I'm from the government, and I'm here to control your email....

- start of quoted section -----------

http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9808064usps

Clinton backs universal E-mail plan
By Tom Diederich

The Clinton administration wants all Americans to have an E-mail
address to go along with their street address and is asking the
U.S. Postal Service to deliver the project's backbone. 

The idea is to connect physical and electronic addresses using the
nation's Internet "country code" -- the top-level ".us" domain. Then
a company or government agency, for example, could send bills or
bulletins to your electronic mailbox as well as your home. 

The administration said the move would "accelerate and
universalize the growth of electronic commerce," according to the
Postal Service. 

[...]

The Postal Service sent a proposal to launch the .us domain
initiative to the Commerce Department on June 1. The department
on Monday said it would accept comments from the public, based
on 11 questions 
(http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfc/dotusrfc.htm, 
until Sept. 3. )

Responses will be posted on the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration's Web site (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/).

- end of quoted section -

There is an utter cluelessness here which assumes that there
is and/or should be a strong corrospondence between an individual, 
a physical location, and an email address. This is not suprising, 
considering that this is from the Post Office, which is mired
a 19th century concept of what constitutes 'mail'.

I suspect that the PO will want to be able to charge for 
all mail sent to these addresses. The miserable failure 
of the USPS to generate any interest in their offer to 'frank'
email (for a price) may play into this.

Once everyone has an government registered email address, it
will be a simple matter to forbid the use of uncontrolled email
addresses (for either sending or receiving) at least within the 
US. It's to be expected that government agencies will refuse to
send to any other address.

In my opinion, the proper response of the USPS to competition from
email and parcel delivery services would be to wind down USPS 
operations. There is no longer a critical need for a protected 
monopoly in postal delivery.

Peter Trei

Disclaimer: The above represents my personal opinions only.

In <D104150098E6D111B7830000F8D90AE8017958@exna02.securitydynamics.com>,
on 08/10/98 
   at 02:56 PM, "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@securitydynamics.com> said:

>There is an utter cluelessness here which assumes that there is and/or
>should be a strong corrospondence between an individual,  a physical
>location, and an email address. This is not suprising,  considering that
>this is from the Post Office, which is mired a 19th century concept of
>what constitutes 'mail'.

>I suspect that the PO will want to be able to charge for 
>all mail sent to these addresses. The miserable failure 
>of the USPS to generate any interest in their offer to 'frank' email (for
>a price) may play into this.

>Once everyone has an government registered email address, it will be a
>simple matter to forbid the use of uncontrolled email addresses (for
>either sending or receiving) at least within the  US. It's to be expected
>that government agencies will refuse to send to any other address.

>In my opinion, the proper response of the USPS to competition from email
>and parcel delivery services would be to wind down USPS  operations.
>There is no longer a critical need for a protected  monopoly in postal
>delivery.

Well this is the last thing the USPS wants to do (power corrupts and all
that) and they have a few congress critters on their side. 

A while back they had the postmaster general on C-Span giving his yearly
report to congress. USPS is scared to death of the internet and have been
scrambling around trying to find a way to generate revenue from it. Back
then they were talking about establishing USPS as a national CA and a
center for certified e-mail. I guess they realized that there is no way
they can compete in the marketplace and the only thing to do is to force
their system on everyone.

Now enter the usual suspects and their agenda:

Mandate USPS e-mail addresses for everyone.
Mandate National Electronic ID's (security measure for USPS e-mail).
Mandate use of National CA for ID's (run by USPS).
Mandate GAK for all e-mail on the USPS system.
Mandate all communication to & from government use USPS system.

*Big* tax increase to pay for it all with plenty of pork to go round. Hell
in a few years you will have them whining and crying that computer
ownership is a "right" and we need to *pay* for all those welfare bums to
have one (how else will they get their mail?). At a very minimum every
post office will be set up with public computer terminals so people can
get their mail.

Many of the unusual suspects that will go along with this plan will be
from the states like Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, ...ect who are fearful
that their constituents will actually have to pay a fair price to have
mail and packages delivered to bum-fuck nowhere. I don't recall the name
but one of the critter from Alaska was very upset that if USPS looses it's
monopoly delivery in Alaska would no longer be subsidized and that they
might have to pay market value to have packages delivered by plane to the
far reaches of the wilderness (god forbid!!).

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.openpgp.net
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html
---------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, Trei, Peter wrote:

> Once everyone has an government registered email address, it
> will be a simple matter to forbid the use of uncontrolled email
> addresses (for either sending or receiving) at least within the 
> US. It's to be expected that government agencies will refuse to
> send to any other address.

	I don't know how easy this would be.  The Govt would be going
	up against some pretty heavy businesses if they wanted to 
	eliminate all but their own email addresses.  I can see them
	pushing a standard by only acknowledgeing "postal" addresses,
	and probably pushing some kind of cost, since for obvious 
	reasons, these email addresses would have to be managed by
	the govts own servers.

	I predict that the idea will go through, the USPS will 
	consider charging people based on the space their incoming
	mail takes up, but change to a charge on outgoing mail after
	everyone raises a stink.  

	Then, some clever person will push a bill through congress
	forcing all commercial email to be sent from a postal email
	address, forcing spammers to pay a bulk rate and provide
	both a physical and internet return address.

							-Caj

See Also:


http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/13129.html

Postal Service Eyes .us Domain

12:30 pm PDT 19 Jun 98 The post office is circulating a draft laying out
its case for taking over the United States' official top-level Internet
domain as a means of accelerating ecommerce.

The 8 May proposal outlines four goals the postal service would pursue if
granted authority over the domain by Jon Postel, who heads up the numbers
authority and administers the .us domain. The service said it is already
working with Postel's group to map .us domain space against its postal
address database. 

Postal service spokeswoman Sue Brennan said the proposal was developed at
the urging of the White House. 

"The administration requested that we investigate the policy of a .us
domain, just to investigate what would be involved," Brennan said. "The
majority of the other countries have their own country domain ... managed
by the government, so the Commerce Department was investigating the
possibilities [of doing the same in the United States]." 

According to the proposal submitted to the institute, the postal service
would "engage the private sector in the development of credentialed,
commerce-enabling space under .us [and] promote classified business
addressing under .us at local, state, and national levels as an open
reference for public and private delivery systems and competing directory
services." 

The proposal also said the postal service would "manage an open policy
process to develop policies for expanding the .us domain... [and] work
toward the establishment of a governance structure that will represent the
diversity of stakeholder interests -- private, nonprofit, and public -- in
a fully developed .us domain space 

	[snipped...]


James Glave, News Editor, Wired News, http://www.wired.com  (415) 276-8430

On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, Trei, Peter wrote:

> operations. There is no longer a critical need for a protected 
> monopoly in postal delivery.

If there ever was.

Someone once wrote that the difference between a good government
and a bad government is that the former simply builds the roads, the
latter tells you where to go.

In my opinion this could be extended to "the latter tells you how
to get it there".  Almost as if the government was delegated the
power to tell you what kind of car you could drive to work.  If
it doesn't have that power, how can it have the power to tell
you what conveyance to use for your letters?

Please refer to Lysander Spooner for an extended and depressing
treatment of this subject.

Jim

At 02:24 PM 8/10/98 -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>
>Many of the unusual suspects that will go along with this plan will be
>from the states like Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, ...ect who are fearful
>that their constituents will actually have to pay a fair price to have
>mail and packages delivered to bum-fuck nowhere. I don't recall the name
>but one of the critter from Alaska was very upset that if USPS looses it's
>monopoly delivery in Alaska would no longer be subsidized and that they
>might have to pay market value to have packages delivered by plane to the
>far reaches of the wilderness (god forbid!!).
>

Where are you from?
Bum-fuck nowhere to you and bum-fuck nowhere to me are two different places.

A letter costs 32 cents (presently) whether you send it across town, or
across the country.
This knife cuts both ways. Once the precedent is set, other industries
would quickly join in.
How long would it take, do you think, until some whizbang at the electric
company decides 'lectric usage rates should be determined on distance from
the 'lectric generating plant?

Reeza!

On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, Reeza! wrote:

> At 02:24 PM 8/10/98 -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
> >
> >Many of the unusual suspects that will go along with this plan will be
> >from the states like Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, ...ect who are fearful
> >that their constituents will actually have to pay a fair price to have
> >mail and packages delivered to bum-fuck nowhere. I don't recall the name
> >but one of the critter from Alaska was very upset that if USPS looses it's
> >monopoly delivery in Alaska would no longer be subsidized and that they
> >might have to pay market value to have packages delivered by plane to the
> >far reaches of the wilderness (god forbid!!).
> >
> 
> Where are you from?
> Bum-fuck nowhere to you and bum-fuck nowhere to me are two different places.
> 
> A letter costs 32 cents (presently) whether you send it across town, or
> across the country.
> This knife cuts both ways. Once the precedent is set, other industries
> would quickly join in.
> How long would it take, do you think, until some whizbang at the electric
> company decides 'lectric usage rates should be determined on distance from
> the 'lectric generating plant?
> 
> Reeza!

This is how it works in a free-market economy (doh!).

One of the self-appointed/assumed functions of gubbmint is to "fix" this, 
by granting some organization a monopoly in return for bearing the costs 
of creating infrastructure, as well as spreading the cost of servicing a 
(smaller) number of remote customers across a (larger) number of 
non-remote customers.

Whether this is a good thing(tm) or a bad thing(tm) depends, as usual, on 
which side of the subsidy you are on.

I would argue that such monopolies are desirable, and that their creation 
is a proper function of a responsible government. When the monopoly is no 
longer necessary (sufficient economy of scale has been reached to permit 
a competitive market to adequately service the customer base), then 
deregulation can occur.

I'm sure some on this list will argue this with me from their mountain 
cabins in bf-nowhere, but without such monopolies, they'd be sending 
smoke signals rather than paying $10,000 to get a phone line installed to 
their home. If you doubt this, look at the heavy reliance on wireless 
communications in third-world countries, and take a moment to consider 
how recently the consumer-wireless market arrived on the scene. 

Before you argue "the best government is no government", visit a few 
third-world capitols, and note how you move from a modern capitol city to 
flintstones-like living in about 50km.

A $.32 price on first-class mail to anywhere in the country is a good 
deal for all. OTOH, package delivery has become sufficiently competitive, 
and probably needs to be revamped.

Just my $.02.

On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Rabid Wombat wrote:

> This is how it works in a free-market economy (doh!).
> 
> One of the self-appointed/assumed functions of gubbmint is to "fix" this, 
> by granting some organization a monopoly in return for bearing the costs 
> of creating infrastructure, as well as spreading the cost of servicing a 
> (smaller) number of remote customers across a (larger) number of 
> non-remote customers.
> 
> Whether this is a good thing(tm) or a bad thing(tm) depends, as usual, on 
> which side of the subsidy you are on.

No, it can still be a bad thing even if I am the beneficiary.  The
question is whether or not it maximizes efficiency.  A stock market crash
will benefit the short sellers and owners of puts.  But it will also cause
a depression, which will still affect the short sellers.

> I would argue that such monopolies are desirable, and that their creation 
> is a proper function of a responsible government. When the monopoly is no 
> longer necessary (sufficient economy of scale has been reached to permit 
> a competitive market to adequately service the customer base), then 
> deregulation can occur.

There is a cross-subsidy.  The monopoly then pays the government to
maintain the monopoly indefinately using government force to drive out
competition.  Being able to legally imprison or shoot competitors is an
advantage that is hard to overcome. 

> I'm sure some on this list will argue this with me from their mountain 
> cabins in bf-nowhere, but without such monopolies, they'd be sending 
> smoke signals rather than paying $10,000 to get a phone line installed to 
> their home. If you doubt this, look at the heavy reliance on wireless 
> communications in third-world countries, and take a moment to consider 
> how recently the consumer-wireless market arrived on the scene. 

Alaska tends to be cold.  Should heat and other forms of energy be
subsidized, and roads built to wherever I want to place my cabin?  Arizona
is dry - should they get subsidized water?

Why is distance different than any other factor.  If I want to live in a
remote area, I should bear the costs of the remoteness, just as if I want
to live near a river, I will have to bear the costs of flood control or
damage from uncontrolled floods.  I don't have to live in a mountain
cabin, but if I do there will be costs.

The largest delay for consumer wireless has been government regulation
itself - not allowing efficient use of bandwidth.  (I think the first cell
phone was 1979).  And there was a CB craze, although it had limited range.
The big wait was for the FCC to catch up with technology (or for congress 
to allow them to do so).

> Before you argue "the best government is no government", visit a few 
> third-world capitols, and note how you move from a modern capitol city to 
> flintstones-like living in about 50km.

Many third world governments are thoroughly corrupt.  Across the border in
Mexico they have "Government" - are you saying that Mexico City is better
than Wyoming?  And the small villages have government even if they don't
have technology.

> A $.32 price on first-class mail to anywhere in the country is a good 
> deal for all. OTOH, package delivery has become sufficiently competitive, 
> and probably needs to be revamped.

Generally wealthier people can afford to live in the remote areas, and can
afford alternatives to first class mail.  Poor people rely on first class
mail within cities to do much of their business, and that is mainly local. 
So you have another case of the poor subsidizing the rich. 

> Just my $.02.

No, your $0.32, soon to be more.

--- reply to tzeruch - at - ceddec - dot - com ---

On Tue, 11 Aug 1998 dontspam-tzeruch@ceddec.com wrote:

> On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Rabid Wombat wrote:
> 
> > This is how it works in a free-market economy (doh!).
> > 
> > One of the self-appointed/assumed functions of gubbmint is to "fix" this, 
> > by granting some organization a monopoly in return for bearing the costs 
> > of creating infrastructure, as well as spreading the cost of servicing a 
> > (smaller) number of remote customers across a (larger) number of 
> > non-remote customers.
> > 
> > Whether this is a good thing(tm) or a bad thing(tm) depends, as usual, on 
> > which side of the subsidy you are on.
> 
> No, it can still be a bad thing even if I am the beneficiary.  The
> question is whether or not it maximizes efficiency.  A stock market crash
> will benefit the short sellers and owners of puts.  But it will also cause
> a depression, which will still affect the short sellers.

Yes, it can be a bad thing no matter which side you are on. Many 
subsidies are merely re-allocation of wealth, often from the rich to the 
poor. OTOH, some services, although not essential, are important enough 
to warrant a limited, regulated monopoly until sufficent scale has been 
reached to allow a competetive marketplace to be successful.

> There is a cross-subsidy.  The monopoly then pays the government to
> maintain the monopoly indefinately using government force to drive out
> competition.  Being able to legally imprison or shoot competitors is an
> advantage that is hard to overcome. 

Every organism seeks to propogate. It is the responsibility of the people 
to kill the monopoly when it has outlived its usefulness.

> Alaska tends to be cold.  Should heat and other forms of energy be
> subsidized, and roads built to wherever I want to place my cabin?  Arizona
> is dry - should they get subsidized water?

They do. What's your point? That this is unfair? Of course it is. Life is 
unfair. Some of these unfair subsidies by not be equitable in the short 
run, but in the long run, everybody comes out ahead. Others simply 
re-distribute wealth, to no long-term socialo benefit whatsoever. The 
difference between the two comes down to managing resources.

Some enterprises have traditionally been beyond the scale of the private 
sector, although that is really no longer the case. The US flourished due 
to the success of the railroad building in the late 1800's, and this 
success would not have been possible without a great deal of public 
assistance. True, the rich got richer, but in the long run, a more 
competitive marketplace evolved. The common person was, as a result, 
better off (at least from an economic perspective).

Eventually, the highway systems were government-subsidized, and the 
railroads were not. This helped GM and its shareholders to get rich, 
provided a lot of post-WWII manufacturing jobs, and created huge 
traffic problems and suburban sprawl. See post-WWII Los Angles as a 
reference.

> Why is distance different than any other factor.  If I want to live in a
> remote area, I should bear the costs of the remoteness, just as if I want
> to live near a river, I will have to bear the costs of flood control or
> damage from uncontrolled floods.  I don't have to live in a mountain
> cabin, but if I do there will be costs.

The government provides flood insurance for those who continue to build in
flood plains, and those of us who live on high ground continue to
subsidize this. I live on high ground, and peronally feel that providing
flood insurance to an area that washes out every 5-10 years is stupid. 
OTOH, it might be useful to provide such insurance for areas that only
wash out every 40-50 years. Where do you draw the line?  BTW- The
government funds "water-control" projects as well, subsidizing the
delivery of water to rural areas. Distance is just another cost factor,
one that happens to be pertinent to the process of delivering packages. 


> 
> The largest delay for consumer wireless has been government regulation
> itself - not allowing efficient use of bandwidth.  (I think the first cell
> phone was 1979).  And there was a CB craze, although it had limited range.
> The big wait was for the FCC to catch up with technology (or for congress 
> to allow them to do so).

This was only partially due to frequency regulation. Miniturization has 
had a lot to do with the recent growth in wireless as well. Back when 
cellular phones were the size of a small purse, they were slow to catch 
on; people who spent a good deal of time in their cars, or those whose 
employers subsidised status symbols had car phones, but growth was still 
fairly slow. Once the hand-helds appeared, growth accelerated. There had 
to be enough consumers to support the cost of adding infrastructure, and 
there had to be enough infrastructure to support the consumer; some 
industries can pull this off without outside help, and some cannot.

BTW - Australian cattle stations used radios as their primary link to the 
outside world for quite a while, due to their rural location; the same 
held true for many other "remote" corners of the globe. Not a very 
scalable solution, though. Try using a CB in a built-up area. Then 
imagine everyone getting home on Thursday after a long day at work, and 
trying to order pizza delivery at the same time on a CB in that same area.


> 
> > Before you argue "the best government is no government", visit a few 
> > third-world capitols, and note how you move from a modern capitol city to 
> > flintstones-like living in about 50km.
> 
> Many third world governments are thoroughly corrupt.  Across the border in
> Mexico they have "Government" - are you saying that Mexico City is better
> than Wyoming?  And the small villages have government even if they don't
> have technology.

My point is that many areas of the world have not invested in deploying
technology very far beynd the boundaries of a few "modern" cities. 
Without getting into an even longer rant here, the end result is to
perpetuate the cycle of rural poverty (look into some of the studies of
third-world economic development - distribution of technology and services
is often cited as a critical success factor). Those who do escape to the
city and manage to attain a higher socio-economic status remain there. The
bulk of those born to poverty have no hope of climbing out of it. 

In many countries, (including Mexico, since you mentioned it), delivering
telephone service to rural areas without wireless technology was not even
possible; the locals pull down the telephone (and power) wires to steal
the copper for re-sale. 

Basically, some groups just haven't managed to pull off effective 
self-government; in the long run, you get the form of government you deserve.
If you are too damn self-interested to see anything in terms of the 
common good, you'll probably end up with a self-interested government. 
Call it corrupt if you wish to, for it is, but don't confuse cause and 
effect.

> 
> > A $.32 price on first-class mail to anywhere in the country is a good 
> > deal for all. OTOH, package delivery has become sufficiently competitive, 
> > and probably needs to be revamped.
> 
> Generally wealthier people can afford to live in the remote areas, and can
> afford alternatives to first class mail.  Poor people rely on first class
> mail within cities to do much of their business, and that is mainly local. 
> So you have another case of the poor subsidizing the rich. 

I'm not sure where you've been, but not everybody who lives in a rural 
area is wealthy; this only occurs in places where space is at a premium, 
and only the wealthy can afford to purchase space. There are plenty of 
rural people who are dependant on first class postage to pay their bills, 
and they can't simply walk over to the corner grocer/food stamp 
launderer/check cashing/utlity bill collector to take care of business 
the way they can down on da block.

> 
> > Just my $.02.
> 
> No, your $0.32, soon to be more.
> 

At twice that, it is still a bargain, when you consider what you're 
getting for your money.

Actually, a good portion of the costs of first class delivery are 
subsidized by commercial bulk mailers, who are in turn supported by those 
who purchase goods and services found in direct mail advertisements. I 
suppose that you could even draw the conclusion that if one can afford to 
purchase goods, one is better off that one who cannot, and therefore the 
"haves", by subsidizing bulk mail, are bearing a share of the cost of 
first class delivery used by the "have nots."

Of course, we could argue economics for months - if you don't like the 
results, just change the assumptions.

-r.w.