30 November 2014

The Return of Snail Mail?

A few days ago, I did something unusual: I went to the post office and mailed a package. Consequently, I've been thinking about both online and offline communication.

We all know how, in recent years, the United States Postal Service has been suffering, primarily due to email and Skype, among other thing. Recently, they've attempted to fight back, in one case with an ad saying "no one ever hacked a refrigerator door." That's true (unless you have a networked fridge, because those apparently exist), but it's not exactly reassuring.

The simple fact is, the federal government can read your communications, and probably doesn't need a warrant to do it. Which makes me wonder if perhaps there's a market for physical mail, privately delivered.