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Comment by smokeyj | Hacker News Reader

I asked if UPS should be allowed to inspect your data. After all, you did hand it to them.

I would expect UPS to inspect and record anything that they would come across in the course of delivering the package. So taking pictures of the outside, recording the destination address, etc. Similarly, given that AT&T can't send your bits without at least temporarily storing or buffering them, and indeed does a lot more inspection of your traffic than that, I don't have any particular expectation of privacy with regards to the bits short of their actually decrypting them.

> Similarly, given that AT&T can't send your bits without at least temporarily storing or buffering them

They're probably buffered on a Microsoft OS. Do they get a copy too? Can I expect my Dell not to be keylogged? It seems like in a "post 9/11 era" we have no expectation to anything short of getting your balls fondled.

> I don't have any particular expectation of privacy with regards to the bits short of their actually decrypting them

None at all? Would you share your network traffic with me?

I don't think it has anything to do with "post 9/11." I think it all has to do with knowing exposure of information to third parties. If you want to keep information private, don't give it to other people.

> If you want to keep information private, don't give it to other people.

Tell this to the people going after Snowden.

Interesting, because I would look at the UPS box as the equivalent of the packet headers. Looking inside box or packet would be forbidden if I had my way.

They do this nowadays, do they not? I thought FedEx and UPS X-ray inspected boxes (at least randomly) to look for dangerous materials. They fly planes too, after all.

This is an interesting line of thought.

What if UPS could scan your package and interpret the bits on a memory stick inside? Would that be reasonable? (They could frame it as "we scanned the bits, transferred it over the internet to another memory stick, and copied and delivered those contents".

I would expect UPS to inspect whatever they wanted to, unless UPS specifically stated they would not.

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