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U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#81

Post by oinksoft »

rayiner wrote: post #37
oinksoft wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I've always found it obvious that creating these things, working for companies with close ties to military and surveillance (Lockheed, etc.) is quite near evil and that professionals with integrity would not do that. I think that is a minority view in our profession, so you are probably right.

If you think working for Lockheed is evil, what do you think of working for a company like Facebook, that profits from selling the personal data of teenagers to companies who take advantage of their adolescence to peddle overpriced products to them that they don't need and that their parents can't really afford? I'm not saying Facebook is evil, but let's face it the world is a lot more morally complex than the self-r…

My views are painted by pacifism, so nothing is as bad to me as producing military technology, or providing talent for the military industrial complex. Your Facebook example harps on some of the evils of capitalism (manipulative advertisements and such), but given the way the world works right now, even if you live in North Korea, you are born into that (black markets, etc. which of course beat having no economic freedom any day).

Enabling surveillance is a distant second, but still certainly wrong because it is direct support for the robbing of privacy, a basic human dignity. There is no room for ambiguity or argument as in the case of economic theory and such, like in the Facebook example.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#82

Post by malandrew »

mistercow wrote: post #61
malandrew wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine the DoS is half of the benefit. The other half is manufactured reasonable doubt. If a person were to send periodic letters with real and fake cryptographic messages to random individuals of importance, barring a warrant to read the contents of each letter, that would constitute reasonable doubt as to whether or not that person was legitimately communicating with another person of interest.

It would also likely be taken as suspicious in its own right.

True, but given the facts of the past few weeks, it's completely reasonable to set up such a system like this now for yourself as a hedge for what the political landscape may look like in the future. I know what is illegal today, but I have no idea what may be made illegal tomorrow or 10 years from now. Implementing such a system is a hedge/insurance against dystopian futures that are becoming reality.

As long as such a system is in place and significantly predates (on the scale of years) any crime you are accused of, this argument of hedging against a dystopia makes a lot more sense and is far more defensible.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#84

Post by enko »

enko wrote: post #58
eli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular linked story really isn't very big news.

Well maybe not for you, but for me it's another piece of a jigsaw which is beginning to show a very ugly picture indeed. You're a US citizen I see. Well, maybe you don't understand or give a shit, but from the outside, the opinion of your country is being revised dramatically downwards. Very dramatically. All of this human rights, freedom of speech, fourth amendment stuff is being exposed for the bullshit that it is.…

> Maybe you view the scanning of the outside of people's letters differently now... but it's not a new story and the article says as much.

I guess it's the context of an all-pervasive spying culture that lends it a new relevance.

And who cares if it's "new". We might only realise the relevance of an old story years later. We might only realise a whistleblower was telling the truth after years of dismissing their tall tales.

edit: eli deleted the post I quote. Oh, don't like things you say online being used against you later? That's not new either.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#85

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

DanBC wrote: post #60
chime wrote: post #40

About seven years ago, I was at a sushi bar and struck up a conversation with an older gentleman sitting next to me. He told me he was a developer and created systems for USPS. I am always fascinated by the technology used in large scale systems so I picked his brain for a good hour. From what I recall, he said at the key distribution centers, USPS scans every single mail (in standard envelop sizes) and in under a se…

It'd be more interesting if they captured the address the package is sent to; the return address (if any); and the post mark. As I understand it postal mail is traditionally given much stronger protections than other forms of communication, especially in the US. I'd be very surprised if postal mail was being intercepted and contents were read without very strong warrants. EDIT: It does sound like a fascinating system…

It really is. I used to do embedded software for controlling mailing machines and the technology for paper handling is amazing. You mentioned paper dust: the printer we used was based on a Canon print engine with wipers added to periodically clean off accumulated dust and ink goo. IIRC, we ran a wipe cycle every two minutes to keep it clean enough to not clog the jets. It was a real problem because the ink had to be a fast-drying composition to avoid smearing as the mailpieces stacked up.

I moved on before I got to work on the sorting machines: the intricacy of that stuff is truly mindblowing for a mechanisms geek like me ;-)

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#86

Post by conroe64 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #57
enraged_camel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will simply allocate more resources to it and you as the taxpayer will end up paying for it. The only real solution is to have end-to-end encryption that is easy to understand and use.

How are you going to encrypt your snail mail destination data?

By putting another letter inside that may or may not contain another letter ad infinitum, where each letter is sent to a random address except the most inner letter which is sent to the actual address. In each outer letter you put a five dollar bill and the words "Mail this or else, I know where you live!"

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#87

Post by swamp40 »

tokenadult wrote: post #74
ck2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I've never, ever heard of this used to solve a crime. Definitely never used in court or we'd hear about it but they probably wouldn't risk the constitutionality of that. So they are just collecting it for the sake of spying on everyone. Lovely.

Except I've never, ever heard of this used to solve a crime. Reading the fine submitted article would solve that problem.

...by examining information from the front and back images of 60 pieces of mail scanned immediately before and after the tainted letters sent to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bloomberg showing return addresses near her [Ms. Richardson's] home.

Those are some powerful tools for investigators.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#88

Post by unclebucknasty »

run4yourlives wrote: post #73
oinksoft wrote: post #8

Ah, I see I've arrived at Hacker/USA Government Abuses News. And I say that as somebody deeply interested in these stories.

Agreed, although the top comment here was actually quite interesting. HN has made an exception for all things US gov't spying related. I even lost my flagging rights for flagging all the snowden stuff (which I thought was exactly what you were supposed to do when you thought something was off topic... not my fault it was the entire front page!) It's an important topic, but like you I preferred when HN was an oasis of…

Wonder if it would make sense to have two categories: Tech and non-tech. Though some topics would definitely straddle the line.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#89

Post by pfortuny »

elmuchoprez wrote: post #34

Maybe I'm alone here, but I never had an expectation of privacy in regards to what I write on the outside of a envelope and drop into a public receptacle (mailbox). I expect the contents to be considered highly private, but not the outside. There's also this issue of willing disclosure of information to an entity. When I put a stamp on something and drop it in the mailbox, I know I'm handing that information over to…

The fact that some people are "naive" does not imply what they expect to be stupid or unnecessary.

Anyone could argue for censorship and for reading your letters: "it is because of the children"... You are putting them in the hands of the USPS.

Re: U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement

#90

Post by rayiner »

oinksoft wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think working for Lockheed is evil, what do you think of working for a company like Facebook, that profits from selling the personal data of teenagers to companies who take advantage of their adolescence to peddle overpriced products to them that they don't need and that their parents can't really afford? I'm not saying Facebook is evil, but let's face it the world is a lot more morally complex than the self-r…

My views are painted by pacifism, so nothing is as bad to me as producing military technology, or providing talent for the military industrial complex. Your Facebook example harps on some of the evils of capitalism (manipulative advertisements and such), but given the way the world works right now, even if you live in North Korea, you are born into that (black markets, etc. which of course beat having no economic fre…

Look at it from a purely numerical standpoint. How much is lost when a teenager buys a $100 pair of Ralph Lauren jeans when a pair that is identical in all but brand-name could be produced for $20 or so? That is the opportunity cost of that money to that kid?

Military technology kills a few people (large harms to a few people), but advertising diverts vast amounts of money towards industries where it is easy to take advantage of cognitive biases to create artificial distinctions between products (small harms to lots of people). And both have their legitimate justifications too. People need to know about new products and services and advertising helps them find those products and services. And while you may be a pacifist, Americans are decidedly not. They want a country that sits at the top of the world and they want to be protected from hostility and Lockeed gives Americans what they want in that regard.

And even for a pacifist: we live in the most peaceful time in human history. American military supremacy, plays a big part in maintaining that state of affairs. Countries that might be incentivized to wage war (as countries have done since there were countries), avoid doing so because they know the American military response will be swift and overwhelming.

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