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Comment by iamaelephant | Hacker News Reader

> Facebook runs all of its mail and packages through a machine that can detect dangerous substances, according to the fire district. That machine notified workers that the package in question might contain sarin.

This is very interesting. Is this normal practice at companies of that size? I've worked for medium-large orgs (3,000 people) and never seen anything like this.

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Google does... or at least they have a central mail-handling warehouse that "screens" all incoming mail (X-Ray at least, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are other checks they don't advertise). The threat model for high-profile companies is pretty wide-ranging -- everything from the shooting at YouTube HQ to disgruntled or confused people showing up at a random building lobby and causing trouble.

The Mountain View warehouse is massive, but even "smaller" offices like NYC, which is not that small, have been screening mail for years. It's not just a security measure: employees can relocate from one building to another at any time, so it's just easier for the company to do the final routing. Some places like the headquarters for Walmart and Mayo Clinic also get their own ZIP code.

DHS Best Practices recommendations (62p PDF) details threaats, risks, methods, and procedures. Published 2012.

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Mail_Ha...

Probably big consumer companies it's more common than big B2B companies. Seems like someone somewhere in the world would have a beef with say, Coca-Cola, just from the sheer scale.

Probably, depending on the industry - it’s called mail screening - the Royal Mail provides this as a service for companies in the UK. I’m a little surprised but the USPS doesn’t seem to.

It's not like USPS doesn't screen the mail, they obviously have far less ability to test things without a warrant (not a problem for the end recipient company) but it should concern everyone if (and a big if!) it's true that sarin was found and it made it past USPS.

>> but it should concern everyone if (and a big if!) it's true that sarin was found and it made it past USPS.

I mean USPS isn't perfect and can't test 100% of all packages with 99.9999999% accuracy. The cost we pay to ship letters and packages can't come close to covering that expense.

Pretty sure they wouldn't need a warrant or any red tape at all if the receiver authorized them to open mail on their behalf

Seems like such easy ground for 4th amendment creep, I'm surprised it hasn't been tried yet.

Get all the big companies using it, then before you know it REITs and management companies will start using it for multi-tenant residences. Boom; 3 letter agencies will start popping up arguing there's no reasonable expectation of privacy since the user agreed to a "CommunitySafe mail protection services" clause buried in the lease.

Private letters have long been acknowledged as covered by the fourth amendment, that is that searching requires at least a warrant based on probable cause. It’s changed over times whether searches of papers are per se unreasonable [1]. Consent can authorize agents to open mail of course, but it might be an interesting question whether it’s an unconstitutional condition to require waiver in order to access the mail services.

[1] https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?r...

FB has well over 30,000 employees now.

I know Google does the same

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