Anthrax To Kill Snail Mail

omnirealm writes "Steven Levy over at NBC expressed his opinion that the new anthrax thread in our snail-mail is going to be a major catalyst to a general switch to e-mail as the primary means of written communication."

Comments

you're more likely to die

[mj6798]

from an infected paper cut. Pardon me while I'm not worried. And until E-mail gets the same legal standing as snail mail (complete with legally recognized notarization, authentication, and proof of delivery) we can't replace snail mail.

Re:What is an "Anthrax thread"?

[omnirealm]

I meant to type "threat." It's this strange curse, I guess. No matter how hard I try, typo's always seem to slip through...

Mail beats Email

[maggard]

There a couple of serious impediments to abolishing mail.

1. Universal penetration. Everyone in the USA has a postal address. Park benches are legitimate delivery addresses (yes - tested in court.) Only a fraction of the population has email or will likely have such in the near future.
2. Universal transmission. I can send a postal letter around the world and assume that the recipient will be able to recieve it. From major world capitols to off-the-map slums postal service has a reasonably good tradition of getting through. Email again requires that the recipient haave the same or some alternative last-mile system - not at all typical.
3. There are no good address-lookup or general-delivery mechanisms for email. If I want to contact Somebody at BigCorp I can look up BigCorp's address and send a letter to Somebody there, it'll generally get manually routed properly. If I know the town Somebody lives in I can often simply look them up in a ubiquitious phonebook or online and assuming they're listed and have a sufficiently unique name I've got their address. There are some services that attempt to provide this for email but they're mostly useless.
4. There's a large body of law concerning the privacy of letters, the delivery of such, etc. This is NOT the case for email. Frankly I trust the folks of the USPS to transport my mail securely & reliably far more then I do the monkeys at my ISP and the servers between me & my email's destination.
5. While there are encryption and authenticaion mechanisms for email they're about useless as far as the general population or even most businesses are concerned. Postal mail has no authentication but it does generally get delivered to the right place securely.
6. Most postal addresses are good for both letters & package deliveries, neither of which is true for email.
7. Postal mail is free to recieve and only costs the sender some change. Email requires either a computer system and ISP or access to a public facility offering this.
8. Courts don't recognize email as a delivery mechanism and certianly not for material that must be signed for.

   Frankly with 1 case of transmission of anthrax by postal mail I think the whole topic is foolish and a sad attempt by a columnist to get some attention.

Forms of snail Mail that won't go away

[Picass0]

No matter how much you may think mail sent to you on dead trees is outdated, there are reasons the old fashoined mail is not going away for a good long time.

• Postal mail creates jobs
• packages - What's the point in all this e-commerce if nobody has anything delivered anymore?
• Utility Bills - Until some laws are changed you must be provided with an invoice for your purchase and written notification of money owed.
• Taxes - Like anything done by the government, this ones going to be done the old world way for a long time.
• Books and periodicals - Some people (myself included) prefer to read anything of great length on paper. Also there is a certain pride in owning a handsome book, admiring the cover as you put it away on a shelf, where you will never touch it again.
• registered mail - any sort of mail that requires a signature is coming to you the old fashioned way. I know, there's a million technical solutions that would make this work as digital, but your written signature is an important legal tool that people will continue to hit you over the head with forever.

If the day comes when the government says snail mail is going away, watch out. If you think Uncle Sam has opinions about your computer and the software you run now, wait until you see the regulations that will be imposed on email.

One thing that may happen as fallout is small business may get out of the private delivery business. The mail is now going to need to be x-rayed and electronically sniffed. Business such as a Mial Box Express or Joe's overnight delivery are not going to have money for the new array of equiptment that they will be told they must own.

The things that will work to reduce the amount of snail mail - Mail is about to become slower and less reliable. When a pathogen is discovered in the mail, any parcels that may have physically contacted it will need to be destroyed.

People are now uneasy to open a package or parcel they were not expecting. This will make it less likely for advertisements to continue to be sent via mail. Expect to see an increase in Spam, and a relaxation in laws that control it.

Re:Forms of snail Mail that won't go away

[Angst Badger]

Books and periodicals - Some people (myself included) prefer to read anything of great length on paper. Also there is a certain pride in owning a handsome book, admiring the cover as you put it away on a shelf, where you will never touch it again.

Levy's remarks about e-books replacing real books eliminated what little credibility he had failed to squander with the rest of the article. E-books deserved to be ranked with "Internet appliances" and communism as ideas that look dumb on paper (or e-paper) and even dumber in practice.

• Books are much cheaper than e-books. (When was the last time you had to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a machine to read a paper book?)
  
• Books are more convenient than e-books.
  
• Books are not harmed by electromagnetic fields or temperatures under 451 F.
  
• You can even get books wet without rendering them unreadable, though I wouldn't recommend it.
  
• Books don't require electricity or recharging.
  
• Books are readable from a wide range of angles.
  
• You can drop books. You might even drop them on purpose, just for effect.
  
• Books formats never become unusably obsolete. The default platform for book-reading has not changed since the human species evolved. Even obsolete formats, e.g. scrolls and clay tablets, are still readable with the latest hardware.
  
• Airport security will not ask you to boot your books at the gate, nor will the pilot ask you to turn off your books during takeoff and landing.
  
• Best of all, there's no digital rights management BS with respect to books, which means
  
  • You can check them out from libraries for free.
    
  • There is no license to agree to and no rights to surrender.
    
  • You can usually return them without a hassle.
    
  • No company will ever revoke your ability to read a book because they don't like the way you use it.
    
  • You can legally criticize books.
    
  • You can resell books because you actually own them after you pay for them.
    
  • You can loan books to friends without acquiring a site-license.
    

Much of the same applies to mail.

Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

A few points to note:

It's only the first documented case because everyone is suddenly afraid of it. It is believed that there have been many cases that were just not recognized because nobody would even think of anthrax as a cause for the symptoms.

Cutaneous antrax has an 80% survival rate with NO treatment. It's only when it's inhaled or consumed that it's nasty.

Also, you don't mention that anthrax is NOT contagious. You pretty much have to be a target to get it.

The USPS cannot die!

[mrBoB]

Keep in mind folks, the USPS is chartered in the United State Constitution. See Article 1, section 8, "The Congress shall have the power to: ... establish post offices and post roads." Check out usconstituion.net. Now I wouldn't be surprised if the USPS ends up having to purchase fancy devices to look for questionable substances being shipped in letters and packages. Of course any changes made to their business will impact our service. Most obvious being an increase in the price of stamps ;-) I don't think the Supreme Court would find an amendment putting the USPS to sleep being Constitutional. That would be like Congress passing an Amendment that the office of the President of the United States be removed... Just look on the bright side; the USPS is going to _HAVE_ to do _SOMETHING_ to deal with this threat. Hopefully in the near future you won't have to be concerned about being infected with Anthrax through the Postal service. Now ensuring your drinking water is safe is another story ;-) -Bob

This is happening....

[MasterOfDisaster]

Mostly in NY, but I know of several places that have told me and others that I know "Dont send us snail-mail. We wont get it. Hard to say exactly what will happen, but this isnt isolated.
I'm guessing the price of the stamp is going to go through the roof, however

Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway

[einhverfr]

As much as anything under the heading of "biological warfare" is scary, the idea of getting anthrax doesn't send me into a fit of panic.

Inhaled or ingested anthrax is not pretty or very treatable. However, if contracted through the skin, it is relatively easy to treat.

The thing is it is not very contagious. Therefore, it is not the "good weapon" that you speak of because the target area is so small. How many unsuccessful attempts to infect people with Anthrax were there that we don't know about? Probably a very large number.

However, it is not destruction or death but fear that these people want to provoke. Anthrax IS a good tool for that because it is a boogey-man.

Re:I'm sick of this anthrax bullshit.....

[dgroskind]

The fact of the matter is that biological and chemical weapons just aren't practical.

In fact, there has already been a successful biological attack on American soil. It was carried out in 1984 by a bunch of amateurs, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who poisoned over 700 people with botulism that they spread on salad bars in Oregon.

The 9/11 terrorists have shown themselves to be resourceful, if not practical, and ruthless enough to use biological weapons. One could have once argued, with equal logic, that hijacking airliners and crashing them into skyscrapers "was just not practical".

If news reports are to be believed, the U.S. mail has already proved to be viable way of spreading two different kinds of anthrax. The only constraint of using the mail is the thousands of dollars involved in postage for a mass mailing.

It's much cheaper, easier and kills a lot more people to just set off a bomb in some building.

On a cost per thousand basis, there's nothing cheaper than biological weapons, particularly if you use a contageous one like smallpox, as the article you cite suggests at the end. The writer of that article seems to think the fact that the terrorists themselves might be at risk is a deterent.

Although there may be some technological hurdles, the payoff both in terms of casualties and creating terror is unbeatable.

If people are complacent about the threat of biological terrorism, the terrorists have already overcome their biggest obstacle.

Testing Positive for Exposure..

[hacker]

Please be aware that testing positive to exposure to Anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) does not mean that you have Anthrax. Testing positive means that your body tests positive for the presence of antibodies that are used to fight this particular bacteria. It does not mean you have the spores on your skin (cutaneous), in your lungs (pulmonary), or in your gastrointestinal tract (GI).

There is one case of an Anthrax infection that has been reported so far. One case, and that person has died. That particular case involved a non-GMO (Generically Modificed Organism) version of the Anthrax bacterium. The other cases are a completely different variety of the same bacterium (cutaneous). The one in Florida may very well be a completely natural infection which occured. Yes, there has not been a single case reported in the U.S. of an Anthrax infection in 25 years, and within one week, there are over 7 cases on the books, so you can guarantee that it's intentional, but do not continue to spread the FUD without some knowledge behind you.

The others may not be, but nobody else has been infected with Anthrax to date except this Florida case. The other people you are hearing about have only tested positive for the antibodies which the body produces naturally to fight off the presence of Anthrax.

There's too much FUD in the news right now.

Lastly... there's an interesting quote from al-Queda spokesman Suleiman Abu-Gheith today saying:

"...Muslims in the United States and Great Britain should not fly or live in high buildings..."

This is far from over. Please feel free to print and post this mail warning in high-traffic mail areas within your business if you believe you may be in one of the "Icons Of America" that these letters seem to be hitting.

Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway

[xmedar]

Thats why the British Government tested on an island of Scotland during WWII, see here

From the article -

Despite attempts to disinfect Gruinard Island, the spores left by the experiments kept the island in quarantine for 48 years.

The final WW II report on the Gruinard Island tests suggested anthrax could be used to render cities uninhabitable "for generations".

Re:What is an "Anthrax thread"?

[budgenator]

I was an NBC, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Defense NCO before I retired so here goes. Note I don't know your actual needs, threat levels ect. so your milage may vary, these are My own opinions and don't reflect any org's official policies, this is not intended to be authorative info so do your own research ect.

• Spores are used because they are more hardy than active bacteria, basicaly spores are desicated bacteria. That's why 70 percent alcohol is used to disinfect stronger alcohol would dryout the bacteria and actualy make them harder to kill (anthrax spores remain viable for as long as a half century)
• To get the spores, you need to grow the bacteria, use generaly use agar, beef brooth or something simmilar (I'm not sure what you would use for anthrax, but it can't be that hard to find out)
• once you get the bacteria grown, you dry out the culture media, maybe freeze-dry or something now you have a very concetrated source of bacteria spores. typicaly this is powdered and has a color similar to the culture media a brown, tan or dried blood color depending on the original culture media
• dilute the concentrated spore powder with a carrier like talcum powder to an appropriate working strength
• dust the carrier with the powder and deliver

To defend against this:

1. publish a policy that all mail to your organisation maybe open in the mail room, set up so a random number of pieces are checked, and anything suspicious.
2. open the mail in an isolation enviroment, look at OSHA's Bloodborne pathogens standard for guidelines on doing this
3. watch-out for powders, things that are fluorecent, maybe consider spraying with luminal to detect blood, unexpected arivials or thing that are out of character; why would you get porno pics in your biz mail ect.
4. Still unsure consider using ethylene-oxide sterilization of the mail

Actualy considering the threat from natural stuff like hepitius-B Aids, and even cold-flu viruses, these proceedures may actualy save lost time expenses from natural illnesses too.

Personaly I consider that mail to people in your distribution channel to be at higher risk than other employees, because they handle thing that are in turn redistributed to others. Given the long incubation times between contact and symptoms for most things, a problem here would spread long before any one would know there is a problem. Its not that hard to get your janitor to put disinfectants in his cleaning solutions, use vacuumes with HEPA filtrations ect.

I'm a dental technician now and we have to recieve bio-hazardous material routinely and follow the osha standards at work, the result is I always catch my cold from the wife and kids first! this stuff works. If your org expereinces a lot of absenteeism due to illness, infection control training may actualy be profitable due to reduced absentee expenses

Re:Solution: irradiate all snail-mail

[The Fun Guy]

This is madness. I irradiate bacteria for a living... I couldn't find any data for anthrax spores, but for irradiation of Clostridium botulinum spores, the D-10 value (dose needed to kill 90% of population) is something like 2 kiloGray. The FDA requires 5 logs for a food treatment, and if you're talking about sterility, that's 9 logs, or 18 kGy, a dose transit time of hours, even in the most powerful irradiators available.

Paper is essentially wood pulp, and a stack of mail has a density about twice that of water, 2g/cc. How many thousands, millions of kilograms would need to be irradiated every week, and to get the right max/min ratios to assure kill, the doses would have to be up in the 40-50 range.

I wish I had moderator status to mod this suggestion as "-1 Knucklehead".