From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@securitydynamics.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 00:14:03 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@Algebra.COM>
Subject: RE: Question on U.S. Postal Service and crypto
Message-ID: <6B5344C210C7D011835C0000F80127668B15D4@exna01.securitydynamics.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



My understanding is that a post BOX has to be a design acceptable to the
USPS; and that no one else can put things INTO it. This is a pretty
narrow 
restriction; door slots can be used by anyone for anything, and many 
postboxes either share a support post with a newspaper delivery tube or
have an external rack for stuffing newspapers, etc.

Back about 20 years ago, some company (FedEx, UPS????) tried to
get into the first class mail delivery business, and they dealt with
this by
putting mail in a plastic bag and hanging it on the doorknob.

Where I live (*small* town in New England), FedEx and UPS regularly
leave
packages unattended; either by the front door, the back door, or in the 
garage (this is a very low crime area).

Around 1979, when the existence of email was just beginning to penetrate
(there where only a few hundred thousand people on the Arpanet), there 
was considerable debate over the legality of email. Since access to
Arpanet was theoretically only for people working on Federally funded 
projects, it was widely thought that it should only be used for project 
related work, and any personal mail was a misuse of government funds.
Columbia University (where I was working at the time) allowed unlimited 
internal use, but had tinkered their mail client to ignore addresses to 
off-campus addresses. I think my very first hack involved defeating 
this restriction.

About the same time, I remember that the Postal Carriers Union realized 
(quite correctly) that email was a threat to their civil service jobs,
and came
out with a statement to the effect of 'We don't quite understand what
this thing 
is, but the USPS owns it." They wanted to require that email be received
only at Post Offices, where it would be printed, stamped, and delivered
(by
one of their members) along with the rest of the mail.

Peter Trei
ptrei@securitydynamics.com



> ----------
> From: 	Brian B. Riley[SMTP:brianbr@together.net]
> 
>  Maybe they are confusing an electronic mailbox with a snailmail box
> ... 
> the USPS has always contended that they (the USPS) "own" your mailbox
> and 
> use that criterion to prosecute people who drive around putting things
> 
> like circulars etc in mailboxes. Maybe they we on a role thinking that
> if 
> they got into the e-mail business they would 'own' that piece of your 
> hard drive so to speak.
> 
> 
>