Snail Mail As E-Mail

techcon writes "An Australian startup Planetwide has launched an interesting product called Scan Me. The idea is simple, you redirect your snail mail to them and they scan your physical mail and email it all to you as a text searchable PDF. Targeted at the world wide traveller, it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft and getting nasty white powder in the mail."

Stop identity theft?

How would this stop identity theft. Unless you use TLS/SSL email is less secure than snail mail -- its not traveling across bare network wires.

Re:Stop identity theft?

If you are really worried about people reading your discarded mail, you would do better getting a paper shredder.

A decent shredder with two sets of blades will reduce your bills to the size of punched card chads. For extra points, mix it with vegetable scraps and put it into your compost bin. Or reduce it to paper pulp by mixing with water, and boiling it for a few minutes :-).

Re:Stop identity theft?

Or even just buy a hamster.

Really, I'm always amazed how fast hamsters and the like can chew through a stack of papers. Not to mention, they're also cheaper than an actual shredder. Cute too.

Re:Stop identity theft?

Don't stop there. Put bleech in the pulp then set the pulp in wire mesh squares and leave it out to dry and you'll have good home made recycled paper.

Honest

Re:Stop identity theft?

My thoughts exactly. This company is asking for a whole lot of attention from black-hat crackers. Instead of one bank statement, they can get thousands.

Also, reading it in some internet cafe in Beijing will probably leave it in the temp directory. I really don't think this is a good idea.

Re:Stop identity theft?

I'm a WebFlix subscriber and I know of at least three discs that have been stolen on the way to me in the last six months. Worse still, my mail has been stolen from downstairs several times and used for identity theft. Any loser can press a buzzer, walk into your lobby and grab the mail but it takes much more skill to hack a decently secured server.

I know the guys/girls who are doing this and he's a maverick on the security front so I'd trust his servers any day over snail mail.

The other services are bloody handy for travellers too. They can keep scans of your travel documents available should the worst happen. That's gotta be worth the price of admission.

Re:Stop identity theft?

Yes but do you have proof about your discs getting stolen in the mail? Probably not. Your mail getting stolen from your building, well, that's a different story. First off, tampering and stealing mail is punishable by law. Intercepting e-mail probably is too, but it's MUCH more likely to happen without you knowing then your mail getting swiped.

My mail is curb delivered, yet I feel more comfortable getting stuff there then I do having this scan deal done. Sure there's a possibility of it getting picked up out of the box, but we usually have someone home and as soon as it gets there, my wife gets it. Never had a problem yet with it getting swiped but the first time I did I can put a mail box in that will let the mail man in and keep everyone else out. They have mailboxes that let the mail man open it once and then when he closes it, it locks. THere are also ways to work with your local post office on securing youe mail. You can have a lock on it if you can manage to set it up with your post master. In any case, I don't feel comfortable letting some mailroom dude scan my mail because he has to open it first. I don't care if the POPE is running the company, I still don't trust it.

As far as scanned travel documents go, I can set that up myself and there are almost always computers near locations you may need these papers.

Re:Stop identity theft?

I'm also not seeing how this could stop identity theft. If you use this program, aren't you putting your mail in front of the eyeballs of the person that's scanning them?

I use a similar service already

I have been using a similar service from PayTrust [paytrust.com] for about a year now. Their focus is on bills, which is really the only mail I receive that I want to ensure I handle in a timely manner. I travel quite a bit for work and find it invaluable to be able to receive and pay my bills while on the road.

When a new bill arrives, I get an email and I can view the scan of the bill online through the paytrust website. I can pay the bill automatically, if I choose, by establishing per-payee rules (always pay bill [foo] as long as it is under [y] dollars) and that sort of thing.

At the end of the year they send me a CD-ROM that contains all that year's bills and payments for my archives, allowing me to store everything in a much more space efficient way than I'd have with paper files.

It's a great service, although I don't know that I would find much benefit if they started handling all my mail and not just my bills. Mail I get is either bills, junk, or physical things which I wouldn't want in scanned form.

Re:I use a similar service already

The banks in Norway has been doing this for year already. With no or low cost, and no paper; the bills are electronic. Combinded with their really good Internet banking services I no longer go to the bank, have to check any of the regular bills and so on. And because of almost 100% "visa" card coverage I don't use cash any longer. I can even buy the bus ticket using a credit or debit card.

I wonder why people in other countries has to still use checks, bills and etc. I haven't seen a checkbook in Norway for about 10-15 years.

My sister lives in San Francisco, and boy do the US need to get into the modern age when it comes to banking and payment.

Re:I use a similar service already

Why use a checkbook? float.

If you're a small business, a few days of float can make a big difference. You know that you'll have $foo days (3 = $foo = 7) between when you put that check in the mail or a suppliers hands and when it clears. This allows you to "pay" your bill, knowing you won't get the cash until tomorrow or the day after. You're getting 0% interest short term loans with virtually no hassle.

Small businesses like checkbooks. It allows them to pay their bills "late". Many a small business need this float to stay above boards, if only from time to time.

Privacy

I don't like the idea of someone reading my personal snail mail. I'm sure they get a laugh out of finding out "Mr Jones" subscribes to Busty Babes monthly etc.

E-Bills. . .

Don't most services that require bills offer some type of electronic payments? Wouldn't scanning your bills just be more work than going to their website and paying it that way?

Hmmm...

Doesn't sound so great to me. A lot of things that come in the mail are sent that way *because* they have to reach you physically - a new credit card, etc.

Re:this is dandy but..

what i really need is the other way around. I send them the email, they print it out and snail mail it for me

CompuServe was offering that service back in 1989. You could send an "e-mail" to a physical address. They would print it out at their office closest to the final destination and stick it in the mail.

It cost something like $1.25 for the first 8x11 sheet and $.15 for each sheet after that.

I remember trying this out and having e-letters delivered from Orlando, FL to places like Kalamazoo, MI and Seattle, WA in 2 days.

I still think this would be a good idea.

UK did it first

UK Royal Mail has offered this as a service for some years now.

Scanning _and_ forwarding

The summary doesn't mention it, but not only do they scan everything you get, they forward it to you once you're somewhere you can receive it, so you still have the paper originals. And for those who are paranoid about having confidential documents sent via E-mail, they let you cut the scanning step out and just treat it as an ordinary forwarding address.

It doesn't say anything about whether they're offering this to people outside of Australia, but it's certainly interesting for those of us who move frequently. I wonder if this will start a "permanent postal address hosting" service genre like Hotmail did with E-mail.

remailemail.com

This service [remailemail.com] lets you send an email, and have it converted to a snail mail letter and sent to someone. So if you combined the two services, you could send an email which would be converted to snail mail, then the recipient could convert the snail mail to an email that they could read from any computer in the world.

Oh wait...

Tax returns and ATM cards

Oh yeah, cant wait to get my tax return check in PDF. Try explaining that one to the bank teller

Or better yet how about my ATM/Credit card?

Do you take plastic?
VISA, MasterCard, Discover and Amex
Great -- Hands over printed card

Awkward Pause (tm)

Yeah, I had to print it since it came in my email...
...Honest!

Are you mad?

Targeted at the worldwide traveler, it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft

Are you mad? You mean having someone else read your mail and then send it in a searchable format over the Internet is a good way to prevent identity theft? Is today opposite day?

Subscription

I don't want them forwarding me a scan of my monthly Playboy. Hmm on second thoughts :)

Rus

How would this work?

Hrm, it seems to me that such a system would only work for 'normal/average' snail mails. Letters, etc. I wouldn't want stuff like bank PIN codes, important work information, etc going there. Or mails where they actually provide you with something physically useful in the letter, such as a return envelope.

Digital business and personal mail

I'm sure there are many (especially here!) that celebrate the movement away from physical communications. Sure, it saves paper, it's faster (especially when compared to the slightly derogatory "snail mail", it's portable, etc. But let me wax a little sentimental here...

There's just a little something that you get from actual mail, especially hand-written mail. True, it's terribly archaic, but when you're far, far away, a letter is one of the nicest things to receive someone willing to spend a buck and some time. Maybe it's just the amount of time invested in handwriting, or the lack thereof when typing an email, but the physical presence of personal mail is something people should not, in my opinion, be so eager to discard.

That being said, business mail, provided it is sent via secure trasnmissions, seems perfectly suited for movement towards digitalization. The businesses themselves, though, should take more initiative to move themselves away from the massive and expensive paper usages and try billing electronically. I can only imagine the vast amounts of paper used by banks every month for high-speed printed glossy credit card applications.

USPS approach to E-mail

From the article:

• It's worth noting, perhaps, that in the early days of the Internet, it was proposed that the U. S. Post Office manage e-mail. Electronic messages would come to your local post office and then be delivered to you along with the regular mail. The proposal was not considered for very long.

No, not only was it considered, it was actually implemented and deployed. It was called E-COM [stampsjoann.net], and it operated from 1982 to 1985.

And it was really dumb.

The USPS put in a system with a mainframe computer and "high-speed" printers in major regional post offices. Mailers could submit mail jobs as IBM remote job entry jobs over dedicated SNA links. The interface was so one-way that error messages came back as paper mail a day or two later.

E-COM was for first class mail, sent in bulk. You had to send at least 200 letters to a single regional post office in a day, so it was useless for general business mail. It cost as much as first class mail, so it was useless for advertising. Mailers couldn't have a return envelope included, so it was useless for bills. Western Union did establish an extra-cost consolidation and routing service, so you sent your mail to them and they routed the messages and batched up jobs for the USPS. But few people signed up.

Great, so now I can find out what a pdf of. . .

an AOL disk looks like.

KFG

Oh dear

it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft and getting nasty white powder in the mail.

Some people I know would be more than happy receiving white powder in the mail.

I don't know where to start...

Wow. In the United States there are federal laws protecting both the content and *addresses* for all mail sent through the US Postal Service. If Big Brother wants to watch you there are oversight requirements (ie. the watcher must be watched) for the simple act of scanning the addresses on an envleope. The requirements are more stringent if BB wants to actually open your letter and read its contents. I don't remember off hand at what point it takes a Judge to sign off on it, I'd have to look it up.

If you're using this "Scan Me" service, however, they can intercept your mail once it leaves US Postal Service channels with much lower levels of scrutiny - they'd just need to walk up and ask the nice people at Planetwide to do their civic duty. In fact, if Carnivore is still running (and I'm paranoid enough to believe it might be) then they wouldn't need to contact the Planetwide staff at all. The Feds could just go to Planetwide's ISP and monitor the traffic, reading the information unencrypted as it flies by on the 'Net.

The ACLU can't protect your civil liberties if you are asking third parties to copy all of your private correspondence into the electronic equivalent of postcards. No, scratch that, postcards are still covered by the same Federal laws as normal (sealed) mail. This is copying to postacrds and re-routing through a network of untrusted private couriers. =[

Is October 1st in Australia like our April 1st?

it also looks like a good way to ....

Yea, like this is really going to work. And how much is it going to cost me to have them forward each rebate check I get, not to mention what it cost for them to scan it in the first place? Think spam was expensive before? Wait until you pay for scanning all the junk mail that you get in snail mail, or all the crap packed in with your bills. Say goodbye to ever getting a magazine subscription. No free samples in the mail any more, and no cookies from Mom at Christmas time. And I'm paying for this why? Because I fear identity theft? So that then they can e-mail my private mail to me as clear text? So that an unknown number of people at that company I know nothing about all see all of my mail?

Face it, the always-on-the-go world traveler who just might (but I think it unlikely) get anything out of this has other means to deal with it: a personal assistant, express shipments that can catch up to the next hotel he will be at, faxes for some documents, he doesn't need an outside company poking through his business. The average smuck (like most of us) wants that mail, and knows that some of it needs to be dealt with on a timely basis (If someone sends me tickets, for example, I want them before the event, not a week after), and that some of it will get "lost" if an outside company is opening it and going through it.

Bad idea. Oh, also, the company will be out of business in six months.

Well, I can see one benefit...

My mom could finally send me a completely fat-free chocolate bunny for Easter! ;)

Stops identity theft?

Sounds dumb. In the U.K., nearly everyone has a letterbox (mail slot) in the front door (or similar place) - once the mail is delivered it's as secure as anything else in the house. Here in Oz, we have the (IMHO) lazier mail box by the road system. My solution to identity theft - a bloody great brick mailbox with a padlock on its door. It might not stop the determined thief (what would?) but I'd have a pretty big clue if the thing is broken into.

Besides which, the scan process still has to send to the originals to you somewhere - if that place is secure why not send the stuff there in the first place. When I'm overseas I far prefer to have the relatives open anything questionable/official and advise me/handle it themselves.

Top 5 Mail you'll never receive this way

5) Columbia House CD of the Month Club selection
4) Beer of the Month Club selection
3) Oh...look - shiny!
2) Cookies? What cookies?
1) Congratulations! You're the Publisher's Clearinghouse winner!

No Thanks: If They Scan It, They Can Read It

What security? If they scan my mail, they have to open it. If they open it, they can read it. Why should I trust these folks?

And what about all those times when the recipient really needs hardcopy, not email.

Besides, if I'm in, say, the UK, how long is it going to take for my mail to get to Australia?

europeans get US credit cards; USPS good candidate

Could this be a way for europeans to get US credit cards (if a service was used in the US like this Australian one)? I know a lot of mac users wish they had a US Credit card to use iTunes, among other things. Also, the USPS seems to be hurting due to electronic mail. What if they offered a service like this for a premium. They surely would have some takers. And they would just need to buy some big automated scanners and a bit of online infrastructure. Sounds like they would be the best candidates for the job seeming they are the hub. Reduce ID theft en route that way.

Sounds a lot like an old idea...

Back in WWII the Allies used a system call Victory Mail, or V-MAIL, [si.edu]. You would write your message on a postcard that was microfilmed, shipped to the destination, and printed out.

They could pack hundreds of times more V-mail in a container than standard post. When just about every ship crossing the sea was needed for the war effort, this was a Good Thing.

A slight change solves email security issue

Instead of emailing the scanned PDF, they should send you notification that a new document is available via email, and make you sign in to their server using https (or maybe require a client-side certificate) to retrieve it. Problem solved.

This is great!

I've been looking for a way to outsource my anthrax problem. Now I've found it!

Anthrax in the mail

"it also looks like a good way to help prevent identity theft and getting nasty white powder in the mail."

Are we really so blinded by fear in this country that Joe American is afraid he'll be targeted with an envelope of anthrax? Jeez!

the military did similar

V-Mail

In order to conserve cargo space/weight, England
and the US military used "V-Mail" for letter
communication between soldiers and their families
during World War II.
There was a specified V-Mail form that letters
were to be written on. The form would get copied
onto microfilm, and it was the microfilm that was
sent overseas (not the paper form). When it reached the end point, it
was blown back up into letter form and delivered
to the recipient.

Some info here:
http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2d2 a_vmail .html
http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/49/496.html

Re:The real question!

I don't now about you, but my version of Adobe Acrobat Reader has this newfangled "print" feature.

Re:The real question!

Actually, it looks like you can. From the article [planetwide.net]:

Your mail items are stored in secure storage facilities...You can contact us as often or as little as you like. We will forward the originals to your address.

They'll probably charge you postage though. However, as somebody else mentioned, you can always just print the mail from your computer.

Re:You have got to be kidding!!!

Presumably a company making a living of this will be careful about who they hire. So the reduction in risk of identity theft would be from having a small set of strangers who rely on their customers trust to make money open your mail instead of some strangers who happen to be a criminal intent on stealing everything you've got going on a rampage through your mailbox every now and again.