From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 05:36:12 +0800
To: David Miller <dm0@avana.net>
Subject: Re: Question on U.S. Postal Service and crypto
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980108035645.037abe0c@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19980108152654.03ba8028@mail.atl.bellsouth.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 10:45 AM 1/8/98 -0800, David Miller wrote:
>> An interesting feature of the digital postmark is that the USPS was making
>> the claim that if you receive an email that the USPS send to you that was
>> not meant for you, then you have committed a federal crime when you read
it.
>
>I'm not so sure about this, Robert.  I've heard the rumor that it is a crime,
>but I have also heard that if something is delivered to your box, it is yours
>and you are not required to send it back unopened if it is not addressed to
>you.  I tend to believe the latter, as it is the side of the story shared by
>USPS employees.

I wasn't commenting on the legality, but on the fact that the USPS web page
was making the claim that it was a crime.  Apparently whoever wrote the
legal disclaimer felt that email could be misdelivered in the same fashion
in which postal mail could be misdelivered and was making this claim.  I
found the claim to be nutty and made me think they didn't know what they
were doing.


  -- Robert Costner                  Phone: (770) 512-8746
     Electronic Frontiers Georgia    mailto:pooh@efga.org  
     http://www.efga.org/            run PGP 5.0 for my public key