Slashdot Mirror
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.
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;
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.