Snail Mail As E-Mail 309
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:3, Funny)
When a paper-shredder escapes, it doesn't chew through everything soft in your entire house...
Stephen King (Score:3, Funny)
No, of course not. It sneaks up on you while you're asleep, looking for warm blood... That sounds like a Stephen King plot. The shredder is loose. Is it in the closet? Is it in the bathroom? Oh no! RUN! RUN!
Title: Shredder Moon
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Interesting)
Honest
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm a level seven vegan: I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:2)
What I usually do is throw the confetti away in several different waste baskets. If you're really paranoid, you can bring half of it to work and throw it away there, too.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
A close-to minimum-wage labor-intensive job opening your mail and scanning it. What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I agree about the electronic issues (i.e. email not being secure) but your snail mail passes through MANY hands and has far more opportunities to be physically stolen or opened. It even sits right there out in the open in your mailbox for several hours.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:2)
Which is:
what it costs [planetwide.net] -- Monthly fee: AU$26.95, plus postage etc
Nothing for a business, but significant on a personal basis.
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:2)
Re:Stop identity theft? (Score:3, Insightful)
I use a similar service already (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:3, Informative)
I get an electronic bill from most of the companies I do business with, but they also mail me a paper bill.
We have online bill paying, you know. And online banking. We've had this for years now. Few people still use checks (replaced by debit and credit cards) but they can still be extremely convenient when you want to pay someone who doesn't have a debit card machine (or don't want to pa
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:2, Interesting)
English is an old, language built up from many tongues based around Saxon roots with some latin, french and celtic thrown in for good measure.
The US spellings are gradually stripping away the "frenchness" from the language in an attempt to further anglicise the tongue. I for one am proud of the mongrel language we have and think that attempts to "purify it" are akin to la
American English... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I use a similar service already (Score:3, Interesting)
Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Privacy (Score:2)
I'd just hope they scan it before they read it (icky results).
E-Bills. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:E-Bills. . . (Score:2)
With a bill presentment service you can pay everything from a single site using a single consistent interface and login. I've been using PayTrust [paytrust.com] for about a year now and I couldn't live without it.
Re:E-Bills. . . (Score:2)
Re:E-Bills. . . (Score:2)
Naturally it all depends on how many bills you get and how often you travel, I suppose.
Re:E-Bills. . . (Score:2)
I just have my bank create a bill payment option for each of my credit cards, my electricity bill and also for settling debts with my roommates - then on *their* banking application i just click bill payment and choose the amount.
Of course you can get one better with direct debit whereby i authorize my cellphone and satelite providers just to take their funds straight from my account.
Unlike my (limited) experience in the USA, this actually works out cheaper. I get a GBP2 discou
Re:E-Bills. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
So you get the mail immediately wherever you are and have Internet access but also get the physical stuff a few days later if you really want it.
At least that's how I understand the product site.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Post offices in Belgium (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Post offices in Belgium (Score:2)
Aren't they called "dead" people?
Why would a corpse be interested in receiving email? or snail mail for that matter?
Re:Post offices in Belgium (Score:2)
Re:Post offices in Belgium (Score:2)
--jeff++
Re:Post offices in Belgium (Score:2)
But there is no sender-pays infrastructure in place in the e-mail system.
Once that has been built, it would not only be possible to implement this kind of service, but it would also be the solution for the spam problem.
Of course, the sender would get some information about the
what about coupons (Score:2, Funny)
Re:what about coupons (Score:2)
Coupons, that's easy. What about AOL CD's?
Security? (Score:2, Interesting)
Aside from a few (not yet online) bills, the only physical correspondence I receive are things I value for their very physicality -- personal letters, packages, magazines.
I also get junk mail. But as it is seldom addressed specifically to me, I wouldn't think this service would have much of an impact on that... Automated junk mail to spam converter, anyone?
UK did it first (Score:3, Informative)
Re:UK did it first (Score:2)
I dont know about you but I always leave for work before the post arrives... it would be cool to get a scan of them in the email while i am at the office.
Scanning _and_ forwarding (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Scanning _and_ forwarding (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean, like a PO Box? They have been providing that sort of service for a long time. My friend has had the same mailbox rental for 3 years, all the while he's lived in 4 different places.
Re:Scanning _and_ forwarding (Score:2)
remailemail.com (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait...
Re:remailemail.com (Score:2)
Tax returns and ATM cards (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:Tax returns and ATM cards (Score:2)
Or you could just give the bank your *real* address.
I Became an Oracle Master w/a Giant Faxed BankCard (Score:3, Funny)
Are you mad? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Are you mad? (Score:2, Funny)
No.
Re:Are you mad? (Score:2)
sadly, for the normal user it is equally impossible to encrypt mail as it is to not throw away things with your ssn on.
Subscription (Score:5, Funny)
Rus
How would this work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Digital business and personal mail (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Digital business and personal mail (Score:2)
USPS approach to E-mail (Score:5, Informative)
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. . . (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
Oh dear (Score:4, Funny)
Some people I know would be more than happy receiving white powder in the mail.
I don't know where to start... (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is October 1st in Australia like our April 1st? (Score:2)
Re:Is October 1st in Australia like our April 1st? (Score:2)
Lot's of different sorts of people travel a lot and I suspect only a fraction of them could afford a full-time personal assistant - and they are going to be travelling with them so how exa
Stupid (Score:2)
Well, I can see one benefit... (Score:3, Funny)
Stops identity theft? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Stops identity theft? (Score:2)
Top 5 Mail you'll never receive this way (Score:5, Funny)
4) Beer of the Month Club selection
3) Oh...look - shiny!
2) Cookies? What cookies?
1) Congratulations! You're the Publisher's Clearinghouse winner!
Email as snail mail? (Score:2, Funny)
Just Fine (Score:2)
What would do it for me is if the scanner companies brought out cheap, multi-sheet feeder scanners.
Re:Just Fine (Score:2)
stop?? more like another avenue for ID theft (Score:2)
Hmm I wonder how much it would take for me to bribe the people there to get personal info from the documents, couple of hundred AUS$ a month??
Small digital camera, or pencil and paper, or perhaps one of those spectacle camera's I keep getted spammed about is all it will take.
I wonder sort of security precautions these people take, you are after all giving them quite a level of trust with your presonal info.
Good Idea but... (Score:2)
This is one area where the US is behind, far behind.
The concept of Snail Mail bills and account info is painfully outdated. I'm sure some crypto-geek expert could come up with a way that these folks could just E-mail me my data and be safe about it!
No Thanks: If They Scan It, They Can Read It (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:No Thanks: If They Scan It, They Can Read It (Score:2)
And yeah, if you're in the UK obviously you'd be stupid to redirect all your mail to Australia, which is why they specifically say that their service is only available for Australia...
As for security, of course they can read it. If they do, and do something with the information, they would quickly go out of business - wait a
New Zealand Post does something similar (Score:2, Interesting)
As a service, New Zealand Post [nzpost.co.nz], the major National Postal service will scan all your mail, collate and archive the Paper and deliver only the electronic version (PDF, TIFF) to you by email or CD every day. They can intercept mail that meets specific criteria (Forms, etc).
Less paper actually makes it to your office
europeans get US credit cards; USPS good candidate (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds a lot like an old idea... (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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! (Score:3, Funny)
Anthrax in the mail (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
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/2d
http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/49/496.html
Re:The real question! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The real question! (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of all the spam you get...
and picture getting that in your REAL mailbox...
and sorting through that for your bills and such...
**shudder**
Re:The real question! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:this is dandy but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:this is dandy but.. (Score:3, Interesting)
That depends on your existing postal service, of course, and whether you're sending internationally or not. In the UK, standard first-class mail is - normally - delivered the next day and costs 28p (42 cents) for an envelope of quite a few normal-weight sheets of paper. Such a service wouldn't find a market here.
As a replacement for air mail, however, it has much greater potential. Delivery from the UK to the US can be up to two weeks - with a service like this there would be no correlation between distanc
Re:this is dandy but.. (Score:2)
Not really; it has no advantage over faxes, except for personal mail, to friends or family who don't have email or faxes, and for that sending a real handwritten letter is usually more appreciated than a printout.
just what I need (Score:2)
Re:prevent identity theft? blah (Score:2)
Re:explain again why this is a value add?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You have got to be kidding!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:virusses (Score:2)