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."

Comments

Stop identity theft?

[SirCrashALot]

How would this stop identity theft. Unless you use TLS/SSL email is less secure than snail mail -- its not traveling across bare network wires.

Re:Stop identity theft?

[Charbal]

I'm also not seeing how this could stop identity theft. If you use this program, aren't you putting your mail in front of the eyeballs of the person that's scanning them?

Re:Stop identity theft?

[DuSTman31]

Or even just buy a hamster.

Really, I'm always amazed how fast hamsters and the like can chew through a stack of papers. Not to mention, they're also cheaper than an actual shredder. Cute too.

I use a similar service already

[Nugget]

I have been using a similar service from PayTrust for about a year now. Their focus is on bills, which is really the only mail I receive that I want to ensure I handle in a timely manner. I travel quite a bit for work and find it invaluable to be able to receive and pay my bills while on the road.

When a new bill arrives, I get an email and I can view the scan of the bill online through the paytrust website. I can pay the bill automatically, if I choose, by establishing per-payee rules (always pay bill [foo] as long as it is under [y] dollars) and that sort of thing.

At the end of the year they send me a CD-ROM that contains all that year's bills and payments for my archives, allowing me to store everything in a much more space efficient way than I'd have with paper files.

It's a great service, although I don't know that I would find much benefit if they started handling all my mail and not just my bills. Mail I get is either bills, junk, or physical things which I wouldn't want in scanned form.

Re:I use a similar service already

[Pretor]

The banks in Norway has been doing this for year already. With no or low cost, and no paper; the bills are electronic. Combinded with their really good Internet banking services I no longer go to the bank, have to check any of the regular bills and so on. And because of almost 100% "visa" card coverage I don't use cash any longer. I can even buy the bus ticket using a credit or debit card.

I wonder why people in other countries has to still use checks, bills and etc. I haven't seen a checkbook in Norway for about 10-15 years.

My sister lives in San Francisco, and boy do the US need to get into the modern age when it comes to banking and payment.

Privacy

[flibble-san]

I don't like the idea of someone reading my personal snail mail. I'm sure they get a laugh out of finding out "Mr Jones" subscribes to Busty Babes monthly etc.

I don't know where to start...

[spook brat]

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. =[

Top 5 Mail you'll never receive this way

[rjamestaylor]

5) Columbia House CD of the Month Club selection
4) Beer of the Month Club selection
3) Oh...look - shiny!
2) Cookies? What cookies?
1) Congratulations! You're the Publisher's Clearinghouse winner!