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Snail Mail As E-Mail
techcon writes "An Australian startup Planetwide has launched an interesting product called Scan Me. The idea is simple, you redirect your snail mail to them and they scan your physical mail and email it all to you as a text searchable PDF. Targeted at the world wide traveller, it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft and getting nasty white powder in the mail."
My thoughts exactly. This company is asking for a whole lot of attention from black-hat crackers. Instead of one bank statement, they can get thousands.
Also, reading it in some internet cafe in Beijing will probably leave it in the temp directory. I really don't think this is a good idea.
I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
The summary doesn't mention it, but not only do they scan everything you get, they forward it to you once you're somewhere you can receive it, so you still have the paper originals. And for those who are paranoid about having confidential documents sent via E-mail, they let you cut the scanning step out and just treat it as an ordinary forwarding address.
It doesn't say anything about whether they're offering this to people outside of Australia, but it's certainly interesting for those of us who move frequently. I wonder if this will start a "permanent postal address hosting" service genre like Hotmail did with E-mail.
what i really need is the other way around. I send them the email, they print it out and snail mail it for me
CompuServe was offering that service back in 1989. You could send an "e-mail" to a physical address. They would print it out at their office closest to the final destination and stick it in the mail.
It cost something like $1.25 for the first 8x11 sheet and $.15 for each sheet after that.
I remember trying this out and having e-letters delivered from Orlando, FL to places like Kalamazoo, MI and Seattle, WA in 2 days.
I still think this would be a good idea.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Wow. In the United States there are federal laws protecting both the content and *addresses* for all mail sent through the US Postal Service. If Big Brother wants to watch you there are oversight requirements (ie. the watcher must be watched) for the simple act of scanning the addresses on an envleope. The requirements are more stringent if BB wants to actually open your letter and read its contents. I don't remember off hand at what point it takes a Judge to sign off on it, I'd have to look it up.
If you're using this "Scan Me" service, however, they can intercept your mail once it leaves US Postal Service channels with much lower levels of scrutiny - they'd just need to walk up and ask the nice people at Planetwide to do their civic duty. In fact, if Carnivore is still running (and I'm paranoid enough to believe it might be) then they wouldn't need to contact the Planetwide staff at all. The Feds could just go to Planetwide's ISP and monitor the traffic, reading the information unencrypted as it flies by on the 'Net.
The ACLU can't protect your civil liberties if you are asking third parties to copy all of your private correspondence into the electronic equivalent of postcards. No, scratch that, postcards are still covered by the same Federal laws as normal (sealed) mail. This is copying to postacrds and re-routing through a network of untrusted private couriers. =[
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
I know the guys/girls who are doing this and he's a maverick on the security front so I'd trust his servers any day over snail mail.
The other services are bloody handy for travellers too. They can keep scans of your travel documents available should the worst happen. That's gotta be worth the price of admission.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Don't stop there. Put bleech in the pulp then set the pulp in wire mesh squares and leave it out to dry and you'll have good home made recycled paper.
Honest
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Yes but do you have proof about your discs getting stolen in the mail? Probably not. Your mail getting stolen from your building, well, that's a different story. First off, tampering and stealing mail is punishable by law. Intercepting e-mail probably is too, but it's MUCH more likely to happen without you knowing then your mail getting swiped.
My mail is curb delivered, yet I feel more comfortable getting stuff there then I do having this scan deal done. Sure there's a possibility of it getting picked up out of the box, but we usually have someone home and as soon as it gets there, my wife gets it. Never had a problem yet with it getting swiped but the first time I did I can put a mail box in that will let the mail man in and keep everyone else out. They have mailboxes that let the mail man open it once and then when he closes it, it locks. THere are also ways to work with your local post office on securing youe mail. You can have a lock on it if you can manage to set it up with your post master. In any case, I don't feel comfortable letting some mailroom dude scan my mail because he has to open it first. I don't care if the POPE is running the company, I still don't trust it.
As far as scanned travel documents go, I can set that up myself and there are almost always computers near locations you may need these papers.
Gorkman