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U.S. Postal Service To Develop 'Intelligent Mail'
securitas writes "The President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service's final report (PDF) has recommended that the USPS and the Department of Homeland Security develop sender identification technology for all U.S. mail. The commission said Intelligent Mail could bolster security and let consumers track the progress of all mail they send, which has been a top consumer demand in surveys. The report released July 31 reads, "Each piece of Intelligent Mail will carry a
unique, machine-readable barcode (or other indicia) that will
identify, at a minimum, the sender, the destination, and the class
of mail... Intelligent Mail will allow the
real-time tracking of individual mail pieces." Privacy advocates like the EFF and Center for Democracy & Technology are understandably concerned. The Final Recommendations are available in PDF format. More at Direct Marketers News and pro-privacy/civil liberties magazine Counterpunch."
Jamie adds: This confuses me, because I read a news story in late 2001 which matter-of-factly explained that authorities would be contacting recipients of letters which went through a particular post office around the same time as an anthrax envelope. The implication, which I haven't seen any discussion of then or since, is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that?
Update:
mec does.
So, I guess RFIDs will be embedded into paper at some point in the future I would think.
Life is not for the lazy.
intelligent Post Office Employees...
"This confuses me, because I read a news story in late 2001 which matter-of-factly explained that authorities would be contacting recipients of letters which went through a particular post office around the same time as an anthrax envelope. The implication, which I haven't seen any discussion of then or since, is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that?"
how would this be possible? I assumed they were expecting recipients to get in touch with them.
Not sure how you are going to identify the sender AND have postboxes where anyone can post a letter.
Omnis amans amens
The stamp is now $2.47
Make sure to go out and buy special $2.10 stamps to use with your existing $0.37 ones.
char *mySig;
This IS a joke? Right?
The implication, which I haven't seen any discussion of then or since, is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that?
Having worked at a post office clerk in a former life, I would say you must be kidding. I personally handled 25,000 letters a day, and I wasn't in automation, which does 50,000 letters per station per hour. You just don't have time to record any sort of information about first class mail.
What they probably meant is that they would check on letters with return addresses or was sent registered or certified. Registered, Certified and Insured mail DID get that sort of record keeping, for obvious reasons.
And why are they doing it now? This isn't exactly new--shipping companies have been doing this for years, it helps optimize their routing and it's a cheap way of showing the customer that "something is happening" after that package disappears on the truck...
Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?"
A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs."
I didn't realize that I have a right to send anonymous mail. The practical aspects are the killer for me. If I can't just drop a letter in a mail bin then the US postal service is too restrictive for me to use. I'm not going to go to the post office, stand in line, get ID'ed just to send a letter. I can pay my bills on-line. This seems like a great way to put the USPS out of business.
Now you will at least be able to know that your priority parcel has been stuck in Nowhere, IA for the last four days.
Personally, I don't see the problem here. UPS, FedEx, etc. have been doing this for years. And honestly, the Postal Service needs to come up with something to stay alive... they're already talking about possibly eliminating Saturday delivery services due to low funds. If this helps funds keep rolling into the Postal Service, and makes people happy as it *is* one of the most requested services by consumers, the tax payers.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
The more tracking information we allow to be used, the technological conveniences we embrace, the greater the need to keep watch to make sure they are not abused. Technology is a good thing, but like fire, it must be carefully watched.
If we turn lazy and complacent, the price will be our own freedom.
I don't think it's very likely that right now every peice of mail is tracked. Each post office, however would know who itdelivers mail to and it wouldn't be very difficult to notify those individuals of the anthrax. On the other had if someone passing through mailed a letter, that passed through the post office in question, back home, I doubt that either of them would have been notified of the anthrax threat.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Really, if we can't keep Social Security organized, don't know who has entered the country, and allow thousands of people escape paying taxes every year, are we going to be able to keep track of every single person living in the country via the Post Office?
I don't know -- I can't see this being very useful. If I want to track a mailing, I'll use Fed Ex. I just don't see the "consumer demand" for this, and I can't see it being at all useful for making our mail "safer".
now I can know where my packages go when they are delivered to the wrong person from now on.
I am an unfortunate victim of Canada Post...
.47c mail, there is no tracking, but it will eventually get there.
When sending standard
As far as registered mail goes (not much more expensive, depending on the destination, size, and weight) the package is tracked with an id number, which you can check on their website.
This service already exists, imho.
Is the USPS proposing to make registered mail mandatory? This will increase costs, and slow delivery greatly.
On the one hand - this is not a bad idea. Who's ever sent a package for an eBay sale or to your relatives or a business - and had to make sure it was there?
So no - I don't think this is a bad idea.
As long as it is voluntary. Nobody should be forced to identify themselves in the mail. I still believe that a working democracy absolutely depends on anominity - the ability to state your opinions without worrying about government/oppressive majority/violent minority acting against you.
Would I use it? Eh - depends on what I was sending. But I believe that it is important to keep the ability to allow anonymous mailing available, and make this tracking system on "opt-in" only - not a "mandatory for all" solution.
But then again - that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
among other things, the existence of 13 unions in my dads location in tulsa, ok, plays a major roll. dont get me wrong, his has helped him out a lot, im jsut saying that that kind of situation will be prone to conflict, inefficiencies, and slothful reactions to situations.
management is also a serious problem. he was telling me that when a circumstance that requires a manager comes up, they all hide. when its over, they come out. ridiculous.
i sell illegal drugs
Most likely what has happened is that the process of getting in touch with recipients pulled a fat, gigantic 0 in terms of useful information. That would explain why they want to roll the technology out, and why you haven't heard much, if anything, about it since.
What would potential Anthrax recipients know anyway? Particularly if the attack was random? They need to keep track of who sends the mail. If the technology mentioned at minimum keeps track of senders, receivers, and class, it should be harder at least to anonymously send mail.
And if the Unabomber has taught us anything, its that its easier to keep track of recipients than senders. :)
A possible way:
Each letter is scanned to determine the destination, perhaps this scan includes the return address which is assumed to be the sender.
Perhaps they keep these scans, or keep the ocr-read information?
One problem is with letters without a return address, this appears to solve this.
Unfortunately it means false id would get around it, or at the very least the elimination of mail boxes as there would be no security to screen the sender.
If they developed the intelligent mail carrier, and put it to work in my neighborhood. If there's a car parked within 15 feet of my mailbox, I don't get mail that day (God forbid it would have to get out of the vehicle) and the next day I get a pissy note from the "Postmaster" explaining that the mailbox can't be blocked.
Do you have ESP?
Track Packages Here.
Of corse, it costs extra. But why force everyone to pay for it?
Want to know why? The additional cost of printing the tracking codes or even putting RFID's will make the USPS charge extra for it. Unless the cost is raised beyond what it is now. USPS is kind of independent. The only reason I would like intelligent mail is it would give us ammo when the credit card companies screw up and cashes our check, but does not apply it to our account. We could bring the tracking info and prove they recieved it. I mean, honestly, if you do mail the "right" way now, it's already out in the open (return address). Also, people who are concerned about privacy should not send stuff through USPS NOW as it is. Keep in mind even if its a federal offense to open mail not addressed to you, what is to stop someone from doing just that? Just the glue on the paper.
Gorkman
So what about just using GPG sigs? ...
Oh of course... cryptography is bad and used by terrorists.
This confuses me, because I read a news story in late 2001 which matter-of-factly explained that authorities would be contacting recipients of letters which went through a particular post office around the same time as an anthrax envelope. The implication, which I haven't seen any discussion of then or since, is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that?
I don't know about that story regarding contacting people who's mail went alongside of the Anthrax letters, but I know a smidgeon about this new mail routing system. Basically, it's the same thing as the UPS system of scanning every package at each "waypoint" during it's journey. So in essence, the mailman would have a handheld scanner to scan every mail that went to your house as he dropped them off in your mailbox. The major distribution centers would have auto-scanners, etc.
While I understand the privacy concerns, and agree that their should be some really REALLY steep fees for the bulk-mailer type companies that send out junk mail, some industries (the one I work in included) would really benefit from this, because verification of bills, payments, and other important mail arriving or not arriving at certain destinations along the way would improve customer service abilities and customer confidence (or lack thereof) in the USPS system and in those businesses utilizing the new bar code scanning.
I just did a rather in depth analysis about this for my company, and it would be pretty useful to us and our customers (actual customers, not "potential" customers - we don't spam mailboxes) if the USPS actually implemented this thing.
Now why the hell doesn't the post office offer a way to send a letter/package to a specific person/business rather than an address? I'm sick of 1) losing half my mail every time I move 2) having to tell strangers my residence 3) having addresses screwed up because of misunderstood words. If the postal service would just offer the equivalent of a phone number or email address, which is routed via a database and can therefore travel with me, it would solve all those problems. Combine it with a precise geopositioning code system like this to allow mail to be sent to any given location in the world and we'd be set.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
The Drumhead
Once again, we reach one of the same questions that must be addressed almost each and every time. It's critical that we balance security issues with privacy issues, but this time around, security far outways privacy concerns. It's Imperative that we have a highly secure Postal Network, because things like the anthrax scare should really never happen.
.. a cent. So, I wouldn't worry... I'd be thrilled the homeland security departement is doing something that might actually work!
Think of this like a normal e-mail network. Large portions of mail that is sent and recieved has recorded logs, and things of that nature. When you recieve spam from blah.blah.die.com you can still vaguely trace it back through the header information. Snail mail deserves that kind of security too.
My rights as a citizen will NOT be trampled by something like this. Privacy groups that cry about this kind of thing have made an eggregious error. I value my security as much as I value my privacy, and since my privacy is hardly going to be trampled by some IDs on snail mail, I'm not worried. Keep in mind 670 million pieces of mail are shipped to 138 million addresses around the nation every DAY, so I hardly think my 1 piece of mail will be torn apart by the evil government.
If you really want to worry about this, just think about the increase in postage required to handle the logging. That might go up
My initial reaction to reading this was, 'so what?' After all, UPS and FedEx do this to their packages, and it's particularly useful for online purchases.
...
From page xvii of the report:
"Intelligent Mail could allow the Postal Service to permit mail-tracking and other in-demand services via a robust website..."
So it seems like they're going the UPS/FedEx route, and making it a useful tool for users of the postal system.
However, later on in the report (pp. 147-148):
"Intelligent Mail's Security Applications Should be Aggressively Pursued"
"Requiring all mail to identify its sender would likely have a negligible impact on most users...[they] would consider such a requirement a relatively modest concession to ensure their safety"
They're using the same flawed argument that they used in many post-9/11 dealings, including the Patriot Act. Great.
A lot of it depends on how they develop it. For example, the UPS system is good - you can track where a package is in the system and estimate when it will arrive. The USPS should do something similar.
The potential problems are:
1) You don't know your tracking number unless you send it from the post office.
2) The government can now automate "who sent letters to x, ever?"
I don't see this really helping in terrorism prevention though, the post office already stamps the letter with the first office it goes through, and the routing is static between offices...
"If we turn lazy and complacent, the price will be our own freedom"
If you live in the US, I think the bulk of that price has already been extracted. Now it is just a matter of tightening the screws, and cleaning up loose ends.
Take a step back and look at everything that has happened over the past few years. From rigged elections to people being held without charges being laid to the Patriot Act just to name a few.
Fortunately the freedom to leave is still available, but I think that is because it is too expensive to build a wall that long.
Of course, when they say "consumer demand" they're really talking about businesses' demands, but calling it "consumer demand" makes it look less like a privacy issue.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I was writing barcode and wireless apps at DRI in Austin 3 years ago using RFID labels on boxes. They're fairly cheap, and easy to use.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
And you can get it now!
Express mail rates
You're just shifting around the information in the database. The same problems are there and will always be there, you're just making it more expensive for the post office to operate by doing unnecessary work.
Let's look at a certain detail and some historical fact:
The information meant to be encoded isn't anything that is not already available on the front of the envelope.
The USPS has a history of telling the government to go fuck itself when the government says "we want to do <some privacy violating activity>". For example, the Postal Service said "no" strongly to the government's request to inspect packages and have the USPS engage in TIPS. (Anyone care to fill int the details here?)
Yes, there's plenty of ways this system could be abused. But when it comes to the USPS, I would say not likely.
Join Tor today!
The biggest problem with mail arriving late lies with people unable to write, unable to address, and unable to even stamp mailpieces properly.
How the badly addressed mail process works in short:
Mail is brought to the General Mail Facility, where it is run through machines that attempt to read the addresses. The software isn't perfect, quite a few aren't readable to it. The digital image is sent to various Remote Encoding Sites in which people (like me) try to decipher the addresses and input them properly. The information is sent back to the GMF, barcode is printed on, and the piece goes its way. If we cannot decipher it, the image gets rejected, and the mailpiece goes to manual sorting.
Why it takes so long sometimes
A tremendous amount of people do not know how to address. They do not include directionals. They do not include street suffixes. Transposition of zip codes, or downright incorrect ones in contrast to the city destination. If you want your mail to get somewhere fast, place a Zip+4 and make sure it is correct. That is the first number we look at.
Directionals and suffixes are important. An especially frustrating case is the Kansas City metro area. Where there can be a 31st Street, Place, Avenue, Road, Circle, Court, Terrace. On top of that, North/South/East/West.
Abbreviation of streets and cities is another frustrating issue. I work in Wichita, KS. We receive images from facilities in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and New York. Some street in Minneapolis with a long name that is routinely abbreviated by residents is foreign to those 800 miles away. Please write the street in full.
Zip Codes. These are very important. The computers read these first. We read these first. An irritating tendancy for people in the northeast is to drop off the 0 in their 5 digit zips. This is especially true in Connecticut. Ever wonder why sometimes it really takes 7-9 days for something to go across town? Because its getting sent to Kansas City and run through the system before it gets straightened out and sent back.
Lastly, bad handwriting. Try to be careful about 5 and S, Zero and O, and 9 and 4.
The local hubs for post offices (aip codes that end in "01") usually have handwriting recognition units to recognize zip codes so it can automatically be routed to the correct waiting bin. This job used to be done with the 'Mark-One Eyball' and a ten key. So, even in the last 20 years there has been some form of tracking, even if it has only been through the post offices the item travelled through.
Didja know that USPS uses Linux systems to do OCR on address information? It's the only serious use of Linux at USPS, mostly due to anal government service employees who barely managed to finish high school and who can't be fired due to union seniority.
Actually, USPS has been looking into a mail tracking system since just after 9/11 (I worked there on and after 9/11 for a while) and this report will just help them get funding for that system.
Really, this isn't a terribly bad thing. If you think about it, it just verifies what post office the mail came from. The information about the sender is going to be the information that the sender presented at the post office of origin for verification.... to a non-trained government employee who probably could make more cash working at mcdonalds (no bull, I have a great deal of respect for those letter carriers... out in all weather, and most get paid about $20k a year).
I also can't imagine that there will be human checks of the sender information in a lot of cases, since there are drop boxes all over the place for mail, and there's no way they can either remove those or staff them with people.
Yet another easily subvertable federal system meant to make us safer, but really just another way to spend gobs of your tax dollars on things we need less than more prisons and better schools.
Erik
Like this surprises anyone? The goal here is to remove ALL aspects of privacy from the private citizen. The government wants total, absolute tracking ability for EVERYTHING you do.... in real time...
As far as UPS/etc... I'm sure their records can be subpoenaed via the patriot act anyway.. so its not much different, just an extension..
"for my protection my ass"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
UPS, FedEx, and a few other delivery companies already do this. And its really nice. When I don't get a package on time, I just check the ID number on the website, and they tell me where it is, how long it stayed there, and so on. It is VERY convenient and saves a lot of worry.
This is just expanding an already good system to the regular mail. If it can be done reasonably fast and efficiently, I see no problems here.
The benefits are good and I'm not worried that any government thugs will be obscesssed with watching where my mail goes. (they could already do that anyway... each envelope I send has an address on it.)
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
What is this justifiable privacy concern nonsense? YOU are contacting ME. Sorry, you don't get to do that anonymously, no matter how much you whine about your so-called right to privacy. You want to stay anonymous, don't bother me. You want to talk to me, then you tell me who you are.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Package tracking doesn't require the type of sender identification which is being proposed.
You can just attach a unique serial number to each package, then give a receipt with the number to the sender. The sender may then track the package using that serial number.
The "convenience" aspect serves the purpose, in this case, of misleading people into thinking their names and addresses are required to provide letter tracking service. The sender information, because irrelevant for this service, is needed only for other purposes. It is up to you to guess what those purposes are.
Citizens for Surveillance
I've been using the USPS for ten years (since I left home basically) and I've never had an issue with its service outside of a torn cover on a Car and Driver. I've never had any of my outgoing mail lost, and everything I was supposed to receive, I did. I do all eBay shipping with them now, especially since UPS is not always careful with the fragile stuff. The postal service is more reliable per use in my personal experience than the D.C. Metro system is these days.
Just a shout out to the USPS, especially the carriers...
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Boggle.
I am waiting for the moment when it occurs to these people that it's too easy to use the USA road system for criminal or terrorist activity. Or just sidewalks, for that matter.
Thank god that they don't have any idea that computer networks exist. If they are that apprehensive about a postal system, just imagine the hysterics they'll have when they discover the Internet...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
You must be new here.
you can pay extra for the paperwork/service that gives the ability to track the package/envelope/whatever. the way i understand this article, the usps would require this on ALL letters, postcards, packages, everything. i believe that to be the difference.
i sell illegal drugs
Can we say this new technology Pushes the Envelop?
That sucks. And here I was wanting sunday delivery.
IMHO, I'd rather they mix it up - maybe a "no wednesday" system so I wouldn't go 2 days without getting mail. But then again, I Am Not A Business.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
If each piece of mail had a GUID, you could call up its tracking from their web site without them having to know who was tracking it, or why. For someone to trace your mail, they would have to know the GUID for that envelope, which does not have your ID in it. According to the USPS web site: "In fiscal year 2002, the USPS sorted and delivered nearly 203 billion pieces of mail, about 670 million pieces a day." A 38-bit GUID gives you 256G GUIDs, enough to tag every piece for a year. Make it a little bigger, say 64-bits and you have plenty of room for all US Mail. Make it 128-bit and you can tag every piece of mail on the planet.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
The main draw for using USPS over UPS or Fedex is cost. Its a great way to send something for 37 cents, and for even less if its bulk or 4th class or whatever. Most packages don't need to be tracked. Sears has no use for tracking every catalog they send out, and if I need to know something is getting somewhere I'll used registered mail / UPS / Fedex. It would be nice if all the return envelopes that come with bills were equiped with this though. That way I could track the payment going back. Also it could potentialy cut back on lost mail, or at least create more accountability for it
Smart mail? Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
>
The vast majority of Americans fall between the two extremes by which you classify 300 million people. Most Americans are like every other *person* in the world.. thinking feeling and just trying to get through life happy.
When you stereotype Americans you are as bad as Americans who stereotype muslims, blacks, or any other grouping of people.
Let's all be part of the solution rather than part of the problem!
Let me get this straight... people love package tracking when sending via UPS or FedEx, but when a USPS item is tracked, it's a violation of privacy? FedEx and UPS both show me each distribution center my package hits along the way.
Someone care to cluebat me?
I work for an organization that sends information to over 20k low income families all over the US. One of our biggest complaints here in the office is a family claiming stuff must have been "lost in the mail", so we end up spending thousands of dollars just resending the same information to them throughout the year. This system would help us keep our records up to date and cut our overall mailing costs. Plus, I suspect it might keep people in our program longer and reduce our attrition rates. I'd be curious to find out how many families we lose based solely on the fact that we don't have the right address for them or some Mail center in Arizona or Alaska seems to always 'lose' our mail.
-n-
The system would be such that the post office is automatically tracking the routing of mail. Cost; nothing they wouldn't have to spend anyway. But if you allow people to check on it via a website that will cost money to maintain the system. Solution: a special stamp that when affixed to the mail allows the sender and recipient to track the mail. This could be either an additional stamp or a combined stamp. It charges at the source and gives UPS (the most vile service to ever be inflicted on residential addresses ever) and FedEx some competition.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
would be if they would develop intelligent employees...
or sane ones...
but that reminds me of an acquaintance from a few years ago. he worked for the USPS in one of their mail rooms. his job was to check that the zip codes on their letters that whizzed by him on a belt had the right zip code.
that's right - all day long, one letter after another.
kinda explains why people do stuff like this
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
But seriously, this would be a great optional thing, and a much cheaper solution than fedexing something if you want to track it. But it would never be optional if implemented, because its there to fight terrorism....so EVERYBODY needs to be watched, because ya never know who might be a terrorist!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I was kiddin in my original reply. :-)
Though honestly anyone who watches american media may be hard pressed to know otherwise.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Republican? Wait, aren't you suppose to be for smaller government?
---
Proud (but confused) American
What do you mean by this? anonymous emailing through your ISP? Surely you jest. You can trace headers to find out where the email came from. You can send a subpoena to the ISP like the RIAA to get name-address from an IP number. ISP's hold on to your email "forever" even if you "delete" it.
Maybe you're thinking of encrypting an email. Well sure, you could, but you can just as easily encrypt a message in the snail mail you send.
SO I'm a little confused what you mean by anonymous communication through one's ISP!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Let's just hope "Smart Mail" is smarter than "Smart Bombs." I'm sure terrorists don't want young children receiving their mail.
I use to work for a company that sent tens of thousands of collection notices (outsourced). There was a postal program that they were wanting to beta for tracking mail. It wasnt real time, there was like a day delay, and I think the last point it could track was the destination P.O. but it did track the mail they sent out. The letter itself just had a little bit of extra coding in the same area they use for address change notification. (If you ever look at your mail from a large volume mailer, you'll see a #XYZXYZZ and sometimes a code after it. Those first 7 characters is the mailer, who will receive back the change of address information. The characters following is an optional user defined account number. That service is called ACS (Address Change Service). Its not much of leap after that to tag it for tracking. Anyway, the USPS does use optical scanners that can read and OCR the mail provided its automation ready. Not the greatest OCR because it can have issues with fonts. It wouldnt be a huge jump to be able to track the mail. What slows things down considerably is handwritten addresses which end up being psuedo-hand routed. If you want to avoid any tracking, my recommendation is go handwriting, I cant imagine them using the resources to retype and label every single piece of mail that doesnt hit automation standards.
anyone who took offense to that parent post needs to chill out - it was just a joke! I have 2 relatives myself that work at the PO, and I don't think for moment that they're unintelligent...
c'mon, just read it, laugh, maybe think of "Cliff" from Cheers, and move on. Jeesh.
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UPS, in particular, has the 2-D barcode, and I don't have any idea what's encoded in that. Both UPS and Fedex certainly have "Tracking numbers" which is an effectively unique identifier in their databases for everything to do with a particular package, even if all that information isn't encoded on the package itself.
As a pay-as-you-go feature for consumers who want it, such technology may be valuable.
What about those of us who want to send Christmas cards cheap?
I suggest a new class, "Junk", that automatically gets shredded en route. That'll save me the time of having to shred each and every "preapproved" credit card and loan application I get. Who uses preapproved loans, anyway, except debt junkies?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
to send a letter to a friend?
Or to subscribe to a "subversive" newsletter?
Everything going to your house will be machine readable which
means that machines WILL read who gets what and store that information in a database.
Admiral P0intyhead is having wet dreams over this. TIA dead?? Think again.
They just keep throwing all these schemes out, like trolling.
They see who squeals, how many squeal and how loud.
After awhile people get numb to all the numbskull schemes and
they just begin to ignore them. That's when they quietly implement them..
Watch for some doubleplusgood input on this idea from Professor Warwick..
225 Shoreway Road
San Carlos, California 94070
Attn: Mixed paper recycling.
Some more link whoring ...
Postal Theory: Mail Sorter Acted as Mill for Anthrax
Read down towards the bottom:
Potentially telltale mail was identified using masses of computer data recorded as each letter entering the highly automated sorting centers is scanned for an address, given identifying bar codes recording its time and place of posting, and sent on its way.
The data include digital images of almost every hand-addressed envelope, which optical scanners cannot easily read, postal officials said.
The big question is: will the post office stop delivering mail that doesn't have a valid return address?
In the time of the Unabomer, the PO stopped delivering mail that weighs over one pound and came from a collection box. Mail that weighs over one pound has to be brought in person to a post office.
I think I'd be willing to give up the ability to send anonymous mail (I think the last time I did that was... well never) to be able to track my messages.
With UPS and Fedex packages I can check and see where packages are, what day they are to arrive, even when they're on the truck for delivery. I can call UPS and Fedex and alert them to errors, have them hold packages, etc. USPS mail... you order something, they ship, and you pretty much have to guess when the heck it's going to show up. You will have no idea if something is wrong, and the typical response from USPS office is "please wait 4 weeks for an item to arrive before alerting us to an undelivered package." That's lame. We need tracking.
...send threatening hate-mail anonymously, what's the use?
Shut up, you xenophobic piece of shit.
Probably not. The plan there was probably to send out a blanket mailing to every customer on every route serviced by that post office. It's fairly simply to do, mass marketers and local governments do this all the time.
Sender authentication will be difficult at best, and will (depending on actual rules/laws) be resisted by direct marketers who #1: make up the vast majority of mail sent through the postal system, #2 rely on low cost, post office subsidised rates to stay in business.
There's also the entire problem of people mailing things while on vacatiln, or from other countries where there will need to be a fail-safe delivery method. That or the post office will have to find a way to drop the rules and image of getting every piece to its destination no matter what.
Most larger parcel transporters (FedEx, UPS, Airborne) have sender validity and tracking on all their packages already, they have for years, so I have a hard time thinking that this will be considered a major provacy issue by any court in the land. But this does require a fundamental change of rules and laws. Right now there is no requirement that you place a return address on an envelope. I don't, and haven't for 15 years. I've had a few pieces lost, sure, but then I think everyone has. Mostly I think from letter carrier mistakes of putting the piece in the wrong sorting/mail box and the erroneous recipient not forwarding the mail to the correct address.
For business that uses large mail sorting/metering machinery for non-bulk mail purposes this leaves some questions also. Will simply knowing that a letter came from within a company be a valid sender identity, or will companies be required to track who sends out a piece internally. I, and most people I know, who have worked at a large company have placed personal mailing pieced in the general outgoing mail without postage. Many companies allow this as long as it is not abused, it's considered a fringe benifit. Would that act now be illigal or prohibited?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
P.S. I work for the company that makes some of the USPS mail sorting equipment like TMS, CSBCS, DBCS, etc..
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
It's the ML-OCR systems, deployed at the bulk mail centers, that use Linux. There was an article online about it a while back, and I ran into it while I worked there a bit. You're correct in that the information isn't stored, just translated to machine format for help routing the mail.
Well with the advent of RF Tagging in bulk, why is it that the USPS hasn't considered simply putting a 10c RF tag into a stamp, and give it a serial number, and you can track it by simply pulsing an entire basket/box/crate of mail. I think that the move from bar-code sorting to rf tag sorting will be forthcoming soon... it would simply be that when the address is read, the rf tag is pulsed and the data is assigned to that rfid. Then your users can track their mail a'la fedex as it moves through the USPS system, and the parcels/letters/etc can be sorted by the crateload instead of singly by the barcode readers.
;-)
The funny thing is that this would be easily applicable to fedex as well. Barcodes are great, but rf tagging could allow for the active tracking of every parcel on company premises as well as in vehicles. Just set up your scanning systems to scan vehicles as they leave the yard and you'll get an accurate list of what packages went out; etc.
Come on FedEx, hire me and let me deploy this for you
-cheezus_es_lard
so if I buy a new graph card I get a new barcode? that doesn't seem right... the barcode should identify a person, not a machine
Sounds first as a good idea. But given the amount of handling and the sheer volume of mail this is absolutely without any merit.
It is academic as voting on the law of gravity.
The only purpose it serves is to raise the rates and make life just a bit more unbearable
Safety begins and ends with all of us using common sense and taking an interest in the community around us.
This sounds great.
I live in apartment 35-105, and my friends live in 36-105 and 33-105. I get their mail constantly. If the mail could simply be addressed to the person it would get to the right place! (I hope).
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I was at UPS the other day and they have this new computer system you have to sign up with. One of the items was email address so I was reading the privacy policy. Manager is hovering over my shoulder, suspiciously watching. She said:
"How did you get to that screen?"
I explained to her about the link to the policy on their signup screen and explained spam and junkmail to her. She replied:
"Why are you reading our privacy policy?"
When somebody is this out of touch with current events, how do you go about bridging the knowledge gap? I hesitated for a moment: Should I give her a summary of computers and the internet first? Then move on to email, and a short history of corporate ethics in regards to personal information? And then tie it all together with how companies must present privacy policies so that consumers like me will know what's happening to information that's requested at terminals like this one? But she's angry. She doesn't want to hear all that. Fuck it. I just took my package somewhere else.
Ignorant drones like this are in charge of a great deal of valuable information about people. They could give a fuck about you or me or how their mismanagement of our information could do damage in our lives. So I choose to avoid these careless, intrusive, and irresponsible companies whenever I can. If you're wise, you'll the same.
In some ways people like you are like that lady I ran into at UPS. How can you avoid incorporating events like TIA, MATRIX, SPAM, CARNIVORE, ID THEFT, CREDIT CARD FRAUD, ECHELON, etc, into you worldview? These are all things that are happening in reality. And since we're part of reality, those events apply to all of us.
Or do you insulate youself from reality with the stunted moral/ethical perspective of:
"If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about?"
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about?"
Those are both selfish perspectivces. Not selfish out of malice but selfish because there is no other perspective available. Many human beings reach their arc of intellectual development with limited abilities to percieve the world from from places other than the explicitly personal level. Children, running around in adult bodies.
And this doesn't seem like such a big deal until you stop and consider how children treat each other.
People on Slashdot were so quick to bring up Cliff Clavin, but nobody seems to remember that other famous USPS employee, Newmann from Seinfeld. In the last season, (I believe it was the "Backwards" episode) Newmann revealed to a supermodel the secret that Zip Codes were meaningless... :)
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Hey I don't watch Xena!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I watched some crazy mailman ballin down the street the other day, mail just flying out of his jeep doing burnouts and stuff. It was hilarious, but I was like, man if only they had GPS tracking on that they could have a chance of retrieving the actual mail from whatever gutter that crap ended up in.
Better schools, yes (and there's another horribly underpaid position which doesn't get nearly the respect it deserves). But more prisons? The United States has a higher percentage of its population in prisons than any other nation. I'd much rather examine the reasons for that than keep building prisons until everyone lives in them.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
I've sent dozens of fedex packages by going to the fedex office, filling in the carbonless form, and paying the shipping charge in cash. I always used my real name and address for the return address (had no reason to do otherwise), but have never been asked for any kind of ID. I could have written just about anything for a return address and sent it. So, no authentication.
I don't know how UPS does it because I haven't used UPS that way. I've shipped UPS packages from Mailbox Etc. type stores though, and again have never been asked for ID.
If I want tracking, I'll go to UPS or Fedex. If I want CHEAP I go to the USPS. If the USPS does this tracking bit, mail will get more expensive.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Isn't this is what anonymous remailers are for?
My cousin's company invented the UPS tracking system and sold it to UPS. Maybe, if the USPostal service buys in, the royalty might trickle over to family members (maybe me) (He He).
put a unique barcode on every stamp and have the gov't put another barcode containing info about the sending address. Then just give the mail carrier a scanner, have them pick up the mail at your front door and scan both barcodes.
I guess this would be hard with apartment buildings, but it would still provide USPS with relevant information about origination address, and it would be up to the customer to record the barcode on the stamp.
Of course there is nothing other than federal law stopping a random stranger to drop a outgoing letter in your mail box.
...in the last ten years and none of them have failed to reach their destination. Where are you getting your information?
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
They should standardize on some bar code system that can be implemented by many parties. There is software to print the address both in human and machine readable form, but I think it is only closed source. The USPS could even offer a lower rate to people who would do the work of encoding the address for them.
Just my $.02
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Interesting post, thanks.
Very funny! Bravo!
Back when I was working for the post office, it was policy where we where to not allow messages without return addresses, we handed them off to our postmaster and they checked them with the postal police (yes there really are post office police, you should have seen the videos they showed on stealing mail lol. ) to make sure they where ok to be sent. especially packages, course it might be just the general area (I worked in NJ)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I would just as soon have intelligent mail carriers as intelligent mail. The genius who works our route can't get the mail into the right mail box even after he's written the address on the inside of the mailbox door.
Due to the sudden decrease in the use of the US Postal Service, and due to the increase in operating costs brought about by the new mail tracking system, a tax on internet mail will be imposed to fund both activities. The bill is being drafted to protect our national security.
Aren't there enough of those on Slashdot?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
The information about the sender is going to be the information that the sender presented at the post office of origin for verification.... to a non-trained government employee who probably could make more cash working at mcdonalds (no bull, I have a great deal of respect for those letter carriers... out in all weather, and most get paid about $20k a year).
That's just fantastic. So now we have to commit what will probably be a federal felony in order to send anonymous mail, while the real criminals already committing felonies will have an easy way to get around the law without getting caught.
In other words, we'll be getting less freedom without even getting the extra security which we are being promised. Sounds like a horrible idea.
One assumes that eventually they will have "smart" post boxes that will snap a digital photo of you or require some sort of biometric scan (fingerprint/iris) when you deposit a letter. And of course the biometric database of the whole population they will need to run this, seems inevitable at this point. It will just be too tempting for these sort of people, plus people in the US are already habituated to showing ID to do just about everything, drink, buy train tickets etc.
Apparently US audiences fifty years ago used to boo and hiss everytime some nazi said "your papers, please" in a war film but you wouldn't know it now, they are totally whipped. The new photocard drivers licenses that they have been trying to phase-in in the UK over the last few years, really are the thin end of the wedge. In the US which has had them for decades they have become de facto national ID cards, everyone has them and as a result you are asked for ID all the time. I have to carry may passport everywhere I go (since I don't have a US drivers licence) or I wouldn't be able to do anything.
The situation in the UK where no one can reasonably expect people to have any sort of ID and hence no one asks for it is pretty cushy compared to most of the world and unfortunately unlikely to last much longer. I'm sure once these practices become common in the US they will be exported to the rest of the world. It already looks like US is going to get its way in forcing other coutries to include biometric imformation on their passports, if they want their citizens to be able to enter the US, and similar pressure can be used for sender ID on mail. If the post office in the UK has to collect sender ID for mail to the US, of it won't be let in, there are plenty of fascists in the UK to may sure it is done for domestic post as well.
...why can't our leaders?
So it may be the area. 'Course if you were working after the Anthrax mailings that might explain it too. If I remember correctly they traced them back to a New Jersey post box, right?
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
The real goal of this scheme is to pave the way for national ID cards, a concept that the securicrats in Washington have been slobbering over for years.
If every company and individual who sends postal mail needs an unique code, it doesn't take much to "embrace and extend" that concept to personal identification.
Just as Social Security numbers were linked to your payroll, tax & credit records, your mail id will be linked to your person or place of business.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Tracking ability would be really nice (or horrible) for verifying that something was actually sent. Privacy concerns aside, it is a lot more difficult for your mortgage payment to get "lost in the mail" if you have a tracking number for it. IMO the loss of privacy is minimal, but the gain in convenience is huge.
Fortunately the freedom to leave is still available, but I think that is because it is too expensive to build a wall that long.
Not if you earn over a certain amount. I think the "Berlin Wall" tax - as it came to be known - is somewhere around 50% for wealthy US citizens who've had enough.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Stamps.com already has sender tracking technology embedded in the stamps you print out from it. As a side note, because of this, you can ship packages greater than one pound without going to the post office with a stamps.com stamp.
yaay yaaay!
"on things we need less than more prisons and better schools."
really?
Is it normal to consider imprisonment as one of the primary industries in a country? Perhaps if people weren't put into prison for 3 counts of jaywalking, there'd be enough money left over for schools to afford curriculums not provided by McDonalds?
I don't mean this as a personal rebuff, but the US has better things to spend its money on than lining the pockets of prison contractors.
"...is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that??
You are not cleared for that information. If we told you, we would have to kill you.
I still get mail at my home for other people that haven't lived at my address for 3 years. Maybe something like this would help?
Ah, you don't need it there in one or two days or in a lockbox? Sorry, you can only confirm delivery with the other trackable services they offer - certified, insured, merch return receipt ("brown label"), delivery or signature confirmation (which are only offered for priority mail (which is pretty much just first class mail weighing more than 13 ounces)), etc. And again, those only update once per day.
Keep in mind that this is a government run institution, so their internal capabilities are pretty underwhelming - as such, the ability to track mail in real time (something that all private overnight couriers offer) would be far too overwhelming to the USPS. If you want to know how underwhelming, to give you an idea, last I checked our local processing and distribution facility in Anaheim Hills, there was a bank of XTs and PC286 machines whose purpose in life it was to handle the scanning of PostNET barcodes (you know, those dual-length lines you'll probably find near the address or bottom of the envelope on an article of snail mail you get if you're in the US.) Now just think, do you think that they're going to use a beowulf cluster of 286 and XT boxen to electronically store every article of mail that passes through this little rinky-dink P&DF (one fo two in Orange County, CA)? They pass tons of mail per day, they just don't have the power there, and if they're still running said boxes, do you think they're going to fix what ain't broke? This is the government we're talking about.
Said barcode, by the way, is a twelve digit code that pretty much boils down to which box the letter lands in, with an added check digit (each digit in the 11 digit portion is added together, check is n, where n is the next multiple of 10 minus the total of the added numbers). Hardly privacy invasion. Example: PO Box 62 in Fullerton 92836 would wind up being a barcode that reads "928360062626". (The total of the first eleven is 44, next mult of 10 is 50, ergo 50-44=6.)
Don't even ask how I know this shite, it's less painful.
This sig no verb.
The postal service has already developed a program which allows people who do mass mailings at any rate (first, bulk, etc) to track the status of that mailing. It's call PLANET code. It's very much like the postnet code (the bar code you see on pretty much every letter you get along the bottom) only it uses a few different bar codes to distinguish itself.
Right now, if you pay the large annual fees, the postal service will FTP you a large file every morning telling you where you mailing is. It sends back the PLANET code and the postnet code (the postnet code includes down to the extended Zip code information so that you can figure out which house it was going to). With this, direct mailers are able to determine how many people have actually gotten their mailing.
For more information, check out www.planetcodes.com
hmm how about an inteligent male...
And Skynet fights back.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Where I live (SF Bay Area), you have no right to control who parks in front of your house. And I doubt the city will allow the OP to paint a red "no parking" strip on his curb. So the postmaster telling the mailbox owner that the box was blocked will help the owner how? (Unless the mailbox owner wants to become a crotchety person waving sticks at whoever tries to park there)
The modern postal service is highly automated and computerized. Currently when you send a letter:
It would not be too difficult to implement source tracking in this system, all that it would require is making some changes to the database to allow the source to be attached to the barcode and and add return address checking to steps 2 and 3. In fact this could already be implemented and we would never know about it.
Minne-snow-da: Winter is comming...
Every envelope should have a stamped code on the back for every time it passes through a sorter. No database of every item, no database of every scanned address; just a rubber stamp machine.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
I've read up on anonymous remailers, and from what I could tell they seem to cost money , and , ruin your anonyminity if you need them to reply back to your email account.
Sometimes I wonder why there isn't a newsgroup set up that people post to, text encrypted. Software would be set up to continually poll the NG, searching for specific subject that you're waiting for your contact to use. Private & public key to decrypt.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
- Try to block any new law or rule that limits the freedom by convincing people how stupid it is
- Try to alter pending new laws so that there are ways to legally bypass the system (loopholes)
- Allow the new law to pass in draconian form, then present a court challenge to it and have it struck down
- Try to alter pending new laws so there are easy illegal ways to bypass the new system, preferably with a minimum chance of getting caught
- Civilly disobey to protest new, unjust laws
- (Last resort)Take up arms against the government to forcibly protect freedoms
Subverting the system as mentioned above is an expression of (4) above. I'd try to block the new system, but no one inSo, we're down to illegal recourse.
On the subject of prisons, I am unwilling to live next door to persons who consider violence as socially acceptable as bowling. While I do wish fewer people committed crimes requiring prison sentences, I fully support building prisons or more preferably correctional therapy facilities in such numbers as are needed so that all criminals spend their full sentence behind bars. If you do a crime, you should do the time, and you should work while you're inside to pay for your keep.
Erik
There has been remailers that support newsgroup posting for a long time now. Polling scripts are very simple to create.
Time to set up a W.A.S.T.E. distribution network in your local vacinity...
Unless there already is one, and you just don't know about it.
(Watch this get modded offtopic by clueless moderators who don't know what I'm talking about)
hmm... come to think of it. Posts to newsgroups are archived forever. Not too cool
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Yeah, the mail is sorted by computerized scanner/feeders when they can OCR it (as it's zipping by - this is pretty cool). I think the OCR boxes run Linux, actually.
That's so funny I almost forgot you were a xenophobic canuck manham canner.
I *was* a manhamcanner? Phew. It's good to know I'm out of that phase.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Onse you strip away all of the "Intellegent mail" and "security" babble their proposal boils down to one thing:
All stams would contain a unique code number and it would be ILLEGAL to buy a stamp without identifying yourself. I assume buying them with a credit card would be sufficent.
The purpose is so that they can track any peice of mail (through it's unique stamp code) back to the person who bought the stamp. That way they can track "terrorists". FUCKING IDIOTS. How the hell is this crap get taken seriously?!?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The only real advantage to the message destination being a newsgroup is that no one would be able to determine who the recipients mail is from. I agree that having messages both archived and more easily accessible to the general public is probably not the best idea. I could care less who reads my mail though. I hope people waste their bleeding time doing it.
The U.S. Postal Service hasn't even been able to effectively compete or even match the performance of any of the private carriers (UPS, FedEx, Airborne). Just yesterday I received a "Priority Mail" package. It took 7 days to travel 2000 miles. I live in a major suburb of Los Angeles so it's not like they had to go out of their way. The tracking number had *NEVER* been scanned. If you check the status on the USPS.COM web site, even now it still says they are waiting to receive the package for shipment! There's no record of shipment or delivery.
They suck.
Maybe the USPS will stop "losing" so many DVDs now.
The original headline on this story was: U.S. Postal Service to Develop 'Intelligent Mail' Tracking Technology
OK, it was admittedly a little long but I've seen longer, and the edited headline changes the meaning and tone with which one reads the post. The term 'Intelligent Mail' is a euphemism for TRACKING - which is why I added the phrase 'Tracking Technology.' I can live without the 'Technology' part but the word TRACKING adds important context to the headline. The tracking part is what makes it a privacy issue.
Many people have written words to the effect of, 'Who cares? UPS and Fedex and DHL already do this anyway.' The difference is that when you opt to use those services, you specifically choose and pay for the tracing and auditability features of their services. Those are private databases. It is your choice.
This scheme would have the government track and store identifying information about the sender and receiver of every piece of mail whether you want it to be tracked or not. You would have no choice.
While the government agencies may not misuse this information, what's to prevent abuses by USPS or other employees who have authorized access? It already happens with private databases.
I found the following portion of the article interesting:
This sounds like yet another component of Total Information Awareness being reconstituted piece by piece since it had its funds cut by Congress. Maybe they will call this the Intelligent Mail MATRIX ('Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information eXchange).
I don't know that it is, but it sure sounds like another step towards a surveillance society.
Google for subjunctive.
That's so funny I almost forgot you were a xenophobic canuck manham canner.
Add "ignorant of your native language" to the list, while we're at it.
Of course. Your dad ejaculated so now you're in the bottling the mangoo phase.
The more mail we send through the system, the more difficult it becomes to make mail go where it's supposed to go, so the USPS already scans your mail and then bundles it up in sacks when it transports it, considering those sacks sealed. Whether they truly are, or not, is another issue. The point is, they already know where mail is going and where it's been, so they don't really need to know the sender.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm still amazed that I have to apply for a new mailing address every time I move to a new city. How difficult is it to create a simple layer of indirection? Besides making it easier to find people who want to be found, this feature would *improve* privacy, since you would no longer have to disclose your house address in order to receive a package.
That's the change I want to see. I think something like this is already happening with phone numbers.
-Gonz
that's the wrong word for the phrase than.
... in a past tense.
In that context it means I was a
E.g. "that was so funny while you were making a scene".
You meant to say
I almost forgot you *are* a xenophobic canuck manham canner.
or succintly...
YOU FAIL IT.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Past tense subjective would be: "I almost forgot you'd been a manham canner".
Your "correction" ignores the subjunctive mood.
"I forgot you are a manham canner" would be correct for a present tense assertion; however, I am indicating that I do not believe that phrase to be true. Therefore, the subjunctive mood is indicated. The present tense subjunctive form of "to be" is "were."
You're just wrong. Deal with it.
How could anyone make a profit at $.37 per piece when they sponsor a Tour de France team?
Why the heck is the Post Office allowed to do that anyway?
We should have to buy a special $.03 'support Lance Armstrong' stamp for that.
So quit your job, pack your bags, and move on out to snow country!