[Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: Private Address Forwarding proposal to USPS

[Andy Isaacson]

On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 11:35:30PM -0700, Sai wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 11:20 PM, spinach williams
> <spinach.williams at gmail.com> wrote:
> > what about receiving things in different places, for Reasons?
> 
> Have multiple PAF IDs.

What's the rate limiting mechanism here?  (Maybe we don't need one, but
I suspect we do.)

> > how's
> > anyone supposed to remember a goggle voice number to write down when they
> > want to send a letter or postcard?
> 
> It's 9 alphanumerics. That's shorter than nearly any existing address already.

strlen() is a dishonest comparison, and you should be ashamed of being
so dismissive.

I can remember "2169 Mission St, SF, CA" and I get spatial compression
for free when I need to remember my home address in SF too.

I can't remember my Ham callsign and that's only 6 alphanum (and three
of them are even geo-related!).  I have to go refer to a written copy
every time I operate (because, of course, I don't do it very often.)

> > what's even the downside to name+address for
> > physical mail this solution seeks to address?
> 
> It discloses where you live to people merely because you want to get
> something delivered from them. There's no need for them to know that,
> and you may well have reasons to keep it private.

What's the Clearly Legal overwhelmingly common use case?  If a
technology is theoretically usable for legal ends, but is mostly used by
shady characters, you lose the social messaging war.

> > does this benefit extend to
> > those who don't have regular internet access?
> 
> Of course. Just walk into your local post office and they can do it
> manually.

You can't file a "change of address" form on paper anymore (or at least,
they don't have any forms at the SF Post Offices I checked); instead,
there's a flier full of advertising that tells you to fill out the form
online.

-andy