Reading Your Postal Mail Online 173
An anonymous reader writes "Remote Control Mail gives us one more reason not to leave our computers. Their service lets you access your postal mail on the Web. They offer scanning of mail contents, shredding, recycling and shipping. There's a good writeup on Techcrunch, complete with a CAD animation showing some robotics technology (Flash Movie) that RCM is developing to automate mail handling. The service costs $25 to get started and $20 a month for individuals." Now if we could only reply the same way.
Doubleplusgood! (Score:5, Insightful)
Snail mail is the ONLY private form of communications we have left.
Does anybody have tinfoil hat instructions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does anybody have tinfoil hat instructions (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, the instructions are simple: Don't sign up.
Are you really hurting that much for Karma that you have to pander to the tinfoil hat crowd?
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
-dave
Re:Does anybody have tinfoil hat instructions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:5, Insightful)
Until of course someone steals your mail, reads through it all, and steals your identity. But hey, at least it keeps the crystal meth users [msn.com] busy. If someone wants to steal your mail, they'll find a way.
Also, Doubleplusgood? How do you equate the police of the Ministry of Love reading messages specifically looking for "crimes" against Big Brother, with automated document scanning by a private company that you hire? There are plenty of times when 1984 references are on target, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.....
And why did I want this ? (Score:5, Insightful)
More seriously, I can see that this might appeal to people who travel a lot, but for everyone else ?
Other variations have been around a while. (Score:3, Insightful)
This sort of service-economy stuff is popping up in lots of little corners. If you're an office-less operation (say, a consulting group that work from the road or from your home[s]), it's pretty appealing. But yes, you've got to really trust all the players. But it does (gaa!) help you to "concentrate on your core competancies," assuming that dealing with the physical paperwork of billpaying isn't one of them.
Re:Doubleplusgood! (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless you are deemed "suspicious." It's a Brave New World.
KFG
Missing the Point (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course for things like junk mail I'd much prefer it not be sent at all, but I'm happy to take the junk if it means being able to hold an occasional letter from an old friend or family member. To read it scanned on a screen would seem so wrong.
It's the privacy problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent (Score:2, Insightful)
Brave new world my ass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Want to be really scared? Go re-read Huxley's book and realize that the world he describes would be quite welcomed by a majority in many countries today.
"Brave New World" has lost its shock factor, and "1984" isn't nearly paranoid or intrusive enough.