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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

This is no big deal. From the photograph in the blog, it's clearly a problem with the mail handling machine. No big whoop.

As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail. Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them.

Years ago, I'd signed up for the Informed Delivery service, which is where these images originate.

When I moved, I forgot to cancel the service and so received pictures of the next person's mail. It was simple to cancel.

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I was going to write the same thing. Only thing I will add that these scanners can actually peer into the envelopes due to I guess the bright light used by the scanners. I can sometimes read letters before I actually physically receive them.

Therefore, the thicker the better and use privacy envelopes if you are really concerned.

I don't think I've ever gotten anything remotely sensitive not in a privacy envelope in years.

> these scanners can actually peer into the envelopes due to I guess the bright light used by the scanners

You write that as if it's accidental.

Same thing happened to me except I wasn't able to stop it. I still receive pictures of mail going to an old PO Box I had.

> Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them.

Anyone with access to them. You can absolutely not read my postcards, for example, because you don't have a key for my mailbox.

> As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail.

Just because it's legal doesn't make it a great thing to happen.

Did you not put in a change of address request? They automatically unenroll you from informed delivery.

You shouldn't put in a change of address; USPS sells those addresses as a revenue source. Just manually change your address with each service.

In my experience, they're also not particularly reliable either.

After filing a change of address form, I got quite a bit of mail still going to the old address. The forwarded mail, if it arrived at all, was significantly delayed.

It also costs money after a period of time, then expires.

They only forward first class mail and maybe newspapers/magazines IIRC.

There are plenty of other sources selling my address anyway. Having mail forwarded is a good way for me to know which ones I need to update.

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