouldn't allow our government to come anywhere near considering.
Oh, and think of all the crackers that could gain access to your personal information, if you aren't scared of the government. (I'd rather have 500 crackers know my personal information than the federal government, because at least crackers are legally responsible for their actions.)
One last note: only businesses who don't know how to do business would enjoy this service. Having mail digitized and made available through the Internet would open a billion new doors to industrial espionage. How many businesses do you know of want trade secrets released in public?
I LOVE THIS IDEA! There's nothing like the possibility of having an email address like:
8 @usps.gov
303_north_seminary_avenue_park_ridge_il_60068-304
Finally, all my dreams of owning an email address have come true!
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
or even better a system you can guarentee to have carnivore on it...
Haven't you heard? The USPS system is derived from Carnivore. Seems the FBI wanted to bypass those pesky ISPs and their annoying resistance to attaching unknown boxes to their networks.
(NB: Since in these times nothing seems too absurd: yes, I'm kidding...)
Sadly, the post office is doing what other people do just fine already, and not coming up with a way to stay relevent. Dare I wonder if we will soon even need a USPS?
/much/ better job or regulating and controlling abuses to its system than organizations like Hotmail and Yahoo do.
I hate how every time someone decides to talk about that wonderous new invention e-mail, the end of the discussion always has to be a statement like this.
Yes, we will need a postal service of some sort for a long time, whether it's a corporation called the United States Postal Service or one called FedEx. You know why? Cause you can't ship stuff like auto parts, computers, eBay purchases, and Grandma's presents via e-mail. People tend to forget that cyberspace isn't real. It's just a virtual (read: imaginary) place that functions very well for information but sucks for actual atoms and molecules.
And as far as government organizations go, the post office isn't exactly like other governmental organizations. They don't depend on the Congressional budget and they operate as a corporation, not as an agency. They are actually an example of an excellently run part of the government and make a strong argument for modeling the different agencies after corporations. The post office is completely self-supporting and you can believe they're not going to attempt to do something if they're not going to make money on it.
While I don't think the e-mail address thing is a good idea, I don't think it is a bad one, either. And I think the Post Office will do a
When all the mail servers crash at once, this will give a whole new meaning to the phrase "disgruntled postal workers".
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
I already get email intended for other people... some of which are quite amusing. I think my friend onetime got one pertaining to the fathering of a child, only he'd never heard of the person... or did he? Heh, just think if people can fuck up simple email addresses... imagine getting your neighbor's pr0n. =)
LOL...this is gonna be fun.
Humorless sig goes here.
Did anyone see anything about what they are doing with people who have the exact same name?
No we don't. One of the great things about moving is that you lose TONS of junk mail. It builds up again over time, but for several months, its great to go to the mailbox and find only important (bills) and useful (magazines) stuff there.
Yes, if you move every time your lease is up, getting the important notifications out is a pain, but so is reviewing every piece of crap you get that looks like a check or bill to make sure it isn't a check or bill.
Nope, charge the sender. That's what will keep the chickenboners out and the volume low enough to prevent revoltuion.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Maybe having the PostOffice offering email services will hasten the modernization of privacy doctrine and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to cover email as well as it does paper documents, which is to say, not very well at the moment -- supoenas for 'mere evidence' that would've been categorically rejected centuries ago, fishing expeditions into people's computer hard drives, carte blanche for employers to read and divulge private correspondence, etc. Having the PostOffice involved should add something interesting to the constitutional pot.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
This email thing is just a desperate attempt to rescue the first-class business, an effort which I think is doomed. I mean, everyone in the US could get a hotmail account (I know, I know... but...) and not have to pay $0.41 per message. This is where the whole plan breaks down.
But, the USPS has a respectable package delivery service, which seems to have some pretty badass bang-for-buck, and I think they could do quite well in this arena.
My Freakin Blog
unsubscribe delirium.tremens@mail.com
The only reason I let the USPS pick up my mail is because they're the only ones who are legally allowed to take/put things from/in my mailbox!
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
OK, since this article is more than an hour old, I guess being moderated up is out of the question. So for those of you browsing low:
First, this idea is silly and relatively useless. The private sector operates something similar and better. All the post office can add is a mechanism which other regulations will glom onto until it becomes your mandatory official email address-- a little like what has happened with Social Security numbers.
Second, the post office has NO interest in stopping spam. For one thing, their paper-mail revenue stream isn't supported by those silly first-class stamps you've been buying. It is supported by third class 'business mail' aka junk mail. Good side: you get cheap postal mail. Bad side: you get a ream of banner ads in your mailbox every week.
Third, the government's problem all along has been a weakness of adapting to innovation. They come up with this great paper plan, and five months into it, as circumstances change, the plan ends up solidifying. Within a year or two, the whole system is out of date. I've worked with government agencies and contractors in the past; this is how it has always gone.
Finally, and most importantly, if the post office really wants to do something good, they should create a name server system for postal addresses. IE abstract the physical address away from the resident. So I just write "CmdrTaco, 80486DX" on the envelope, plop down a stamp, and it goes to Commander Taco, whereever his physical address might be . Do that, and right there you would only need one change of address card, and everyone who uses your EasyCode would automatically be updated. People who need a physical address can always still use that. You could update it over the web or at a post office if people are really worried about security.
Sadly, the post office is doing what other people do just fine already, and not coming up with a way to stay relevent. Dare I wonder if we will soon even need a USPS?
I mean, everyone in the US could get a hotmail account (I know, I know... but...) and not have to pay $0.41 per message. This is where the whole plan breaks down.
Sure, we can set up a hotmail account for everyone, but how are all those without 'net access going to get it? There are TONS of low income/technophobe/elderly folks who won't be able to participate.
This is were your whole argument breaks down.
load "linux",8,1
At least with snail mail I can go to my P.O. Box and weed through all the junk mail pretty easily. But I doubt the USPS is prepared for the onslaught of commercial spam such a scheme would engender. They may be used to delivering tons of the tangible stuff every day, but with spam it's always pointed out that it costs nothing to send spam ads so people send more spam e-mail than they could ever send spam snail-mail.
They'll just jack up the price of pretty much every non-bulk rate service. Why not bulk? Simple. It was the USPS, in conjunction with marketers, that made all mailboxes federal property, regardless of who paid for it. (Hmm... Does shoddy mail service really serve as just compensation as required under the 5th Amendment? ["... nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."]) What that means, basically, is that you have almost no say over what's put into your mailbox. In essence, it was given over to the marketers, with almost no method of stopping the flow of drek*.
As I see it, this scheme is a combination of trying to find relevance in the 21st century and pandering even further to the marketroids in search of a faster way to shove their crap down everyone's throat. (How much you want to bet mass mailings are made cheaper than 1-to-1 mailings, via this service?)
Dan "Just IMO" Poore
* I wonder if Form 1500 (used to block snail-mailings that the recipient views as obscene; fortunately the interpretation of "obscene" is left solely to the recipient) would also apply to this system? After all, there is a physical paper delivery after the e-mail is transmitted, and that physical object is delivered in the mail like any other bit of junk mail.
[insert witty quote here]
> ... the Direct Marketing Association, or as I like to call them "the first horseman of the apocalypse."
:) Tho the biblical passage seems more to have five: Antichrist, War, Famine, then Death/Pestilence and Hell making a joint appearance, so I suppose you're not too far off after all. And the USPS IS GIVING IT ITS CROWN, AND IT WILL GO OUT AND CONQUER, SPAM IS THE HARBINGER OF END TIMES REPENT REPENT REPENT ok theyre saying i have to take my meds now bye
War? I dunno, Pestilence seems more appropriate to me
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
It's called socialism.
load "linux",8,1
You may have this backward. Before the industrial revolution, the norm was individual farmers and small towns. People gave this up in exchange for the money-making opportunities of the big city manufacturing centers. Now that we are moving into the information age, we should be able to disperse back to the healthier environs of the countryside.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
From the USPS page:
You can mail most documents created in Microsoft® Word 6.0 or later, WordPerfect® 6.0 or later, PageMaker® 6.5 or later, VENTURA(TM) 7.0 or later, or QuarkXPress(TM) 3.2 or later.
load "linux",8,1
This ought to be illegal, on the grounds that it's the greatest breach of privacy ever concieved.
What's to stop the government from forcing us to drop our other e-mail accounts and use their government-provided account. They certainly aren't doing this out of the kindness of their heart. No government does something without expecting something in return (unless it's welfare checks).
And when the FBI puts a Carnivore unit next to the mail server your account is on, who's gonna stop them?
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
well they shoudn't need all the info, just
john.dohe@06454.usps.gov
or better yet your social security number
<laughing histerically>
1234-56-7891@usgov.gov
You make a good point, considering the US gov't.'s penchant for using the same identifying information over and over again. And of course, if you get a job at the post office, you can find a person. But then, you can already find a person by name and approx. location. If we have some kind of coded combination of letters and numbers, kinda like a license plate or something (customs cost extra! ;-) it would be a more anonymous and safe system than we have now for delivery. instead of telling the potential stalker your complete address, you can simply give them an identifier code to add to their package. The code will include some kind of region coding so that they will know how much to pay, but beyond that only the USPS computers can know where the package is going! Or maybe USPS isn't the right co. to implement this. Perhaps a seperate package delivery service, like one of the smaller parcel delivery players, should implement this to differentiate themselves.
I believe that the squatting law is for 7 years. If you manage to live there for 7 years with no objections, then you now own that building. Of course I could be wrong.
Yeah, right. Your bank has to have an address from you in order for you to open an account. Most cash-checking places need an ID and proof of address. Your credit rating is affected by how many times you've moved in the last few years. So your credit card is only one catalyst in the chain reaction of junk mail that gets sent. And don't even think about filling out the form to be part of those Supermarket Discount clubs (ooh, save $1.09!).
I don't watch Seinfield, but I imagine that it's pretty darn impossible to have no address. One way might be getting Post Office Box, then moving. The post office box is where you base your voting record (cannot vote without an address, that's why the homeless don't vote), bank accounts, and other crucial things. But wait! Don't you need to get a phone line (or DSL) to this anonymous new home of yours in order to pay your online bills? And the water, electricity -- who's name is that in? Those girl scouts may be even cleverer than you think - taking down orders and selling your info to Market Research Inc. You want a Pizza delivered to your house? Might as well have asked for ten "special deal" coupon sheets to be mailed to you every month.
There is one way to do it -- squat! Find a nice, abandoned building (Philly has more abandoned buildings than homeless people, I hear) and fix it up. A lot of times city water services will still work and they can't figure it out. Hell, most old apartments in the City get free cable. Heating may be a problem, so perhaps this better done in New Orleans. But not only will you have no junk mail, you'll have no bills to pay, either. No mortage, no landlord...
I believe that there are laws (particular to each city) that declares you the owner of the building if you've lived in it for a certain amount of time. Well, put some effort in it - fix it up: insulation, new windows, solar panels, furnace - and you've just made a good return on your investment (check local laws!).
You can afford that stuff -- you're a /.'er, right? Don't you have a cushy tech job? Why not take your spare time/money and that abandoned factory and make it into a super clubhouse for your secret ninja (geek) gang! With all the money you're saving on rent/mortage, you could afford a satellite-modem hookup (have the stuff mailed to your office). And don't forget to have your papers in order when you've been there long enough!
Oh, and support squatters' rights!
[pink beam of light]
One of the advantages I see to this is that it will help legitimize the internet for bill-paying, and thus reduce the amount of dead tree bills I receive. Once the system is up and running, the USPS can offer incentives to companies to send bills electronically to customers who have registered that they want to receive them that way (via their centralized database).
Even if it just starts out as huge PDF attachments for credit card bills, it will go a long way towards reducing the amount to junk I get in my mailbox every day.
Of what possible benefit is this? Everyone with an internet connection by default has at least ONE e-mail address already.
Assigning e-mail addresses to physical addresses shows a complete lack of understanding for the whole system. It gives current internet users yet another address, and gives addresses to millions more who have no way to access the mail. For those who use this service, it also is one more change-of-address to worry about when you move.
Giving out a free e-mail address in conjunction with an internet access account is one of the best ways to ensure that all internet users have access to e-mail. This plus the existing free services fill the e-mail needs of the public.
I see this as a vain attempt for a nearly out-dated service to stay relevent in a wired world. I predict failure for this venture.
joe_user-961-acorn-drive-anytown-va-22802@usa.com?
Yeah. My aunt Matilda will remember that.
-Omar
Actually, what I would like to see the USPS do
is validate GPG keys. I would love to take my
GPG key to the nearest post office with
appropriate ID and have it "signed" by the
Post office.
This could work especially well with the recent
digital signature legislation that was passed.
In germany, you can get your hans.schnitzel34@epost.de (epost ~ email). I think this is a nice thing to have; you can give this address to people that know your full name anyway. Why not have one email address you keep for the rest of your life ? Considering you can have as many fake ones as you wish.
Wait, keep reading for just a minute, please...
You're still here? Good. Everybody's been pointing out that when snail mail spammers can send mail at no cost to everyone, out mailboxes will be filled to the brim each day.
My point is, why should they do it for free?
If there is a nationally available system where it costs (for instance) one dollar to send an email to another person, who could then quickly and easily refund the money if he choose to, spamming would be so prohibitively expensive that noone would do it.
Well, that's my two cents, anyway.
The cure for 1933 is 1917.
just think... "Going Postal" hhmm....
-Its like Deja Vu all over again!-
The USPS is the one great evidence I choose to disprove most conspiracy theories.
After all the same folks who brought you the mail can't possibly conspire against us in some sort of global conspiracy of epic proportions.
Same thing with the President. If he can't even get some in his office without the whole world knowing, how could he pull off any real conspiracy that might require more than two people to keep their mouth shut.
timbu
The United States Postal Service, while originally spawned by the government, is not part of the government at this point in any way. It's an independant agency. So to say that it's a government agency that's carrying your correspondence is incorrect. They only have a little bit more to do with the government than UPS or FedEx.
The United States Post Office Department was once a cabinet-level agency, but that was changed in 1969, when it was converted to what is called an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States". The Postmaster General is appointed by a board of governors that the President appoints. Postal employees are counted as Federal employees.
Perhaps you're thinking of an independent quasi-governmental corporation like Amtrak. This solution was proposed but rejected by Congress during postal reform. The USPS is self-supporting and often acts like a company, but in reality it retains a Congressional mandate to offer flat-rate postal service to all parts of the US, whether or not it's profitable.
I know what you're saying, but you went too far in suggesting it's "not part of the government in any way". True, it has much more discretion and independence than most federal agencies, it's insulated from politics by having a governing board, and it is structured much more like a corporation than an agency. But it most certainly remains part of the government.
Whether the US will follow the lead of some other countries and spinoff the postal service as a public corporation remains to be seen. (Even Germany, when it spun off Deutsche Telekom, retained the bundespost as a government agency -- although to this day they own 51% of DT stock.) In the end the internet may eventually make snail mail obsolete, but not just yet. At this point postal mail is recognized as an essential service of government in almost every nation.
The Cato institute sponsored a talk on Postal Service privatization if you're interested.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
See my other post.
And if I remember correctly, the Federal Reserve is actually private as well. That's right, the organization that prints money. All those crazy collectors coins, tours of the mints, and stuff of that sort make money.
Uh, wrong. The Federal Reserve is an independent agency run by a Presidentially-appointed board of governors, who also selects the Chairman (e.g. Alan Greenspan) with the consent of the Senate (like any Cabinet member). The Federal Reserve controls the money supply by setting bank reserve requirements and setting the federal discount rate.
This is quite different from the process of printing money (by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing) or minting coins (the US Mint). The printing of money is statutorily limited under the Federal Reserve central banking system in order to control inflation.
Doubtless you're thinking of many of the congressionally-mandated private corporations, such as Fannie Mae (formerly the Federal National Mortgage Corporation) or Freddie Mac. These are private stock corporations that simply have to answer to a congressional mandate to fulfill a specific function, while making money for their investors.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
(and this is ** WAY ** off topic)
.COM address?
that even the usps wasn't satisfied with something LESS than a
www.usps.gov has moved..
..to new.ups.com!
What a sickening thing.
--Talonius
My reality check bounced.
If American's started using the train more, that would be different, but fares would have to be reduced. That and getting some bullet trains. I love riding the Amtrak personally. Great to sit in the dining car sipping on a beer working at a laptop rather than behind the wheel of a car... and you meet the most interesting people.
Eh...
How many places require you to provide a mailing address in order to receive services? To purchase goods? "It's so you are elegibe for the warranty."
The legal processes are already in place. The US Fifth Amendment does not cover your name and your address -- you can be forced to give both. What databases wouldn't have your address?
You can bet that the United States Postal Service will learn from the mistakes made by the Social Security Administration -- the number space will be large enough so that there would be no reuse of addresses for at least 300 years. At birth, each surviving baby would receive its own unique address -- after all, marriages break up, parents die, and the child might end up in an orphanage, so if mail is to reach each and every person, then each person needs a unique address don't they?
We may look back at today as "the good ol' days"...
The USPS eliminated the operations subsidy in 1983.
According to the 1999 Annual Report, the USPS had:
Operating Revenue of $63B
Operating Expenses of $62B
for a 3.3% margin. This margin is known to rise and fall in a roughly three-year cycle tied to postage stamp rate increases.
The US Government contributed $3 Billion in capital outlays, i.e. buildings, equipment, vehicles, and other permanent purchases. Clearly, though, this could be handled completely privately with a small increase in postage rates.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
homer.jay.simpson@742.evergreen-terrace.springfiel d.kt.us :-)
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
This could also be good for business. It could essentially be used as a reliable stamping & stuffing operation with costs of only 8 cents per document. Ultimately, it could save a lot of gas and air-miles as things are sent electronically to the post office, then printer rather than send physically the whole way.
Here's to hoping they don't come out with a fourth class version of this. The spam would then become extreme.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
What would happen if you set up a large forwarding ring then put a few emails in it? Would the emails continually be forwarded? If enough emails get in would they bring down the system? Could this be a method to protest the setup of such a system without adequate anti-spam laws?
You know how the USPS gets reeeeal upset when you start carrying first class mail in competition with them? Are we going to see them try to put some sort of restrictions on email as well? Dear Sir, It has come to our attention here at the USPS that you've been sending 'first class' email via email servers other than those officially authorized to do so by the USPS. We hereby demand that you cease and desist such communications through unauthorized channels, and turn over your email server logs so that the USPS may bill you the 41 cents per email 'illegal conveyance' penalty. Failure to comply will result in an IRS audit. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
I love programs run by the government the signing up for which "would be strictly voluntary."
The United States Postal Service, while originally spawned by the government, is not part of the government at this point in any way. It's an independant agency. So to say that it's a government agency that's carrying your correspondence is incorrect. They only have a little bit more to do with the government than UPS or FedEx.
As for the posts mentioning missing or damaged mail, you're doing business with a company when you send a letter. If you dissatisfied with the service, find an alternative means to do so.
REgarding the whole issue of these free e_mail addresses being easy targets for spammers, as far as I remember, the last time I opened my (real) mailbox, about 80% of it was catalogs, coupons, offers, come-ons. How are we to expect any new service from USPS to be any different?
I think I would trust the Post Office and this Internet scheme a lot more if it was spun off and privatized.
I really think the Post Office should just be left to die--or privatize and modernize. Or at least, exist, but in a much reduced state. For packages we've got a plethora of shipping companies. For most plain mail, e-mail does the trick. Why should this huge government agency still exist if there's not a place for it?
Scott
Scott
My father works for the USPS, and there's a few things I've learned about how mail advertisements work and how this e-mail system will work.
The USPS will not be revealing ANY information in your usps.gov e-mail address. You will have the opportunity to choose what ID you want to use for your e-mail, although the ask that you use your name in some way rather than something like pornstar@usps.gov.
Mail bombs? Early morning phone calls? How do you get that? If some Joe Smoe has some vandetta against you and he knows your e-mail address does NOT mean he's going to know your physical address. Look at his options:
1) You set up your usps.gov mail to forward mail to some hotmail account. So you get e-mails. Darn. Delete them. That could happen with any e-mail account anyway.
2) You receive in paper form all your usps.gov e-mail. It's going to cost him 41 cents per message. Why would he pay 41 cents to send you threatening? Even if he did, it's got a return address. Fake? Not likely, because he had to pay 41 cents to send that mail. Trust me, you'll have a way to trace him.
3) Even if the letter is threatening, it's a federal offense to send threatening mail, and whoever sent the mail will have an identity. And the USPS has quite a large, nation-wide fraud center that is being equipped to deal with those kinds of issues.
And, no matter how he sends it, whether from his computer or physically going to the post office to mail the message, he can't get anything more than your name from the post office. They aren't allowed by federal law to reveal any private information such as your phone #, SS#, etc.
And if you're worried about spam, don't be. It costs about 21 cents per letter for advertisers to send you a two page message via snail mail (2 cents for the paper and envelope, 6 cents labor to print the form letter, stuff it, and print the envelope, and 13 cents for bulk-rate mailing), which is still quite cheaper than 41 cents to mail a two page message via USPS e-mail. And for credit card companies who have to mail all those pamphlets and forms in the message? It would take about 9 pages of e-mail ASCII text to reveal all the information they're required to disclose for a credit card application, which will cost them around, I believe, 60 cents, to send via USPS e-mail, much more than to send snail-mail.
Oh, and for the highly paranoid, no one, neither businesses nor an everyday Joe Smoe, will just be able to walk into the USPS and say "Hey, I got this e-mail address of someone, could you please give me his name/snail address/phone number please?"
The USPS is not a full-fledged government agency in the sense that it is self-supporting. Your tax dollars do not support mail service; in fact, the government appropriates USPS profits above a certain amount. This is the reason ultimately that the USPS doesn't simply concentrate on delivering mail fast -- it engages in a lot of this other stuff because it makes them money, covering their losses on services like first-class mail delivery.
"The urge to fly from modern systems, instead of moving through them to even greater, fairer things is, I think, an indi
The one time I had contact with a real postal employee via email, they didn't seem to know how to use the subject line.
If that wasn't bad enough, the header trace on the email looked some mainframe mail system. All the names in uppercase, etc.
I'm worried.
- j a c r -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
hey, lets give everyone email...then set up a carnivore box...and see what happens...
I for one will be glad when the bleached white USELESS (tree-killing) bulk mails are replaced emails. I USE a proxy-blocker, so if I do not know you, you get a polite email directing you to my ICQ to make initial contact and your email is bounced back :) I block everything from unknown entities. I also bounce any email which does not have MY ADDRESS' in the adressee field. I can be inconvienent to some people but it works for me.
From the article:"People say the Internet could be a lot more usable if there was a greater trust involved," he says. "At the Postal Service, people trust us."
That's truly funny. You can't even trust the post office to deliver a letter within a month. Here in Chicago, it's almost a regular occurrence that firemen put out a fire at a postal carrier's house to discover stacks of burnt mail.
"The USPS: When it absolutely, positively, has to have a 40% chance of being there by the end of next week."
I don't know specifically about the US, but here in Europe the debate usually centers on the Universal Provision argument. The universal provision is the requirement that the post office must reach the whole country with fairly uniform service and price. That's why they have a monopoly on the delivery of low-cost mail.
In this sense, you could argue (and people do) that the postal service does "bring the nation together" in a way that a commercial operation would not.
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
I think spamming lusers on a service with a USPS admin is a pretty bad idea. They have automatic weapons and have demonstrated repeatedly a proficiency for using them.
-Spazimodo
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Fsck the millennium, we want it now.
Millennium Crisis Line: 0890 900 2000 [calls cost 50p/min]
Sure, on the surface this seems like a good idea. Each person can have their own email address, linked to where they live.
And then I will get twice as much junk mail. Forgetting about spam issue,let's look at the privacy issue. With this system, it will become very easy for people to figure out where you live.
And let the government administer it? Great. Something else for those annoying sales people to buy and use to find you. And since it is legal for most ISPs to read your emails, then the USPS could legally intrude into any emails sent to or from its system, without a warrant or Carnivore software.
I only hope that if this idea goes into effect. It will be truly optional. As I will never access it or use it.
Elric42 "And when you look into and abyss, the abyss also looks into you." -Nietzsche
I don't know if it's the law in all 50 states, but in all the ones where I've lived (NY, MA, CA) you are expressly prohibited from using a PO box as your address for voter registration--the address you give must be your "residence and domicile".
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
These are the same people that have adjectives named after them (postal). They also are the originators of spam, at least in hard form. Do we trust their email?
How Jaded Are You?
From: 2810_dewdrop_pl.92695_4843@usps.gov
To: 2812_dewdrop_pl.92695_4843@usps.gov
Please silence your barking dog, or I will slit it's throat while you sleep.
Thank you,
Signed:
Neighbor You've Never Met
Okay, the e-mail thing is just plain stupid, all it does is forward, so what's the point? The really COOL part, however, is what they decided NOT to do: Allow you to link an e-mail address to a street address! Instead of telling someone where you live, they can send you letters, packages, whatever, addressed to your_name@usps.gov, and then they will deliver the actual meatspace package to your real address. Awesome! No more worrying about who you give your info too online, and who's hands it might fall into. Just give them your @usps.gov username, and you're set.
Why NOT do this? I mean, I don't see why it has to be tied to an e-mail address, but just being able to have "alias" addresses through identifier names in their database.
And if they don't trust us, we shoot them.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
"Sorry, the web page you are trying to access is secured with a 128-bit version of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). In order to view this resource, you need a browser with this level of SSL."
Oh well, like I need another place to receive mail about my student loans...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Does that mean that the USPS will have to provide us all with minitel terminals ? Or better yet, iMacs ? LOL
- j a c r -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
that my email will now me bent, broken, bruised and battered as well as 3 days late?
Quick! Sign me up!
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
unless the envelopes arrive on the same day :)
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Somehow I don't see this happening. Many years ago the USPO (as it was know then) established something called RFD (rural free delivery). There are very few places left (if any) where you do not get box delivery to your residence (or least out at the edge of the highway).
The little rural town where I live got a new post office last year. Up until then, everyone living in the small town got mail at a PO Box (no street delivery). Now everyone gets door delivery.
I just do not see someone driving 20 miles to the PO just to read the email. Sounds kinda kooky to me.
- j a c r -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
The USPS is projected to lose a lot of money to commercial e-mail and third-party delivery companies. So the USPS, in its infinite wisdom and who makes so much money from all of the junk mail that they deliver that they should have to PAY US for the privilege of delivering a first class letter, wants us to sign up for a free e-mail account to better organize us for the spammers so that they won't need to send bulk junk mail anymore, hence eliminating said profitable revenue source.
Oh, wait a minute, it made sense for a minute. I used to work in the government, and something took over the logic portion of my brain. I'm all better now. Sorry.
Trust the post office?
I'm sorry, I don't think so. Tolerate, maybe.
Endure, possibly.
Trust?
No.
Malk-a-mite
The FBI can't declare jurisdiction over USPS matters. The USPS is NOT a government agency (it's a wholly-owned subsidiary, but still a distinct, non-governmental entity), and therefore, the FBI needs to obtain even more paperwork than usual to be able to view anything that's carried by the USPS. Besides, if the FBI starts policing postal problems, then what would become of all of those Postal Police folks?
I have to admit, the USPS is one of the better public postal services in the world. Sure, things get screwed up here and there, but given the amount of correspondence that they handle, the percentage is EXTREMELY low (losing mail usually happens to me, so don't think I'm saying I'm a sparklingly happy customer).
The way I see it, this is just Step One in moving from the traditional "tree-killing" method of messaging to a more modern method. I personally prefer email (read: FASTER) over postal mail any day of the week.
My question is, when are they going to start assigning IPs to our houses?
They have to deliver the mail. It's a law. Even if it's junkmail. So, does this mean that spam could become legally protected?
"We're sorry... we *had* to deliver that spam to you. Advertisers paid for it and we are legally obligated to deliver the mail rain or shine."
So instead of my email accounts and my snail mail box being full of spam... These people can come right to my door!
How about the guy that was really upset about that usenet post I made last night. Or some really off-his/her-rocker troll here on slashdot? Isn't this just begging for it. There is already enough media coverage about stalkers starting from the net with info that the people give them themselves. Now it's part of your e-mail address.
Great.
If they are going to assign an e-mail box to my address. What if I move. Now what? Will my physicall address be different but the PO office still drop my e-mail into 328EmlDrive@somecity.com?
This looks like a bad idea overall. What will they gain? There are already hundreads of FREE email accounts all over the net. Why do we need another one.. especially one that is subsidized with my tax dollars?
And if they sell the adresses to spamers it won't be usefull at all. Right now I have a 25/75 ratio of snail mail between bills(20%) and letters(5%) and junk(75%). And since e-mail is so much more convinient and cheaper to spam to I can see that hitting 1/100 in the e-mail version. (where 1 in a 100 messages are even worth reading) UGH!
-Ex-Nt-User
maybe it wil be more like:
householder@303.north-seminary-avenue.park-ridge.i l-60068-3048.usps.gov
with 'householder' replaced with your name for personal stuff ....
You're correct, but the USPS has jurisdiction only because pyramid schemes which use the USPS constitute mail fraud. It has nothing to do with email vs. paper mail. If the money doesn't go through the USPS, they can't nail you for mail fraud - you're not using "the mail."
...when you move?
I have news for you, it already is, but not many pursue it due to the fact that most people can't claim real damages...
I'd just like to add something:
This whole thread has had me clutching my stomach laughing (*laffen*). Why? Because NOTHING can match the charming, wild absurdity of Slashdot trolls and those who respond to them.
Ahem. That said, let's see if I can say something on-topic.
I really don't like the idea of a service which should remain private and personal (email) being provided by the government. You can call me a paranoid anti-Government militia alarmist (and I'm sure quite a few will), but it's really just a matter of my basic Libertarianism kicking against the intrusion of our monolithic Federal government on yet another aspect of my privacy.
I'm sure there are at least 50 other posts on this story saying something close to the same thing I'm saying...but, those who criticize these posts should stop to think, maybe: shouldn't the fact that there ARE so many be telling you something?
Thank you.
4920616D206E6F7420656C6974652E
Email me.
+++ATH0
Could using the USPS email address become the only option, thereby requiring a physical address (and identity) to be matched with your only way of sending email?
I can see the law-n-order types championing this as a way of preventing anonymous emailing of porn, nuclear reactor codes, etc. Would we be able to stop this if motions were made? The geek outcry would be huge, certainly, but would the civilain populace care?
--
$tar -xvf
"Instead, officials say they are developing the database in response to requests from companies that could use it to send bills and other communications consumers want to receive."
What's so funny, you ask?
For years, everytime a law is considered that would limit junk mail, the lawyers for the companies that send most of it have testified before congress and said publicly that "People WANT to receive our mail."
So is the Postal Service prepared to store all of that spam for the millions of email addresses that will be ignored by their owners but constantly spammed? This sounds like a waste of an idea. There are already free email services such as Hotmail. This would have been news had it happened in the pre-Hotmail era. Now it's a waste of taxpayer money.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I disagree with that characterization, on the grounds that
a) the usps *does* get a big fat subsidy as you say (at least that's my feeble understanding, though it doesn't fit with my point b) and I'd appreciated correction) and
b) they hold a monopoly on 1st class mail, the profits from which (around a billion in some recent years, not sure latest) subsidize their other services.
quasi-government, maybe, but about as private sector as Air America.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I love programs run by the government the signing up for which "would be strictly voluntary."
Although PAYING for them with the tax money they steal from you constantly will, unfortunately, not be optional.
Unfortunately, this one is a bit hard to bitch about, as we can pretty much blame the founding fathers. They just had to write the Constitution in a way that Congress could interpret their authority to enact a postal service was an <i>exclusive</i> authority, giving them not only the power to deliver the mail, but to shoot anyone else who tries to. Worse yet, the term "post office" is not defined, so interpreting it to allow them to provide e-mail is hardly a stretch.
Since government always seeks to expand its power, I wouldn't write off the posibility, however small, of Congress eventually granting exclusive authority to provide e-mail to the USPS. It would be easy to sell to America's socialist-at-heart voters. They would only need to point out Melissa and ILOVEYOU and some yet-to-come devastating e-mail stupidity to convince Americans that they just can't trust e-mail to big-business greed or whatever, same as they all thought for phone service, cable TV, and power for decades.
MoNsTeR
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Isn't it privatized?
And if I remember correctly, the Federal Reserve is actually private as well. That's right, the organization that prints money. All those crazy collectors coins, tours of the mints, and stuff of that sort make money.
...or maybe just hella-counter-intuitive. I'm sure that being linux people, we've figured out a way to make adding a few HTML tags to plain text nearly impossible for anyone who didn't code the interface ;) (*cough* --this is a JOKE)
MoNsTeR
a similar service run on an MS.net thingy where the only protection is their word.
... and we all know how reliable MS Word is. (-:
Sorry. Bad joke.
The USPS isn't a part of the government, it was privatized several years ago IIRC.
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Then, and only then, will we see efficiency in this government organization.
M$: "We're #2!"
The only people who this service would benefit are those who live in poor or rural areas where Internet access is uncommon. The article says that e-mail terminals might be installed at post offices, allowing people who might otherwise not have access to a computer to access e-mail.
For the rest of us who already have e-mail addresses, I simply do not see the point. There are already numerous free e-mail forwarding/web e-mail services available and the convenience of an e-mail address that is the same as your delivery address would not justify opening the floodgates for SPAM. Imagine all of the junk mail that you receive today and multiply it by 25 since the sender will not need to pay anything to send messages to your associated e-mail address.
Since this service is likely to attract only people who cannot afford normal Internet access or e-mail, I fail to see why advertisers would be interested in their demographic. This service seems destined to fail, IMHO.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I agree, Laetus--but here's more. How long before the Post Office declares its exclusive jurisdiction over email. Then you'll ONLY be able to use the USPS address, and only in the manner prescribed by USPS Rules and Regulations.... Remember, the bureaucracy's first duty is to perpertuate itself. No thanks post office... I'd rather have the freedom and convenience that come from keeping the government out of my affairs, thank you.
DAILY ROTATION
Don't worry, they'll screw it up and be 2 years late. Postal is great, you get all the headaches of a huge company with all the headaches of a government agency....
doesn't anyone else think that the FBI could get a hold of USPS email a WHOLE LOT EASIER than attaching the black box to independent ISPs? Since the USPS and FBI are both government operated, and so is the new 'government email,' i think i'll stick with my slightly more private methods (hotmail, yahoo, etc). *laugh*.
...they promise to send all my spam there. Wouldn't it be great to have one e-mail address where all of the spam intended for you could coagulate?
---
Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
Remember those "under-privileged" computers that were given out (read above)? Guess what? Now they're also restricted by the same goverment that gave you the e-mail. Political agenda? "Oh... well... we have to know what you did with the e-mail after we gave it to you. Besides, they're our computers."
This needs to be stopped NOW before it gets out of hand. This is the first move in a game of chess with your government issued computer life. I think it pisses them off that they CAN'T control you like this.
Personally I'd rather be spyed on than have it shoved in my face and hidden behind some touchy-feely message. Ignorance is bliss.
__
__
nothin' says lovin' like an open source penguin.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
- Don't they (claim to) lose money because of how popular email has grown? Each email we send denies them the opportunity to make $0.33 off of me--and I'm sure not gonna PAY them to send my email!
- Where is it the government's responsibility to give us what tons of other free services (yahoo mail, hotmail, etc) already offer, voluntarily?
- How do they intend to present it? Webmail? POP3?
- How do they intend to run it, effeciently?
- How do they intend to manage something so big? AOL claims to have in excess of 20 million users, and that's big--but 120 million? Can we say slow?
- What about the households (50%? 25%? 75%?) that don't have computers? How do they propose to provide them access?
It seems as if they have something tricky up their sleeves. It seems a mammoth undertaking, and they don't exactly have a reputation of providing services for our good, but to make money (USPS is the only branch of government that turns a profit, from what I hear). They are one of the only legally sanctioned monopolies--hey, did Microsoft put them up to this?"I say consider this day seized!" -Hobbes
"Tomorrow we'll seize the day and throttle it!" -Calvin
Where do you think Trolls come from? Trolls are YOU TOO buddy! We're ALL trolls sometimes. Some of us just more so than others. Hey - *I* am on occasion a troll. 99.9999% of the time, it's in a Troll sid - as evidenced by my last 5 posts all being moderated down yesterday - all 5 posts in various troll sids. Why do people troll? I think because the moderation system is SO TOTALLY broken! It's to draw attention to the problem!
This is NOT to say that we don't occasionally have a perfectly VALID point to make, like the one Siggy is making above here. Who the hell gives a rat's keister if he's trolled in the past - does this somehow contaminate what's been said above? I don't think so! Or should I just say, YOU didn't think before you posted... Guess that makes YOU the troll this time. What have you got to say about that?
Fawking Trolls!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
Handing emailadresses to the public by the gov. postal service was allready attempted in Sweden a couple of years ago. Guess what. Hardly anyone remembers it ever happened by now. Why?
Probably beacuse they were a bit to early. It was just when the www was gaining momentum among the average Joes. By then 'only' some 20% had Internet acces at home. Now the figures are above 60% and in Stockholm above 70%.
There was however a slightly cooler twist to it here in Sweden that maybe the US postal service should consider. The intention was that person A could write emails to person B who didn't have means to read his email adress at home (i.e. no computer or Net access) BUT the Postal Service would deliver a printout. I don't remember if it would work the other way - from paper to email. Probably not because: 1) That would mean that someone had to read snailmail to be able to write the mail - OCR sucks on handwriting. 2) Who would be paying for the stamps?
Anyway... Hopefully some Post Service guy reads /. and gets on the phone (or mails!) to Sweden and asks the postal service about their experience with this.. and ditches the whole thing?.. :-) .. And here's a second reason: think SPAM!...
Thank you.
//Frisco
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Now that the gubmint is giving digital signatures
the force of law, it wouldn't surprise me if the
USPS forced through some legislation forcing you
to use the mailbox. For example, they might pass a
law stating that delivery of service (Hey - you've just been subpoenaed!) to a persons 'officially'
assigned USPS emailbox will be treated as legally
binding - regardless of whether or not you bother
to actually read whatever junk email piles up there... You would ignore this at your peril.
In germany, you can get your hans.schnitzel34@epost.de
That's not really any different than a lot of people's email addresses, in which the user has decided to have it reflect their real name. Better persistence, perhaps, if one assumes that the Post Office will be around longer than hotmail (not necessarilly a correct assumption - many companies have outlived goverments, especially in Europe), but not fundamentally different (or threatening).
However, having something like
hans.schnitzel_Herbertstrasse_23_Koeln@post.de
would be more worrying -- now any casually observing pyscho can hunt you down and delete you from the physical world. At least as things stand now finding someone in physical space requires some effort.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Free web-based e-mail? Damn, I wish I'd thought of that, I mean, NO ONE does that now. I bet they will get bought out by Microsoft, seeing how innovative they are.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
figure you know, the fbi is also part of the government ... making carnovoire (sp) and all ... it's kinda neat how both a free email system and a email sniffer both come out in the same week ... anyone else think that this is a LITTLE too coninsedental? (sp) :) And with that in mind - one of my favorite quotes: Anyone Who Believes They Are Free Under Any Form Of Government Are Those Who Are Truely Enslaved -unknown
Runnin' On Empty
For me the USPS is all about magazines with missing covers..just cant get that with email...
***There is no point in asking, you'll get no reply***
The first was when USPS became the owner of the .us TLD. The last will be when they become the only legal carrier of e-mail.
Somewhere in the middle will be the point when they are declared to be sufficient for legal notice such as jury summons, certified mail, utility and tax bills, etc. This is a necessary step, since without this nobody with half a brain will use them.
Once they are declared to be official e-mail, they will discover that (gasp!) messages get lost as long as people are still collecting mail through ISPs. So, obviously, the ISPs have to go. We will then have reached Nirvana, with the USPS charging $0.50 or so to the sender for all e-mail.
Chickenbone spam will be a thing of the past! Oh, we'll still get Wonderful Offers in the (e-)mail, but they'll be from Our Elected Representatives and Important Companies who can afford the wonders of Targeted E-Mail Marketing. (Of course, they'll get a discount.) And we'll all be grateful, because without the bulk e-mailers subsidizing the system we'd no doubt have to pay much more to send a message.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I DON'T LIKE SPAM!
... but I could live with it. Consider this: if the US Postal Service offered this email service to mass marketers, and required them to use it for solicitation instead of snail mail, maybe things wouldn't be so bad.
At least I can filter email spam much more efficiently than snail mail. Nothing pisses me off more than a box full of junk mail causing me to nearly miss an important letter.
But switch it for email? That's a tradeoff I'd make in a heartbeat. Ideally there'd be NO spam but I doubt that'll ever happen.
SEAL
The word postal in the slang term is not an adjective, it is an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, in this case "go", as in "go postal." Adjectives modify nouns, like "carrier" in "postal carrier."
"Excuse me, sir? Did you send this spam? Please come with us..."
That would make me happy.
---
So, I can expect that all my neighbors will get my spam! :-)
I imagine the real rational for this is...What about all those people who don't have access to the internet. If the USPS has email service, they can be sent emails just like regular mail, and the USPS will print them out and deliver them....Suddenly the whole world is connected to the internet...isn't that what all the politicians (sp?) want to give their taxpayers?
I don't mean to sound snarky, so if I do I apologize, but how would this make you reply to them any faster? I mean, if they don't have a computer, they're still going to send letters via USPS. Presumably, you use the computer to type up a letter to them, so what's the real difference between [printing and folding and sealing and stamping a letter] and sending email (in this case)? I don't get it, and I'm honestly curious.
Okay, after thinking about it, I can think of a few justifications:
I myself rarely ever write actual letters, mostly because I always find other things to do, so I totally understand where you're coming from, but I was interested when you said that this solution might work for you. To me it seems like six of one and half a dozen of the other.
So now the jargon will be "He's gone Postal Sysadmin".
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Be afraid...be very afraid
This ought to be illegal, on the grounds that it's the greatest breach of privacy ever concieved.
WTF? If you give someone your address, you give them your address. Hello! Your choice!
Think about it for a moment. My folks live in a rural area - it's ~15miles to the post office. Why would they want to drive there to access email? They do have phones in the rural US, and there are national ISPs. Even a long distance call is probably cheaper then the gas/wear-and-tear used to drive a car to the post office.
Wouldn't it be nice -- espically for people who move often -- if you could have an online account with the USPS which would have your current smail address. Then, on letters or other postal mail, you could just write patnotz@usps.gov; the USPS would pull your physical address off your account... just a thought
It is funny that the USPS needs to bend over backwards to get customers these days. Now, they want to set you up with e-mail to justify their size. People are going through private carriers and other services these days, it's not just the internet. The USPS is a great service and all, but they are a federal business, why should they compete for customers?
This is not surprising. You can look at pretty much any bureaucracy as a single macro-entity made up of essentially interchangeable components (analogous to the earth, or your body, for that matter). When you do this, a clear pattern emerges. Any such macro-organism, once created will attempt to:
1) sustain its existence
2) grow
That's all they are trying to do: the USPS is nearly obsolete, so they are trying to expand their mission to keep themselves going. Businesses and other entities do the same thing.
Please don't accuse me of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or of anthropomorphizing a bureaucracy. This sort of behavior isn't due to a conspiracy, or to "conscious intent" on the part of the macro-organism. It is merely the result of many constituent entities acting to protect their own self-interest. It's a consequence of the incentive structure. But it is worth paying attention to, because it is a consistent behavior. Any organization that does not have an incentive structure like this won't survive long in the first place, because there are very few true altruists in the world.
I am bothering to point this out because this phenomena is primarily responsible for both the mega-merger craze in business and the ever-expanding involvement of our government in our daily lives.
For a more general discussion of this sort of thing, check out The Myth of the Borg and in particular, this thread about the link between structures and behaviors
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
At least with snail mail I can go to my P.O. Box and weed through all the junk mail pretty easily. But I doubt the USPS is prepared for the onslaught of commercial spam such a scheme would engender. They may be used to delivering tons of the tangible stuff every day, but with spam it's always pointed out that it costs nothing to send spam ads so people send more spam e-mail than they could ever send spam snail-mail.
And this brings up a very important point; as a government agency, the USPS wouldn't be able to filter spam. Spammers could complain that it's governmental prior restraint to filter their unsolicited ads. Without the ability to filter spam at all, I suspect that such a system would rapidly buckle under heavy load. Even worse, this is the USPS--they'd probably use a naming system for everyone's addresses, a naming system which is easily guessed by spammers. I imagine that this idea will either go nowhere, or if they do implement it that they fold under the strain or, if they do filter, become a legal target for the Direct Marketing Association, or as I like to call them "the first horseman of the apocalypse." I hate those guys....
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
This could be a dream come true! Companies will decide to send their junk mail to my USPS account (which I convieniently refuse to check), and all of a sudden my real mailbox is empty! Sounds like a deal to me!
The government will start have clauses like this...We'll send you this _wow_ thing if you just provide us with your USPS-EMAIL account. Then, all of a sudden other companies will ask the same thing, because they're in bed with the government, and get free adv. or something out of the deal. Pretty soon, the USPS will say that only their email service is legit, because they require Your full name, address, social security, blood samples, DNA, fingerprints, etc. Actually, they'll probably just activate your email address via their own monopolied mailing service.
Then they'll make revenue by selling spam accounts, just like we get shit in the mail when you register a license plate.
Believe me, this is the first step towards shaved heads and tattoo'd barcodes on our foreheads. You have been warned. We'll actually be happy that some script kiddies will DOS them. I can only hope they prove that it won't work perfectly (the private thing, the secure thing, and all)
Rader
Granted, this idea does have it's fair share of dangers, but there is one advantage I see. I've changed my e-mail address quite a bit, and it's always a hassle because it's usually associated with the place I am, or the company I work at, or the provider I use. I currently have a hotmail address, which is also annoying because it's so web based. I'm not sure how they're planning to arrange this, but if I could have an e-mail address I like, then have that forward to wherever I am, I would like that. As long as it doesn't change when I physically move. But that depends on how they handle it, of course.
Joshua
The only thing I ever get in my mail box are bills and dead tree spam. There are numerous methods to pay the bills online now and I'm not interested in dead tree spam, so how do I opt out of the current system? I expect it would be every bit as hard as the Seinfeld episode made it out to be.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This looks like it could very well be an add-on in that if you don't want to recive your mail at their site, they will sneakernet it to you.
If these two projects are entirely unrelated, then there is a very large duplication of effort problem at hand.
Why, exactly, should this be illegal? It is voluntary, if you may not have noticed. But moreover, your email is not linked to your home address. Your home address is linked to you email forwarding address. So somebody could determine your email address via your home address. Now if somebody hacked into the post office database... but bad things can always happen if somebody hacks into government agency databases.
You'll probably get more spam email. Hardly the greatest breach of privacy ever conceived.
Wow, free email addreses, you don't say! What a cool and novel idea! Good thing USPS thought of it first! And there are so many compelling reasons to have another mailbox filled with nothing but spam!
/dev/null. Better yet, set your MTA up to bounce everything right back.
I agree it will be the biggest spam tool ever, but who would ever use it? Anyone with a net connection can already get all the free email addresses they want, so what possible reason would there be for anyone to even care about their 'USPS' email address?
So they'll give me one. Televangelist scam artist conman assholes send me free Holy Cornmeal and Anointing Oil, too, but that doesn't make me do anything with it but toss it in the garbage. They can't force you to check your USPS email, or to not route it to
Just ignore it. Let their mail servers overflow with unread spam. BFD. Sit back and watch the fun as the whole thing collapses under the weight of spam that's read by no one but the spammers who wrote it.
Big whoop.
I'm not sure this is a bad idea:
It almost seems like a good idea. I'm possibly missing something here, but wouldn't it be more private to give your "real" address to only one institution? In this way, all SexToys'R'Us would have is your e-mail address (on Hotmail, or whatever) which you would presumably need anyhow to register on the web site. (Assume for the sake of this argument that the sender can not be anonymous.)
I mean, the state already knows where you live and could probably track all your e-mail addresses (Carnivore, RIP, ...) so why not formalise it? Sure, there are issues about the database being hacked into, but are they really different from the issues with existing databases (like, say, IRS) - in particular in USA where, it seems, you can alredy know everything about a person if you know the SSN.
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
People still live in fucking boxes on the sidewalk, and the government's Big New Plan is e-mail? How about we get everyone a snail-mail address first?
Unix: Where
The Postal Service has been under increasing pressure to outsource and 'run like a business' for years. This means that they have been selling off their most lucrative ventures, like Express and Priority Mail services to 3rd parties. You'll note that the quality of the service has degraded substantively at the same time.
I would think that giving out free email addys to people will invite a lot of spam, unless there is stiff regulation of it from Congress, or a relaxing of their burning need to make all government services turn a basic 'profit'. It is wise to remember that the government best handles the dispensing of needed services that are not profitable, and that you can't outsource everything under the sun and expect the remaining pieces to support themselves. In this respect, I think that the Republicans are tragically shortsighted, though never quite as shortsighted as the "new" Democrats.
Dunno, I tend to feel that honest greed is better than greed masquerading as altruism.
In space, no one can hear you moo.