The Postman Always Rings Twice

You are now paying twice for your mail. Well, for everything.

Hurrah! Freedom!

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I keep hearing that if you are sick of e-mail and internet surveillance, you should use snail mail. After all, “tampering with the mail is a federal offense.” But what if the tampering is actually part of the job for USPS itself? Is physically-sent mail any more private than an e-mail, a text message, or a chat room? Is there any way to secure at least some privacy in your communication?

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A few years ago, USPS started offering customers daily e-mail notifications of their incoming mail for the day. Considering all the financial troubles the company has been facing, the new “free” service made me curious regarding its justification and its logistics.

At first, I thought it was simply evidence that regular mail is duly delivered to customers, because I usually received the e-mail around 8 AM and the mail was in my mailbox within a couple of hours. I also assumed that the scanning took place at the last postal station just before the mailman took the sorted envelopes out for delivery, because otherwise the “evidence” part wouldn’t fly.

On second thought, I am inclined to believe that, considering the necessary equipment, the scanning of my mail takes place at the last large hub in my state of residence, so the “evidence” explanation doesn’t seem to apply, all the more so, because the mailman is an additional middleman and even after delivery, anyone can empty my mailbox before I get there for my mail.

So, what gives?

All I receive by e-mail is a photograph of my incoming mail. As data collection on citizens received a green light with the “Patriot” Act, I can safely assume that photographing my mail is part of the practice. Now, simply gathering the senders’ details wouldn’t be worth the bother, so there must be more going on.

What about some comprehensive data collection? How could that happen?

It is possible to use infrared or other types of irradiation/scanning to record the full contents of my mail. Adding some character recognition feature can provide detailed information about the sender, including identifying him/her by the vocabulary, writing style, formatting, or by the typewriter or handwriting, even if the letter is not signed. Those technologies have been around for a couple of decades at levels that far surpassed the ones available for consumer. By now, they must be quite accurate, considering the giant NSA and related databases that can be used as bases for comparison. If it wasn’t working, the whole service wouldn’t be implemented.

What happens next is the usual evaluation phase:

1.       The OCR/deep scanner forwards the data to a computer program that analyzes the contents for “red flags” that are usually key words of phrases. The same program must also search for recurring patterns or marks that suggest the use of some kind of code or encryption.

2.       Suspicious contents are examined by a high-level AI or ordinary humans for potential “threats.”

3.       The “threats” and patterns are compared with previous data gained from the sender’s and the recipient’s correspondence and phone/internet communication and processed accordingly (the least that can happen is that the new findings are added to the module based on all previously-collected data).

4.       If systematic patterns are identified, the sender and/or the addressee is/are permanently placed on a “black list,” whose corollaries depend on the agent (or, more likely, his bosses’ expectations) evaluating the data. As a result, rigorous and constant surveillance is the bare minimum that can be expected.

Needless to say, a lot of innocent people can end up on the black list due to computer error or to the human agent’s eagerness to produce “results” for his $150k+ net salary.

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How can you communicate with someone by mail in a way that assures at least some privacy?

There are a number of things you can do, but this is only an article, so it must be brief and to the point. For example, you can agree with the other party in person on your stances and your directions of communication (without cell phones, Wi-Fi, smart-whatever, or any other eavesdropping technology around), which can copiously overwhelm the AI by including statements and data that contradict the real line of your communication, but only you and your partner know which “tidbits” must be ignored. For instance, you can praise “the government” in nine out of 10 sentences, so one out-of-line sentence will not be statistically significant enough “to raise a red flag.” This strategy is easy to use, because it doesn’t require any special coding and it is extremely likely to work, because the first phase of the surveillance is based on statistics and without thresholds, the whole decision-making program would not function.

This method, however, applies to all modes of communication, so you can save some money on the stamps and the envelopes. And no, what I am saying here is only the tip of the iceberg; it’s not an instruction for contraband activities. Those who are engaged in such, must use incomparably more sophisticated methods.

Remember that your phone/e-mail/(anti)social media contacts already reveal more about you than you could ever imagine. Whatever new information you reveal about yourself, goes into your “file.”

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How does the mailman ring twice?

When paying in a store, you can still notice when you are using cash, the register rings, when the till opens. That’s when you pay first. When it comes to USPS, you are obviously paying for their spying on you “for your security,” which is when “the postman” rings up your receipt for the second charge. The process is integrated into the national surveillance system, which is mostly data collection only, but the data can be used against you, even taken out-of-context, anytime later:

There Is No Survaillance

The system is now developed enough to impersonate you in writing, over the phone, and even in “video” deepfakes! And you can easily imagine that the costs far supersede the price of your “forever” stamps! The only thing you’ll get back is your portion in the national debt!

The practice is quite similar to the medieval practice of tipping the executioner for a “painless death”:

Tip The Executioner!

Sorry, no painless death this time. That is not part of the deal!