Hacker News Reader

Comment by LeftTurnSignal | Hacker News Reader

I use this service, and when I signed up there was nothing to verify I was who I was. I just put in my address, created an account, and within a day or so could get scans of mail sent to my e-mail.

This is pretty great too. I moved about two months ago, and switched addresses in Informed Delivery. I got a letter saying I switched, but I never put their code into Informed Delivery, and I still get scans of my mail at the new place. I got the scans before the validation letter, so I could easily have stolen that, and no one would know I'm seeing their mail....

*Edit to make things clearer.

I have not validated anything. The letter says I won't get emails unless I put the code in the letter in Informed Delivery. I did not do that ever and I still get the emails.

View on HN

I just signed up, and this is what you see after you create an account: https://i.imgur.com/uHponvi.png

Verify online, verify by mail, or... skip. When I hit skip it just sent me to a dashboard that says I'm not enrolled because I'm not verified. I'm gonna let this sit for a few days and see if I start getting the emails.

Yes, it is that easy. I did it and told my parents about it. They signed up to be notified when my grandparents received mail so they could make sure bills were taken care of. Not a case of abuse, but they didn't have to validate anything to start receiving notifications of other people's mail.

Note that tampering with the mail, even if there are little technical limitations, is a federal crime that carries pretty severe penalties.

I don't think GP is suggesting that anyone here tamper with mail. However, if you are someone who steals identities and money why would you care? This is pretty easy to verify properly and short of the time delay I can't think of any negative of doing so.

People love repeating this for some reason, but mail crime is under-funded, rarely investigated, and even more rarely enforced.

Realistically if you tamper with mail nothing at all will happen to you, until your fraud raises to a headline figure and could get someone a promotion.

Interesting you say this as I had heard similar stories of underfunded mail crime investigations in the past. However, where I live is a very seasonal location. Population goes from 10000+ over the summer to under 1000 during the winter months.

Several years ago a couple people in the community noticed problems with their mail (mail seemingly missing, receiving wrongly addressed items, etc..). They called the postal service and an investigator was out in days. Within two weeks there were hidden cameras mounted in various locations around town pointed at mailboxes. A few more weeks and they apprehended an individual going through mailboxes based on the photos from those cameras. I don't know the final outcome, but the total turnaround from notification to arrest was less than 3 months.

> They called the postal service and an investigator was out in days.

Even underfunded agencies can prioritize. A call notifying them of a problem is a world of difference than them identifying and pursuing issues on their own.

Just like how an underfunded police department may not patrol all the areas they should, but if you call them to notify them of a crime, an officer will likely show up at some point. Even if the officer shows up quite a bit later, the relative difference to when an officer might stumble across that area, much less evidence of the crime, is probably somewhat comparable.

My neighbor stole mail right out of my mailbox. I had it on video. The police declined to do anything about it. So... anecdotally validated.

Try the US Postal Inspectors: https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/ It may be too old or too small a case for them, but video evidence may help.

For mail-related crime, you should also contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov

People love stating this fact because it's likely most people are surprised the law allows for such severe serious penalties for what might seem like a petty infraction. What you've said about underfunded enforcement and rare investigations could be said about almost every other type of non-violent crime.

Uh kyc banking laws used to fund terrorism (eg hawalas) have been extensively ramped up over the past 20 yrs. Theres certain non violent crimes that law enforcement has carte blanche to investigate.

That's good to know.

> "about almost every other type of non-violent crime."

The DEA and other drug-related enforcement certainly isn't underfunded ...

Yup.

This is all my own mail. When I switched ID to the new address, I no longer received emails of mail going to my old address automatically. So there's that.

Observing someone else's mail wouldn't count as tampering with it. Some other category might apply though.

IANAL but the impression I get is that loosely defined terms like "tamper" can be interpreted in many different contexts depending on how eager the prosecutor is.

Falsifying your identity to a federal postal service to gain access to someone else's mail? That breaks a wide range of laws

Right -- falsifying identity to get postal resources would be a relevant category of crime. I don't see how mere non-destructive observation of the external packaging would count as tampering though.

This is correct in my experience. The letter says you have to confirm with the code, but either without doing that you keep getting the emails with scanned images.

I just tried to sign up with my business address. It told me that the address is not available for Informed Delivery but rather than it just ending there, it allowed to go ahead and create an account for that address any way. I'll have to wait and see if they later reject the account somehow.

Same exact situation here. Moved, got mailed a code to verify my address change, was lazy and never entered the code into Informed Delivery, still get Informed Delivery email notifications for scans of mail sent to my new address, and I am able to view the scans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com