U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by betterunix » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:03 AM UTC

ceol wrote: post #214

betterunix wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that would be so hard to solve. You can record the ciphertext plate and give that to the police. Really the question is, "How important is this problem? Do we care about license plate privacy?"

A license plate is already essentially encrypted. It's a random sequence of letters and numbers that correspond with a unique individual's information. It contains no personal information in itself.

Except that your car shows everyone the same license plate every time they look at it. This would be completely unacceptable for a cryptographic solution, which would use fresh randomness to respond to every request (in theory).

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

#222

Post by mpyne » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:26 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #208

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That logic isn't obviously correct. People do not have a right to go about in public, to and from notorious places, in a 2-ton death monster that requires licensure and indemnification to operate, anonymously. People requiring a higher degree of privacy than that offered by cars would be better served taking their bicycles.

I would argue that a de facto right to privacy is created by the nature of the destination. It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip.

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip.

So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting...

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

#223

Post by mpyne » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:29 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #12

EliAndrewC wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Couldn't they pick a more sympathetic guy to talk about "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Mencken

This is way better than all the explanations I've been able to come up with for people about why it's important to defend weev.

That's a great explanation for why CFAA needs reformed and weev's sentenced substantially reduced to match the 'crime'. But he still dun goofed.

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

#224

Post by mortehu » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:34 AM UTC

taeric wrote: post #119

dchichkov wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if modern domain specific OCR can give you an error rate that beats that of a time-constrained human reader.

While I agree with you at the general level, it sounds like these trained individuals are ridiculously good at what they do. Even seven years ago, to be able to take a crack at an envelope in just 10 seconds and type out the result is impressive.

And their jobs are getting harder:

"It used to be that we'd get letters that were somewhat legible but the machines weren't good enough to read them. Now we get letters and packages with the most awful handwriting you can imagine."

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

#225

Post by mortehu » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:43 AM UTC

knodi wrote: post #18

coldcode wrote: post #2

Everything you do is subject to some kind of informational storage by the government. Some day our thoughts might be recordable too.

They already are. Viewing someones data problem, search results, texts, files and etc one can to surprising accuracy determine the thoughts and inner working of the through process of a person.

Surprising, you say? Do you have a link?

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

#226

Post by nitrogen » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:55 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #222

nitrogen wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that a de facto right to privacy is created by the nature of the destination. It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip.

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip. So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting...

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip.

So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting...

They already do with regard to medical information, in the form of HIPAA. A right to privacy has to include the right to prevent others from disclosing certain kinds of information about oneself. You could also consider it from a defamation/slander/libel perspective.

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

#227

Post by mpyne » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #226

mpyne wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip. So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting...

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip. So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting... They already do with regard to medical information, in the form of HIPAA. A right to privacy has to include the right to prevent others from disclosing certain kinds of…

> They already do with regard to medical information, in the form of HIPAA.

HIPAA type records are not publically displayed when people walk outside.

To the extent that a given condition is public people are allowed to note that. This is why assholes were legally allowed to call me pimple-face, for instance.

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

#228

Post by GoodIntentions » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 2:26 AM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #31

javajosh wrote: post #5

Goddamnit this is NOT OK. This is the dark side of the technological improvements to "productivity": we have enabled a level of productivity that allows the few to track the many. It's time we technologists all sat down and though about ways to turn the tide - they are using technology to track us, how can we use technology to thwart them? My best answer is: data flak. We should all start building system that include…

Essentially what you're proposing is a DoS of the tracking system. The problem with that (at least with physical mail) is that it takes far more resources to generate physical mail than to scan it. A DoS shaped like that will never work unless you have some way of massively amplifying the effect you are having. Postage on a post card is currently 33 cents. How many postcards do you reckon you'd have to send before th…

>>Postage on a post card is currently 33 cents.

why put a stamp on if you don't care about where it goes? better yet, put a 1 cent stamp on and make sure it gets extra handling for postage due.

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

#229

Post by krallja » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 2:28 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #172

rayiner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that many people aren't making an informed decision about this, especially all the kids and young teenagers who use Facebook and Google, etc. But my point is about the technology, not the people. The technology isn't designed to keep information private. SMTP sends plain-text e-mails through intermediate servers. Anybody can inspect the packets flying by on their network, which mostly have plain-text…

> I bet there would be a way to store e-mail accounts encrypted so only the inbox/outbox would be stored in plain text on Google's servers. What makes you think that's not being done now?

The fact that search works implies that the contents of your email are not encrypted.

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

#230

Post by nitrogen » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 3:07 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #227

nitrogen wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter if someone can see you or your car, the fact that it's a medical destination should create a right to privacy of that trip. So what you're saying is that the government should enforce a built-in gag order on people? Interesting... They already do with regard to medical information, in the form of HIPAA. A right to privacy has to include the right to prevent others from disclosing certain kinds of…

> They already do with regard to medical information, in the form of HIPAA. HIPAA type records are not publically displayed when people walk outside. To the extent that a given condition is public people are allowed to note that. This is why assholes were legally allowed to call me pimple-face, for instance.

HIPAA type records are not publically displayed when people walk outside.

No, but there are some things that ostensibly take place in public but should still be considered private, absent some urgently pressing higher need that can only be met by disclosure.

To the extent that a given condition is public people are allowed to note that. This is why assholes were legally allowed to call me pimple-face, for instance.

At some point of excess, wouldn't that fall under verbal abuse, harassment, or bullying, depending on whether you're considering laws or school policies, and thus not be considered free speech?

In general I believe people should be able to say anything they want, but if what they say or to whom they say it violates someone else's rights, their victims shouldn't have to put up with it.