
USPS Informed Delivery – Digital Images of Front of Mailpieces - palidanx
https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
======
1024core
The USPS already scans all of its mail (link somewhere else). They have to do
it to sort it: their machines automatically read the address and sort it.

Any address that can't be machine-read (which is, like, 5%?) is sent via teh
internet to some people sitting in a "cheap labor" place like WV where it is
keyed in by a person.

Later, the typed results go back to the origin and a barcode is slapped on the
letter. How do they find the right letter, you ask? Look for the florescent
barcode at the back: that uniquely identifies the letter. So unreadable mail
is scanned twice to get barcoded. After it's barcoded, the only human who
looks at it is your delivery person.

~~~
losteverything
<like WV

It used to be in Barbados

~~~
sbuttgereit
And once they had one in Utah (I know because in the early 90's I was one of
those cheap labor workers doing the data entry ;-) )

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Animats
Next, Recycle Direct™. Select the mail you want delivered, and the USPS sends
everything else directly to the recycling center.

~~~
atourgates
That'd be awesome, but I expect there'd be significant pushback from the
direct mail advertising industry that makes up a good chunk of the postal
service's revenue.

~~~
tcdent
Not the direct mail industry itself, but the postal service which earns a
significant amount of it's revenue from them. Your mail carrier happily
delivers any and all unwanted mail in the interest of their continued
employment.

~~~
burntwater
Honestly, I don't mind junk mail that much.

\- It's slightly depressing to come home to no new mail (I know, that's just a
weird mental thing for me).

\- More importantly, it helps keep the postal service afloat, something that I
think is an important service.

\-- It keeps a sizable chunk of U.S. government workers employed. Employed is
good.

\-- It acts as a proxy wellness check for elderly and rural citizens.

\-- It lets Grandma cheaply send me a card and $20 for my birthday. Email and
Venmo just doesn't cut it.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah. There's the occasional semi-important thing I don't notice because it
got tangled up in a pile of mail I'd been throwing in a box. But I flip
through catalogs every now and then and don't have a problem with throwing out
obvious credit card offers unopened.

In the grand scheme of annoyances that include telemarketers, throwing out
some mail every day is pretty minor.

It does clog up my mailbox but since I swapped out for an extra-giant one that
isn't really a problem any longer.

~~~
brewdad
I find something oddly therapeutic about tearing up credit card offers before
tossing them in the recycle bin.

The bundle of grocery store ads that comes every Tuesday, I could do without.
I don't shop at any of the included stores, but the bundle has such a mish-
mash of odd sized circulars that I have to go through it since important mail
gets mixed in frequently.

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Holmes
Was asked to participate in an early test for this last year. It was terrible.

I have a PO box and as that address includes the post office address you would
receive notification and pictures of ALL mail going to that address, so
everyone's PO box. Not good.

~~~
zippergz
You mean an actual PO Box? At a post office? Or a private mailbox, like at a
UPS Store? If the former, this is really surprising. If the latter, not as
much.

Anyway, I set this up for my house and it has been working fine. I haven't
gotten anything that wasn't intended for me (of course, I get stuff that's not
intended for me in the REAL mail on a regular basis, so even if it happened
here from time to time, it wouldn't be a big change).

~~~
Holmes
Former. PO box at a post office.

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saycheese
USPS has been taking images of the mail for years [1].

All the images of the service are emailed to the user and are not secure.

[1] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-
conf...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-
photographing-all-us-mail.html)

------
hh2222
Canadian here, please use USPS when sending us stuff because they don't charge
a $40 made up customs handling fee at the door like Fedex and UPS do.

~~~
jeromegv
USPS transfers to Canada Post, so in fact it is Canada Post that is choosing
not to charge you terrible fees like the other ones.

But yes, always use USPS to ship to Canada.

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DonHopkins
If only I could drag and drop images of junk mail into a trash can icon to
prevent them from being delivered, I could finally clean out my butterfly fuck
swing.

[http://www.theonion.com/article/butterfly-fuck-swing-
filled-...](http://www.theonion.com/article/butterfly-fuck-swing-filled-with-
junk-mail-2243)

------
sonar_un
The USPS shut down Outbox for this same service.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2015/12/08/usps-l...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2015/12/08/usps-
launches-exactly-the-same-digital-service-it-killed-in-startup-
outbox/#7ac9c6954622)

Still, though, I would really like this service. I travel quite a bit and I
would hate to miss important pieces of mail.

~~~
chrischen
Doesn't seem like the USPS shut them down.

"Ultimately, management concluded that Outbox’s business model was flawed – a
conclusion that the market appears to have affirmed."

~~~
gmisra
From
[https://www.wired.com/2013/08/outbox/](https://www.wired.com/2013/08/outbox/)

"Part of the trick was that the service could automatically weed out junk
mail, and when U.S. Postmaster General Pat Donahoe got wind of this, he wasn’t
happy — at least according to Baehr."

"Donahoe summoned Outbox to his office, and Baehr made his pitch, arguing that
the company was just a few smart guys with $2 million in financing who wanted
to spend the next few years learning about Donahoe’s customers and even
sending him data about what these customers needed. Donahoe responded by
saying that the customers of U.S. Postal Service were not the general public.
Its customers, he said, were a few hundred bulk mailers."

------
losteverything
Shortly after attending a ios 4 app class I wrote a letter suggesting a table
view listing all machine mail. Then sell ad space above/below rows. So if BB&B
has their $5 coupon in the mailstream Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel could
but a hyperlink to their ad.

The USPS culture is anything but profit centric. Without violating the
sanctity of the mails there could be creative ways to leverage the combined
household and individual knowledge for profit.

But then when I thought there was no hope the USPS got the Amazon deal.

Threshold mail delivery is another concept that could be interrupted by a user
request (based on mail information in the stream)

But it's not a profit organization and ideas are just fun to think about.

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losteverything
This is the first time, I believe,where someone can know what is in the
mailbox without opening the mailbox. (Which is a federal crime if it is not
the owner/addressee)

Separated spouses and private investigators will use this from the comfort of
their home. (Of course one party will give permission)

------
cagrimmett
I got automatically enrolled in this last week and have been getting scans of
mail for 5 days now. It is a complete disaster. I got my own mail one day, but
the other four have been mail for other units in my building.

I sent one support ticket in that went to an unmonitored inbox, then another
that got a vague reply saying that there is nothing I can do about it.

What a mess.

~~~
cagrimmett
I'd also like to add that the one day I did get scans of my own mail in my
email inbox, it was mail that I had picked up the day before.

------
lowbloodsugar
Feature request: [a] accept [b] trash.

~~~
Veratyr
I'm not sure how well this works elsewhere but I did an experiment and simply
refused to take the marketing junk USPS put in my mailbox, until it
overflowed. They ended up actually not giving me any more, it's great.

~~~
AtheistOfFail
That's not the proper way. If it comes with an envelope, find a brick and
attach the return envelope to it with duct tape (paid by weight), if it
doesn't stuff it into another company's envelope (along with the brick)

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totesanonymous
I work very closely on this product. If you have any questions, feel free to
ask, and I'll answer as best as I can.

~~~
superamit
Any plans to offer the capability to scan and see the inside?

~~~
totesanonymous
Not as far as I know.

------
tuzakey
I just tried to turn it on for my USPS PO Box, it doesn't work. They require
you to verify your identity via an online option that just reports that it
didn't work or in-person verification. To verify in person you need a us
government issued ID (passport, military, but not state gov) and if the
address there doesn't match you need a secondary document (mortgage, bill,
etc.) The only things I receive at my PO are amateur radio documents and
domain registration scams. There are less stringent identification
requirements to buy a handgun in California (State ID + supporting document)

That said, I'd really like it to work because it would save me trips down to
the post-office only to collect junk mail and the previous PO box tenants non-
forwarded correspondence.

~~~
vinay427
The normal online verification worked fine for me. It asked me the standard
life history questions that are asked by credit bureaus, etc.

------
bogomipz
>"Participate in this new USPS® service enhancement test and get images of the
mail that will be placed in your mailbox each day"

What is that "enhancing" exactly? An enhancement would be the option to not
have something delivered to my mailbox at all because it is not important or
is junk mail. Such an enhancement was provided by a startup called Outbox that
the Post Master General put out of business because it was in conflict with
the US Post Offices biggest "customer" the direct marketing industry. Outbox
did many other things too like deposit checks for you and shred mail if you
elected to do so.

see:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2015/12/08/usps-l...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2015/12/08/usps-
launches-exactly-the-same-digital-service-it-killed-in-startup-
outbox/#a08fb4d46223)

After September 11th the Post Office began scanning all American's mail. So it
sounds like someone got the bright idea to repurpose that invasion of privacy
as an "enhancement."

------
accountface
Can we just get a solid "do not call" list for mail. Like 90% of my physical
mail is junk and it's bullshit. I'm kind of on the edge of wanting to be rid
of all letter delivery in its entirety.

~~~
JBReefer
A very cynical and cruel interpretation of the modern post office is that its
real business model is to subsidize political mailers during campaign season
(which are phenomenally​ cheap) with junk mail, while conveniently providing
jobs.

Politicians, who are the benefactors of the low priced mailers, and who have
an interest in preserving the few no college required jobs left, thus are
incentivized to support the USPS at all cost, so they do.

It's not the only interpretation of the modern USPS, but it's hard not to
grumble about that one when using the incredibly poorly run locations that
bless NYC. It's also hard to love the USPS when you consider that this
interpretation results in thousands of tons of paper printed, moved,
delivered, and then put directly in landfills every year for essentially no
benefit.

------
jrockway
I've been using this for over a year. I am still surprised how often I am
tempted to click "report spam". I have no problem with the email, but it's
amazing how many days in a row I only receive junk mail. (And this isn't the
local spam that the USPS gets paid to deliver, someone really made an envelope
with my name and address on it, stuck their junk in, and put a stamp on it.)

------
technick
I kind of suspected the USPS tracked standard postage mail for a long time but
had my suspicions confirmed after watching the first season of the US tv show
hunted. Investigators were able to review images of mail sent to potential
friends of contestants.

------
luhn
I'm trying to imagine a situation in which this would be useful and I can't
think of one. Perhaps my lack of imagination is because I haven't cared for
years what letters come in the mail—It's all bills and spam.

~~~
jlgaddis
All of my mail is delivered to a PO Box at a post office downtown. I don't go
into town often and sometimes make special trips _just_ to check my mail.

I don't expect to use this service but, at times, it would be nice to see what
mail is waiting for me to pick up. If I knew there wasn't anything important
there, I might just skip going and save myself a trip.

Also, my next door neighbors are out-of-state travelling for about half of the
year and I get their mail while they're gone. They let me know if they're
expecting something important so that I can open it and tell them what it says
or forward it to them or whatever while they're gone. With this service, they
would know for sure when those items arrive.

------
md_
That's neat, but it would be even cooler if they sent you the photos online.
The fact that they are printing them out and sending them to you in the mail
shows just how behind the USPS is when it comes to technology.

------
WhitneyLand
Why don't they offer a junk mail filtering service?

I'm sure it could be trained to be highly accurate and let you whitelist as
needed.

They just have to make sure to charge enough to still profit after accounting
for lost junk mail revenue.

------
gist
Would imagine there are people that will use this to spy on a spouse or a
significant other who gets mail at the same address but is able to get it out
of the mailbox before the paranoid party gets home.

~~~
losteverything
There is today. Its called intercept the letter carrier. We know what's up.
Hiding the bill or the package.

Once had a lady tell me she wanted to surprise her husband by paying the
mortgage when i delivered a certified from her bank. (She drove her van to
find me each day) when I gave her the cert AND the (usual) non-certified piece
she said she was paying in 1/2 in each letter. I knew it was BS and the letter
was "bad"

------
nostromo
The one thing I'd like to pay the post office for is to stop delivery to my
house.

If my mailbox were a Gmail inbox it'd be 98% spam, 2% government. And yet,
it's a Gmail inbox I can't close.

~~~
pwg
The USPS would never offer that feature. They get directly paid [1] to deliver
that spam, so providing you a 'cutoff' method directly effects their bottom
line because the sender will not want to pay for items that never get
delivered.

But I do agree, it would be a nice feature to have a "no junk mail" switch
that could be turned on.

[1] I believe they do not charge a high enough price for the junk, but they do
get paid to deliver it in any case.

~~~
philsnow
There was
[https://www.google.com/contributor](https://www.google.com/contributor) ,
where you would pay them a monthly fee and they wouldn't serve google ad
network ads to you.

USPS could do the same thing. $1-2 / month for mail delivery service?

------
criddell
There was a Seinfeld episode where Kramer tries to opt out of the mail system.
I always wondered - can you do that? Is there a law saying that you have to
receive mail?

~~~
losteverything
No law. Just don't have a mail receptacle.

------
colept
What I like about this, despite the privacy implications, is that it lets you
preview upcoming mail. Less keys for me to carry every day.

~~~
ghaff
As others have said, this imagery is already created and stored. That said,
people with PO Boxes who don't necessarily check them daily would probably be
a good use case for this.

------
beezle
A friend (really!) subscribed to this so that he could be sure that his wife
wasn't tossing some of his mail. Trust but verify.

------
toephu2
So you get a preview of the mail electronically... but you still have to
physically sort through it and throw away the junk mail?

------
oh_sigh
I had this in the UWS of NYC last year, and it is worthless. It's just another
reminder of how much spam mail you get.

------
chrisper
I signed up for this to try it out. Hopefully, I am not giving up too much
privacy (if I have given up any privacy at all).

~~~
Splendor
You are not. The USPS already images all mail for all persons[0]. Not to
mention their use of license plate scanners[1] if you're picking up your mail
at a post office.

[0]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-
mai...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html)

[1]: [http://kdvr.com/2015/03/11/mysterious-spy-cameras-
collecting...](http://kdvr.com/2015/03/11/mysterious-spy-cameras-collecting-
data-at-post-offices/)

~~~
pfranz
I haven't tried it, but it sounds like the only option is sending it over
unencrypted email which would add a few vectors if you're concerned about
privacy.

------
dangerboysteve
on one hand it's seems like a nice feature but I can't help but to think this
is clever marketing spin for a surveillance backed project.

~~~
jonknee
And on yet another hand it's obvious you can't deliver mail at $.49 a pop
without heavy doses of automation. Surveillance or not, the USPS will be
taking images of your mail.

------
nikolay
It's great - a very important tool I rely on daily now!

------
koolba
I bet they already have to do this for the NSA / CIA / FBI so why not profit
from it as well as a separate product that people will pay extra for? Genius!

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise
please don't comment until you do.

~~~
koolba
Given that I'm not the only one in this thread pointing out that the source of
this offering is most likely driven from features designed for three-letter
agencies, I'd argue my comment was substantive (though I'll give you the point
that it was written a bit cheekily).

~~~
pwg
While certainly useful to three letter agencies, the original reason for
imaging the front of mail-pieces is for mail routing. The mail-pieces that
don't have routing bar-codes in the address areas get fed to an OCR system to
read the address data (with a fallback to humans for the last few that OCR
can't read) so the computer system knows where to route the mail-piece. In
order to read the address text via. OCR one needs an image of the front of the
envelope to feed to the OCR system. This new offering is just leveraging that
scanning process that has been in place for a very long time. The biggest
difference might be that previously the image went from scan to OCR to
deletion and instead now they've decided to replace "delete" with "store" to
make this new offering feasible.

~~~
koolba
> This new offering is just leveraging that scanning process that has been in
> place for a very long time. The biggest difference might be that previously
> the image went from scan to OCR to deletion and instead now they've decided
> to replace "delete" with "store" to make this new offering feasible.

And with my tinfoil hat on, I'm saying it's probably driven by requests from
three-letter agencies. We already know they scan the covers not just for
automated processing (which as you mention wouldn't require saving the image
after the OCR is complete), but to also provide it to law enforcement.

If public pressure is forcing those agencies to be more forthright with what
data they're collecting and storing, it conceivable for them to push that
responsibility upstream. If the USPS is going to be imaging _and storing_
everyone's mail, there's no need for other agencies to do so. They can just
access it on the fly.

Arguably, the government would save money with this approach as well as I'm
sure all three major agencies would want a full copy the data set.

