Exploits aside, this service however convenient, just reeks of Big Brother to me. Not that I get that much info via USPS anymore but the idea that __everything__ is being logged (for future reference?) makes me uncomfortable.
U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
81–90 of 135 posts
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that tampering with the mail, even if there are little technical limitations, is a federal crime that carries pretty severe penalties.
People love repeating this for some reason, but mail crime is under-funded, rarely investigated, and even more rarely enforced. Realistically if you tamper with mail nothing at all will happen to you, until your fraud raises to a headline figure and could get someone a promotion.
Interesting you say this as I had heard similar stories of underfunded mail crime investigations in the past. However, where I live is a very seasonal location. Population goes from 10000+ over the summer to under 1000 during the winter months.
Several years ago a couple people in the community noticed problems with their mail (mail seemingly missing, receiving wrongly addressed items, etc..). They called the postal service and an investigator was out in days. Within two weeks there were hidden cameras mounted in various locations around town pointed at mailboxes. A few more weeks and they apprehended an individual going through mailboxes based on the photos from those cameras. I don't know the final outcome, but the total turnaround from notification to arrest was less than 3 months.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#83The fact that "identity theft" is still a thing in 2018 is an indictment on the legacy financial industry. If not for the web of opaque "agencies" that collect and sell data about individuals without affirmative action on behalf of the individual (frankly still surprised this is legal) it would be a complete non-issue. It's irrelevant to me whether someone else opens an account with my name - just as it's irrelevant…
This isn't a case of "identity theft" at least the modern sense of the term, this is a case of impersonation, which has been a problem since humanity existed.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#84Exploits aside, this service however convenient, just reeks of Big Brother to me. Not that I get that much info via USPS anymore but the idea that __everything__ is being logged (for future reference?) makes me uncomfortable.
Informed Delivery is just them offering a service based on infrastructure that was already there -- the mail scanning was put into place during the 90's anthrax in the mail scares, and that's really it's purpose.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can forward someone else's mail too. Just go to the post office, fill out the form, and drop it in the mailbox. There's no verification, though there is notification at both the old and the new address. Not to mention it's a crime to do that.
It struck me how easy it would be to get someone else's social security card this way: with the information from the Equifax breach, you have all the data you need to request a replacement card online, and by forwarding their mail you can get the card when it arrives.
It's always been easy to commit crime, it's just harder to get away with them, and luckily most people don't want to commit crimes (and then another percentage don't think the risk is worth the reward -- hence deterrence) . In this case, anything related to stealing someone else's mail is an insta-felony.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#86I tried to sign up for this service and failed due to some identification challenge issue USPS was unable to explain. The online sign up process went along smoothly, but I was asked to bring a slip printed from the online process plus valid identification to a post office for in-person verification. Brought the documents and still was unable to validate my identity. The robot behind the counter could not explain why the application was rejected.
Curious how identity thieves made could complete an application when I, with all proper documentation in person at a post office, could not.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can forward someone else's mail too. Just go to the post office, fill out the form, and drop it in the mailbox. There's no verification, though there is notification at both the old and the new address. Not to mention it's a crime to do that.
It struck me how easy it would be to get someone else's social security card this way: with the information from the Equifax breach, you have all the data you need to request a replacement card online, and by forwarding their mail you can get the card when it arrives.
Last time I got social security cards, they were printed on cardstock with absolutely no security features. They would be trivial to counterfeit, if you had the number to begin with. It's amazing that they are accepted as a form of ID to get e.g. a passport.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#88So I began reading and figured, huh, thieves must just stealing be the validation letter USPS would send, and thought, hey, that system which is used in many other places for similar things would be quite vulnerable to that attack, right? But then I got to this bit: > KrebsOnSecurity took the USPS to task last year in part for not using its own unique communications method — the U.S. Mail — to validate and notify res…
Others have referenced mail forwarding, which is obviously very bad, but mail holds work the same way.
Most residential mailboxes at older homes face sidewalks and are trivial to steal from anyway. I thought my current setup in a new neighborhood would be ideal: individual locking boxes. And then one day mail got jammed in my side of the lock and I couldn't open it, so I waited for the mail carrier who promptly opened their side and handed me the contents with no verification at all.
It's just a shitshow all-round. There's virtually no thought for security or intrgrity of the system at any level.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#89I tried to sign up for this service and failed due to some identification challenge issue USPS was unable to explain. The online sign up process went along smoothly, but I was asked to bring a slip printed from the online process plus valid identification to a post office for in-person verification. Brought the documents and still was unable to validate my identity. The robot behind the counter could not explain why…
I just signed up for this (all online, never had to talk to anyone) maybe 6 months or more ago. I used it when it was "MyUSPS" too. Neither (at the time) required any external forms of anything.
I just created my account, put my address in and that was that. Then I lost that accounts info, or something weird happened with it and I could no longer login to it. so I created another account for the same address. that validated immediately too. I don't remember seeing any e-mails or anything notifying me that a second account is now getting those e-mails. There's a chance there was something, but I don't remember it.
Maybe I signed up for it before they had those extra protections in there, but that's my experience so far.
Re: U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves Are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that tampering with the mail, even if there are little technical limitations, is a federal crime that carries pretty severe penalties.
People love repeating this for some reason, but mail crime is under-funded, rarely investigated, and even more rarely enforced. Realistically if you tamper with mail nothing at all will happen to you, until your fraud raises to a headline figure and could get someone a promotion.
My neighbor stole mail right out of my mailbox. I had it on video. The police declined to do anything about it. So... anecdotally validated.