Anthrax To Kill Snail Mail 522
omnirealm writes "Steven Levy over at NBC expressed his opinion that the new anthrax thread in our snail-mail is going to be a major catalyst to a general switch to e-mail as the primary means of written communication."
er... no... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not exactly afraid of getting Anthrax in the mail.
- A.P.
Re:Anthrax-laced mail to hit M$ ? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Anthrax-laced mail to hit M$ ? (Score:2)
Wonder what the fourth test will show?
What about representatives (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about representatives (Score:2)
your reps are all spammed out (Score:4, Insightful)
uh, no.
Simply put the reps are all spammed out. Every single interest group in the country country can send thousands of email to a rep, complete with slightly varied names and subject lines, and content. It is a trivial programing problem to generate sentences and paragraphs out of a database with calibration for education level and other demographics. Any programmer competent in databases could set something like this up.
So the only way reps can verify that the input is legit is if it is postmarked from their district, hand written, etc.
You think you get Junk Mail? multiply what you get by a factor of a thousand or two for snail mail, especially if you live in an important district.
So the odds of them actually reading email are slim and none. Think of them being under a continous DDOS attack for the past 5+ years, if not more. They probably pick out one out of every 100 or 200 or so at random, and use that as a sample of what they get
you're more likely to die (Score:5, Informative)
Re:you're more likely to die (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I still use real letters for the personal touch, and I love to recieve a really nice letter from someone I don't see very often. There's jst something special about a letter, its something people take time over and put a bit of effort into. Emails are just too easy, people reel them off all the time!
Re:you're more likely to die (Score:5, Insightful)
I have argued that disasterous bioterrorism is truly prohibitive. This current attack is not very effective at causing large numbers of deaths BUT it is bisible and makes people very nervous. If they wanted to kill people, explosives would be much better weapons, but that is not their goal. Instead it is to intimidate many people and make them FEAR death. And to this end, this little stunt may be very infected indeed. This is why lovebug, et. al. have not caused people to switch from Outlook, but this scare might impact the USPS-- the fear is not purportionate to the risk (I still consider using Outlook to be a bigger risk than snail mail).
But although email is already my primary means of written communication, there are some times when it is not as good as an old-fassioned letter. So I am not terribly concerned except to consider snailmail to be as dangerious as email...
Re:you're more likely to die (Score:5, Insightful)
My last question is why was this article posted to begin with?
Re:you're more likely to die (Score:4, Funny)
Re:you're more likely to die (Score:5, Funny)
See you later. Thanks.
Hmm.... (Score:2, Funny)
Scott
Re:Hmm.... (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.thilmony.com/duh/duh.jpg
I would email it to you, but I don't have your email address. Should I print it and snail mail it to you?
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
http://home.jam.rr.com/netadmin/duh2.html [rr.com]
What is an "Anthrax thread"? (Score:2)
Re:What is an "Anthrax thread"? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is an "Anthrax thread"? (Score:2)
Re:What is an "Anthrax thread"? (Score:5, Informative)
To defend against this:
Actualy considering the threat from natural stuff like hepitius-B Aids, and even cold-flu viruses, these proceedures may actualy save lost time expenses from natural illnesses too.
Personaly I consider that mail to people in your distribution channel to be at higher risk than other employees, because they handle thing that are in turn redistributed to others. Given the long incubation times between contact and symptoms for most things, a problem here would spread long before any one would know there is a problem. Its not that hard to get your janitor to put disinfectants in his cleaning solutions, use vacuumes with HEPA filtrations ect.
I'm a dental technician now and we have to recieve bio-hazardous material routinely and follow the osha standards at work, the result is I always catch my cold from the wife and kids first! this stuff works. If your org expereinces a lot of absenteeism due to illness, infection control training may actualy be profitable due to reduced absentee expenses
As Norm MacDonald used to say... (Score:3, Funny)
Could be a good thing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Most government officials would likely right this off as paranoia, and unnecessary because *nobody* would EVER want to wiretap its citizens and steal their credit card information.
Re:Could be a good thing. (Score:2)
I never really thought about it, but imagine a business sending a package and printing out a barcode to digitally sign the package with an MD5 of the source and destination addresses. Then when the post office recieves the package, a laser scan of the barcode and visual inspection of the sending and destination address will allow them to accept or reject packages.
Hell, I think they should already reject packages that have way too much postage and weren't dropped off at a post office, especially those without a return address.
Re:Could be a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
What about authentication? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about authentication? (Score:2)
I thought this was supposed to happen years ago .. (Score:4, Insightful)
People forget that snail mail is still very important to having an effective communications, as in many cases it can't be beat. The quickest way to get something physical from one place to another (barring courier services) is by mail. To say that the USPS is dead because no one will want to mail stuff is not only premature and unrealistic, but also quite sensationalistic. In most cases, this one especially you can tell when someone is making stuff up to make the headlines rather than writing stuff that actually makes good sense. Having read this article, it makes very little sense at all. As much as I use computers/email, I for one would be majorly pissed if one day I found mail service was no longer there.
People say time and time again the mail is dead. But just look
Re:I thought this was supposed to happen years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't *choose* what medium communications *TO* you take. If I get a CC bill in the mail, I mail a check. If I get a phonecall, I return the call. if I get an email I send an email. You can only choose the medium of conversations you initiate :) So the only way sending e-mail instead of snail mail is going to reduce your risk of getting anthrax is if you are the person mailing antrax to people :)
The only thing that could help would be for potential victims (companies apparently) to declare they only will accept email.
Re:I thought this was supposed to happen years ago (Score:2)
I get bills in the mail, and pay them electronically. If the vendor does not support electronic transfer, my bank takes care of the check-printing and mailing for me, without my knowledge.
I get phone messages at work. (a nice button on my phone keeps it from ringing about 80% of the time.) I return those messages via email.
So when you say you return correspondence in the way initiated, I say you don't have to.
I certainly don't!
Re:I thought this was supposed to happen years ago (Score:2)
Now if I could find an easy way to get that darn mailing label off the back of them.
With all the talk of a new police state..... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is pretty damn scary that they can ignore something like this for as long as they did.
FBI did not test suspect NBC package for 2 weeks
NEW YORK: The FBI failed to test the suspicious powder sent to an NBC employee in New York for two weeks and it was a private doctor who raised the alarm over the new case of anthrax, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The report said that the FBI was notified about the powder on September 25, picked it up a day later but did not do any laboratory tests on the powder or take skin samples from the NBC employee who handled the package.
The report said that it was only after the NBC staffer - identified as 38-year-old Erin O' Connor - developed a sore on her chest, visited several doctors and was diagnosed with skin anthrax that the powder was tested.
The powder was eventually found to be negative. New York FBI chief Barry Mawn said that it was "unfortunate" the tests were not conducted immediately. Mawn said that the FBI had investigated dozens of suspicious substances since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Unfortunate, yes but for the first few days that this was coming up they really tried to downplay it like it was not going on. On 'Politically Incorrect' a replublican strategist said they were thinking of suing CNN for falsly creating a Anthrax scare.
Doesnt look false to me.
Re:With all the talk of a new police state..... (Score:2)
Yes, 2 weeks is a long time, but The Sun employee who died in Florida was the wake up call that made everyone start looking for Anthrax in the mail. That was last weekend when he died.
Hysteria (Score:2, Interesting)
So far, we have reports of three letters supposedly laced with Anthrax. One death has resulted, and no more deaths seem likely. These are hardly numbers warranting an end to snail mail.
The news media seriously needs to stop trying to incite hysteria in the American public.
Snail mail won't be entirely lost (Score:2, Insightful)
Great... (Score:2, Funny)
Great. I'm looking forward to a whole Inbox full of "I send you this anthrax to have your advice...".
Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway (Score:2)
I found a bunch of interesting and reassuring information on Heathlinkusa.com [healthlinkusa.com].
The fact is, there exists both a cure for anthrax and even a vaccine. There's an article on ABCNews [204.202.137.111] that explains how anthrax works, and that if caught early enough, it can be treated with penicillin.
My theory is that the anthrax infections we've been reading about are not the responsibility of terrorists, but just some nutcase somewhere in the country who is trying to scare the hell out of everyone, although I cannot fathom why.
Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway (Score:2)
The affects of the "vaccine" are debatable, I know people who left the military (dishonorable discharge) over not taking an antrax vaccine. It also involves a series of shots over several weeks followed by a shot every year to keep the toxins up in your body. Cure worse than disease?
Anthrax is anthrax, if you happen to breath it you die.
You won't really know you have it until your dead.
Another intersting fact that should bother everyone here some... The case of inhaled anthrax is the first documented case of anthrax in the last 25 YEARS
Not just here, anywhere. Of course now everyone will be looking for it so cutaneous may get identified more readily but still... 25 years and not one inhaled case and all of this sudden three cases in two completely different geographical regions?
A letter sent to microsoft with Anthrax?
No I doubt anyones gonna send me anthrax, and no im not worried about anyone using anthrax to kill people
Anthrax is now popularized in the media, there are scarier things out there than anthrax.
Jeremy
Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
The vaccine is currently reserved for US Military personnel. The company that produces it isn't even capable of meeting the military's needs. Plus, there are a lot of fears about the side effects; some people think it's at least partially responsible for Gulf War Syndrome.
Pulmonary Anthrax can be treated with antibiotics up to a point. After serious symptoms develop, antibiotics aren't particularly effective. Treating the disease requires knowing that you've been exposed (or may have been exposed), then getting medicated ASAP. In a serious attack, there's no guarantee that these things could happen quickly enough to avoid a good number of deaths.
My theory is that the anthrax infections we've been reading about are not the responsibility of terrorists, but just some nutcase somewhere in the country who is trying to scare the hell out of everyone
It's a good theory. But it's still scary to think that there's somebody in the country who's a) got Anthrax, and b) is willing to use it on innocent people. It's not a huge step from there to releasing it in a public place. At this point, our best hope is that they don't have a good mix of the stuff.
Re:Anthrax: Not really a good weapon anyway (Score:3, Informative)
Inhaled or ingested anthrax is not pretty or very treatable. However, if contracted through the skin, it is relatively easy to treat.
The thing is it is not very contagious. Therefore, it is not the "good weapon" that you speak of because the target area is so small. How many unsuccessful attempts to infect people with Anthrax were there that we don't know about? Probably a very large number.
However, it is not destruction or death but fear that these people want to provoke. Anthrax IS a good tool for that because it is a boogey-man.
Yeah, whatever (Score:2)
This is one of the more extreme examples of ridiculous predictions over how life will change in the US after 9/11. The tons of reasons people have used actual written/printed communication in the past continue to exist, and will not easily be supplanted by *anything* electronic. (Think about all the documents we use that require witness signatures or notarizing and then are kept in archives for decades.)
In other words, this article is just one big troll.
Someone will come up with a snail mail virus scann (Score:5, Funny)
... where we've been used to virus-mail for ages.. (Score:2)
Where do I get one? (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, where did you get the threading snail-mail client?
How crazy is this? (Score:2, Insightful)
This suggestion reminds me of the panic surrounding the unibomber. People were afraid to send and receive packages, although millions of packages were sent through the FedEx, UPS and the mail every day.
It is upsetting that mail is something we can't implicitly trust after the events of the last week, but it is an extremely useful and, I think, necessary tool. Air travel is still quite safe and I expect to continue to fly when I need to without much thought of what if...
I refuse to live my life worried every minute about what might happen.
Re:How crazy is this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone targets airplanes, and people stop flying. Someone targets mail, and people stop using mail. Is this kind of a response reasonable? There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions which are not necessarily effective, and the economic effects of wholesale eschewment of mail and air travel are pretty widespread.
Yet in other areas people are so incredibly complacent. People will put off travel despite an impossibly remote possibility of being a victim of travel, but they'll happily hop on the local highway without regard for hundreds of 20,000lb transports hurtling down the road at 75mph all around them, any of which could crush them to death in the slightest instant if the driver just flicked the steering wheel the tiniest bit. 41,611 [dot.gov] people were killed in automobile accidents alone in 1999 on US roads. 430,700 people died per year between 1990 and 1994 [cdc.gov] from cigarette smoking alone. It's quite stunning really the fear that the media can drum up when we come to live with enormously costly things like the millions that die every year because of voluntarily choosing to eat Big Macs and other high saturated fat foods.
I'm not saying that dying at the hand to terrorists is comparable to voluntarily undertaken risks, but it does seem that some things are being grossly overstated, such as the risks of anthrax.
Re:How crazy is this? (Score:2)
The implications of what your are saying, if there are any implications, is that people shouldn't worry about anthrax until more than 41,611 people are infected per year. Reasonable people do not look at risk this way.
People typically make a rough risk/reward calculation when they take an action. The benefits of driving are high and the risk fairly low. If there are alternatives to using airplanes and the mail and thereby reduce the risk, however remote, the reasonable thing is to use them.
In addition, the perceived risks of driving and terrorism are not comparable. Drivers can take reasonable precautions to reduce their risk such as obeying traffic laws, not drinking, keeping their car in repair, etc. There are no similar ways for prudent individuals to reduce the risk from hijacking and bioterrorism except not flying and not using mail.
So far, the level of panic resulting from the terrorist attacks and the threat of bioterrorism has been low, perhaps unexpectedly low, both in the general public and in public officials. So far, the American public should be complemented for their coolness, not mocked, with irrelevant statistics.
Re:How crazy is this? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions which are not necessarily effective...
Actually the reactions are extremely effective. Not flying completely eliminates the personal threat of hijacking. Grounding all airplanes was the completely reasonable reaction when the hijackings first occurred and people can reasonably take their cue from that act. Similarly, not using mail completely eliminates the threat of catching a horrible disease from the mail. Many large corporations x-ray parcels in their mailrooms because of the remote possibility of bombs. Until similar methods can be devised for regular mail, individuals must take whatever precautions they can.
The idea that one should increase one's risk of dying for the benefit of airline industry or the economy in general is surely one of the least helpful suggestion since Mayor Guiliani suggested everyone go shopping.
Changing one's behavior when faced with a new threat is a reasonable thing to do. Once the full extent of the threat is known and some countermeasures are in place, people may change their behavior again. The dumbest reaction would be to proceed as if nothing had happened.
Mail beats Email (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly with 1 case of transmission of anthrax by postal mail I think the whole topic is foolish and a sad attempt by a columnist to get some attention.
Re:Mail beats Email (Score:2)
These terrorists are playing on irrational fears.
What does metal music have to do with this? (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Anthrax is going to change it's name to "Basket Full Of Puppies" [washingtonpost.com]
feh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I send or respond to hundreds of emails a day, as I am sure quite a few of us do, personally I find it is the differences between email and snail mail that make it cornerstone of society.
Email lets me communicate to someone using electronic representations of words or images. Powerful stuff, certainly powerful enough to conduct business and maintain strong lines of communication with family and friends.
But snail mail allows my kids, my wife, to create something for me physically and to send it thousands of miles away for me to hold in my hands, if you ever got a perfumed letter from your woman when you have been jonesing for her for weeks, you realize why email is not a final postal solution.
Never mind that I do 60% of my shopping online and receive parcels in a timely fashion from all four corners of this country and from a couple others. Never mind that if an old acquaintance wants to contact me the odds of him finding my physical address is greater then him stumbling into my email address. Never mind that letters written by pen usually have greater value both in terms of the thought that went into them and to the appreciation of the reader.
Yeah junk mail sucks ass and needs to be addressed and destroyed. I am not saying snail mail is not silly with flaws. What I am saying is this is horseshit. We lived through the unibomber and if you are old enough you might remember that in the early seventies mail-bombs were flying around in a near epidemic. Unibomber-boy (teddy K) did not invent it. And hey look, the problem is so bad most of the kids on slash dot won't have a clue about it.
Man when bored journalists with deadlines write shitty pieces I don't get upset, I know a job is a job. But responding/reacting to it is just plain stupid.
I'm sick of this anthrax bullshit..... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that biological and chemical weapons just aren't practical. They are pretty fucking dangerous, I won't argue that. But they are very impractical as weapons of mass destruction.
For example, out of the thousands of people in the subway in tokyo where a bunch of wacko's sprayed sarin gas only 12 people were killed. 12 out of thousands. A success? I say no.
You see, first of all it takes a lot of money and people with very huge educations just to produce the stuff. Then it is incredibly hard and dangerous to transport it. You run the risk of infecting yourself.
But the real reason that we aren't going to see a whole lot of these attacks is because the payload just isn't high enough. After spending millions of dollars to produce the stuff, expending a couple chemists who died in the shitty-ass lab in afghanistan producing it you've only killed a couple people. It's much cheaper, easier and kills a lot more people to just set off a bomb in some building.
But what about just making people sick? After all there was something like 5500 people pooring into the hospitals in tokyo after the sarin gass. Well what they didn't tell you is that 90% of those people were just people who panicked because they were in the subway that day and wanted to get checked out.
And don't forget that before that incident the same terrorist group had tried to use anthrax. They sprayed the shit off a building onto a group of civilians and no one was infected by it.
I read a good article about this written by a phd in microbiology. It contains many more facts that I haven't discussed. You can read it here [villagevoice.com].
--
Garett
Interesting comments (Score:2)
But-- the threat is more dangerious than the disease. Would YOU drink the water if someone claimed to have dumped biological agents in it?
Re:I'm sick of this anthrax bullshit..... (Score:4, Informative)
The fact of the matter is that biological and chemical weapons just aren't practical.
In fact, there has already been a successful biological attack on American soil. It was carried out in 1984 by a bunch of amateurs, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who poisoned over 700 people with botulism that they spread on salad bars in Oregon.
The 9/11 terrorists have shown themselves to be resourceful, if not practical, and ruthless enough to use biological weapons. One could have once argued, with equal logic, that hijacking airliners and crashing them into skyscrapers "was just not practical".
If news reports are to be believed, the U.S. mail has already proved to be viable way of spreading two different kinds of anthrax. The only constraint of using the mail is the thousands of dollars involved in postage for a mass mailing.
It's much cheaper, easier and kills a lot more people to just set off a bomb in some building.
On a cost per thousand basis, there's nothing cheaper than biological weapons, particularly if you use a contageous one like smallpox, as the article you cite suggests at the end. The writer of that article seems to think the fact that the terrorists themselves might be at risk is a deterent.
Although there may be some technological hurdles, the payoff both in terms of casualties and creating terror is unbeatable.
If people are complacent about the threat of biological terrorism, the terrorists have already overcome their biggest obstacle.
Re:I'm sick of this anthrax bullshit..... (Score:2)
Anyway, the several reports of anthrax have caused quite a panic in Florida. Accoriding to NPR one pharmacy normally only fill 20 perscriptions of the antibiotic that is used to fight anthrax daily, and they have seen that climb to 300! Salon magazine has a decent article about the Anthrax scare.
the most important question is.. (Score:2)
What does Anthrax [anthrax.com] (the band) have to say about all this? And even more importantly, when is somebody going to sue them for mental distress after seeing their name?
(Just saw on their web site they are actually still touring! Yeesh!)
Snailmail is dying? Sounds kinda like *BSD... n/m. (Score:2)
Sorry. Please stop with the "Snailmail is dying" trolls.
It's a conspiracy!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
So when you add everything up, we'll have armed military guards in the street to "keep the peace", we'll have flying video cameras to record our every move, our phone conversations can be tapped, and now they want to force everyone to use e-mail. So it seems that the government will be able to know your every move if they want to.
It wouldn't be hard to play off a terrorist thing in order to get political power over everyone. Hitler did the same thing. Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it they say, it's just too bad most people didn't learn.
Forms of snail Mail that won't go away (Score:4, Informative)
If the day comes when the government says snail mail is going away, watch out. If you think Uncle Sam has opinions about your computer and the software you run now, wait until you see the regulations that will be imposed on email.
One thing that may happen as fallout is small business may get out of the private delivery business. The mail is now going to need to be x-rayed and electronically sniffed. Business such as a Mial Box Express or Joe's overnight delivery are not going to have money for the new array of equiptment that they will be told they must own.
The things that will work to reduce the amount of snail mail - Mail is about to become slower and less reliable. When a pathogen is discovered in the mail, any parcels that may have physically contacted it will need to be destroyed.
People are now uneasy to open a package or parcel they were not expecting. This will make it less likely for advertisements to continue to be sent via mail. Expect to see an increase in Spam, and a relaxation in laws that control it.
That's funny (Score:2)
Postal mail creates jobs
So did iceboxes. The ice men found new jobs.
packages - What's the point in all this e-commerce if nobody has anything delivered anymore?
I've had at least a dozen packages ordered online and delivered. Some used UPS, some used FedEx; none used the postal service.
Utility Bills - Until some laws are changed you must be provided with an invoice for your purchase and written notification of money owed.
I'm sure laws here vary from state to state, but I no longer legally have to get paper confirmation of every single stock trade I make, for one example, I just had to formally agree that email confirmation alone would be acceptable. There are a lot of non-utility services that are willing to go without sending you a written bill if they have a credit card number or checking account transfer information, and there are ways to pay many bills on line more manually if you feel the need to personally authorize each transaction. This is a good reason, but not a show stopper.
Taxes - Like anything done by the government, this ones going to be done the old world way for a long time.
Yeah, by people who want to do it the old world way. The IRS at least has been accepting electronic submissions on their most commonly used forms for years.
Books and periodicals - Some people (myself included) prefer to read anything of great length on paper.
Me too. But that's just an eyestrain thing with me; I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these "electronic paper" technologies being prototyped. Besides, most of my books come from a bookstore and most of my periodicals come online, nowadays.
Also there is a certain pride in owning a handsome book, admiring the cover as you put it away on a shelf, where you will never touch it again.
You have an odd sense of pride - this is really the sentence that prompted my response, as your psychology fascinates me. I have a couple untouched books on my shelves, but generally that status is a source of shame, not pride.
registered mail - any sort of mail that requires a signature is coming to you the old fashioned way. I know, there's a million technical solutions that would make this work as digital, but your written signature is an important legal tool that people will continue to hit you over the head with forever.
This you may be right about. Frankly, digital signatures are much harder to forge than the old-fashioned kind, but way too permanently stealable. Can you imagine if every instance of ILOVEYOU had installed a keyboard sniffer to grab passphrases?
Re:Forms of snail Mail that won't go away (Score:3, Informative)
Levy's remarks about e-books replacing real books eliminated what little credibility he had failed to squander with the rest of the article. E-books deserved to be ranked with "Internet appliances" and communism as ideas that look dumb on paper (or e-paper) and even dumber in practice.
Much of the same applies to mail.
The USPS cannot die! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The USPS cannot die! (Score:2)
printf ("You are right.");
}
else {
printf ("What are you talking about?");
}
// somehow I think that Congress has the power to
// determine how and when they use their
// constitutional powers...
Re:The USPS cannot die! (Score:2)
Maybe they should irridate all snailmail with gamma rays...
Of course, you'd have to slap that "irridated food" label on all fruitcakes mailed at Christmastime.
I think. Do Christmas fruitcakes count as food? Oh well, most deserve some kind of warning label anyway.
This is happening.... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm guessing the price of the stamp is going to go through the roof, however
Not the end of snailmail, the end of junkmail (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the columnist may have an argument when it comes to *unsolicited* snail mail. This may have an impact on public figures who regularly receive unsolicited mail from lots of people, but that could be a positive impact. Right now a written letter to one's Congress-critter is considered more effective than email, but maybe this unfortunate situation will make public officials consider email more legitimate now since they might be reluctant to receive "real" mail.
How come... (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, milions more are infected, and tens of people killed, from common diseases passed around the classroom!
Good. (Score:2)
Or just pass a law that says it's illegal to forge headers. That would be a start. Then I could handle spam in my own ways.
Won't be safe for long... (Score:2)
FROM: TrendMicro ScanMail Exchange Edition
RE: Re: Weather Report
Your attachment, ANTHRAX.DOC.PIF , has been intercepted by the firewall. Please contact your system administrator.
Please mention ticket number 0682090701ABS3724365.
Killing mail? What about people? (Score:2)
I just told a good friend who told me she had flu symptoms to phone the ER and see if she should go in, so I apologize if a dip in snail mail seems a bit on the trivial side at this moment.
-db
Re:Killing mail? What about people? (Score:2, Insightful)
I just told a good friend who told me she had flu symptoms to phone the ER and see if she should go in, so I apologize if a dip in snail mail seems a bit on the trivial side at this moment.
Phone the ER because of flu symptoms? Sorry, but here in Ontario people going into their local ER because they had trivial things like a common cold or a regular flue is directly responsible for thousands or tens of thousands of deaths per year (because the guy who actually does have a problem gets deferred while the person with the headache gets treated). If you are saying "Stop the mail! Someone might die!" then that is absolutely, positively, grossly ridiculous and knee-jerkish: Did you know that every consumer good you buy has a "human cost" to it? Why not ban car travel, air travel, hell human interactions in general because people might die undertaking any of those? 96 people died building the Hoover dam? Do you think about that when you turn on your computer? The Empire State Building took 5 lives directly in its construction, and countless more in the mining, smelting and rolling of the metal to build it, in the transport to get items to and from the construction site, etc.
"On a long enough timeline the survival rate for all of us is 0." Fight Club - Narrator (Jack) The human condition is one where death is part and parcel with the terroritory.
Re:Killing mail? What about people? (Score:2)
Ultimately, they didn't ask her to come in, but they didn't tell her she was ridiculous and also suggested that they would notify her if their opinion changed. I also believe you have misdiagnosed the issue; several EMTs with whom I am friendly warn of how dangerous a phony or unwarranted 911 call can be, but I've never really heard of a phone call to the emergency room costing lives, certainly not in the numbers you suggest.
Your post interests me, but I am afraid I don't quite understand the link between it and "human cost." My sole point was that in the face of something which may kill dozens or hundreds of people, a jump in the number of emails seems unimportant to me.
-db
Sheesh (Score:2, Redundant)
Scaremongering (Score:2, Flamebait)
Fact 2: One of them opened a letter.
And so suddenly it's a worldwide conspiracy by Emmanuel Goldstein^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HUsama Bin Laden and Eastasia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe Taleban. Who actually believes this shit? You might as well blame CJD on Saddam Hussein or Gulf War syndrome on the CIA. Ermm...
Fact 3: Noone in the US postal service contracted Anthrax.
The most likely explanation is that the people who got Anthrax bought some dodgy cocaine. Maybe if the
I just wish the
I am not a troll (braces for a karma plummet). It's just that the US scares me far more than a handful of middle-east extremists who
1) were given weapons by the US
2) were never proven to have attacked the US (read the so-called evidence yourself. There is not a single statement which could not have been falsified. Nor which proves Bin Laden ordered the suicide attacks.)
3) don't have the resources necessary to defend themselves against even one storming by the SAS. And yet are said to have chemical weapons. Right. Let's see those satellite pictures of where Goldstein is hiding. Which one of those caves has the chemical weapons plant?
Offtopic? Whatever - I'm far more worried about security in email than snail mail. I use GPG, but if the US outlaw it, that will make me a terrorist. Thanks US. I can sleep easier now.
Intel is well prepared to handle this... (Score:2)
"Only the paranoid survive..."
They have those scientists with pretty silver suits to handle snail mail with viral attachments...
Threat of bioweapons hugely overstated (Score:2)
We're all going to switch from snail mail to email (Score:2)
Lest we forget why e-mail sucks... (Score:2)
I send you this anthrax in order to have your advice.
See you later. Thanks
Seriously, though. Just about everybody with a computer has a modem, and a slightly smaller number of those people have a scanner. So why does he believe that e-mails are more advantageous than faxes?
USPS still has its uses... (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
Junk Mail vs. Spam (Score:2)
The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that, for the recipient, junk mail is free. It may not be wanted, but I don't have to pay $20+ for the privledge to download it.
Secondly, there is an appreciable cost for the advertiser to send junk mail, while a spammer only needs an internet account. The fact that the advertiser needs to worry about costs means that they'll be more careful with who to send the advertising to. I don't think I've ever gotten junk mail, for instance, that wasn't in English.
If you get suckered into some shady deal through spam (bogus contests, pyramid schemes), about all you can do is ask their ISP nicely to please remove their account. If you get suckered into something similar through junk mail, the USPS has their very own law enforcement arm [usps.com] to hunt people like that down and prosecute them.
And speaking of postal laws, there are legal limits to what unsolicited mail can advertise. I can't count the amount of spam I get for sex sites, while the closest I've gotten to unsolicited pornographic junk mail was the ol' Victoria's Secret catalog (and even then I think it was addressed to the former occupant).
So, even though junk mail may kill the rain forests and is aided by the USPS itself, I still find it infinitely better than the spam that even now flods my e-mail boxes.
Sanil mail was already slowing in usage (Score:2)
Furthermore; there will always be a need for regular mail for packages, and larger items and some secure communication.
Both mediums are hurting... (Score:2)
Carnivore, hackers, and new govermental controls (passed only this last week by Senate and House) are going to happen much much much more often, and there's no way to "treat" it.
Plus, unlike Anthrax, you have no idea you've been violated using e-mail. At least when you develop a rash, you know something isn't the way it should be.
Overblown (Score:2)
Testing Positive for Exposure.. (Score:3, Informative)
There is one case of an Anthrax infection that has been reported so far. One case, and that person has died. That particular case involved a non-GMO (Generically Modificed Organism) version of the Anthrax bacterium. The other cases are a completely different variety of the same bacterium (cutaneous). The one in Florida may very well be a completely natural infection which occured. Yes, there has not been a single case reported in the U.S. of an Anthrax infection in 25 years, and within one week, there are over 7 cases on the books, so you can guarantee that it's intentional, but do not continue to spread the FUD without some knowledge behind you.
The others may not be, but nobody else has been infected with Anthrax to date except this Florida case. The other people you are hearing about have only tested positive for the antibodies which the body produces naturally to fight off the presence of Anthrax.
There's too much FUD in the news right now.
Lastly... there's an interesting quote from al-Queda spokesman Suleiman Abu-Gheith today saying:
This is far from over. Please feel free to print and post this mail warning [fbi.gov] in high-traffic mail areas within your business if you believe you may be in one of the "Icons Of America" that these letters seem to be hitting.Solution: irradiate all snail-mail (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what Ashcroft wants... (Score:3, Interesting)
...because now he can use his new super powers to deploy carnivore to your ISP (without a warrant, by the way) and spy on *all* your correspondence.
This terrorist hysteria is far too convenient for the reactionary elements of our country. I smell a rat.
I thought email had already eclipsed snail mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Replacing snailmail with email requires.... (Score:3)
Why?
- Because legally binding digital signatures are the only way to shift much snailmail to email.
- Because strong encryption is the only way to achieve anything like the same level of expected privacy
Oh, hang on - the USA was about to outlaw encryption, wasn't it? Never mind, better stick to snail mail.
Re:Crude as this sentiment is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone has e-mail? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps I have a Luddite streak in me somewhere, but I also have an irrational fondness for "old" media: LPs, newspapers, printed books. I suppose someday I can spend a Sunday morning at the local coffee shop reading over the electronic version of the Los Angeles Times on my Palm XVIII, but it won't be the same, and I will miss getting newsprint on my fingers. But I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, and it will be used as justification to avoid change. E-mail has many advantages, but it belongs to a new generation, it seems. My mother might learn, but my grandmother never will.
Re:Everyone has e-mail? (Score:2)
Your desire for past romantic and technically simpler times is touching. But your mom and grandma have a choice here and maybe this is an opportunity for them. Society makes changes during times of war, and it's not all bad. New technologies are born, new customs, new neighbors and friends are made, new skills are learned. Maybe your grandmother can exercise a few neurons (with your help), learn how to read and write an e-mail and expand her horizons. Maybe she'll go to a chat room and meet a new friend. Maybe the internet is what she's been looking for to publish some of her thoughts. In my opinion, more good wisdom could be spread thru e-mail, chat rooms, web sites, online journals, etc. But we need the old, wise people to contribute just as much as the young, spastic geeks!
Re:something last night happened like this (Score:2, Funny)
So, how'd you do on the test?
Re:Isn't snail mail already dead? (Score:2)
I have a script that I'm collaborating on with a person cross-country- he uses a typewriter. We send via-USPS.
I write and fax my legislators.
Sending physical pieces of paper may not be cost effective, but it's the only way to satisfy these particular communication needs.
Re:Nothing Important (Score:2)
Now if my freaking mortgage could conceive of that concept, I'd have a little less paper coming in. Hell it would help greatly if I could get the supermarkets to stop sending me the crap that goes right in the can. Anyone know how to do that?
Re:on top of NBC.... (Score:2)
However on second thought, there are some areas of the world whick may associate Microsoft with foreign dominance and so the company could be a target, but not a serious one because its main function would be to secure more funds from discontented wealthy folk. I would be more concerned about the subsidiaries in the Middle East than at Redmond...
That is why I wonder about it being sent to the licnesing department. If there is one area that could represent foreign dominance, that would be it.
Re:What about the Unabomber? (Score:2)
Re:It's not just one case (Score:2)
I hope the FBI sets up a website much like the "Y2k incidents" page where we can track in real time the reported suspicious events and the results of testing, if any. I'll never forget the one Y2K listing from Texas where, when the lights didn't go out at midnight, some drunk (guy) went out with his shotgun and started shooting out the street lights. Now THAT'S funny!
Re:What about the USPS? (Score:2)
circumvention devices (Score:2)
OK. So do you irradiate packages too? If not, then the pathogens get sent in packages. OK. So you irradiate packages. Now you cause problems for certain types of packages, so you deliver these in protective containers. OK. So now the pathogen gets delivered in these protective containers...
Re:What if the diseases were on paper money? (Score:2)
I suspect that this is why Anthrax is used--it is not that contageous... But this is why bioterrorism is likely to be limited.