![]() Same as when you purchase something online using your credit card using Tor, or log into your normal email account that’s ever been associated with your real identity using Tor. Likewise, if you use Tor to look at something that has anything to do with your real name or physical address, you’ve de-anonymized your Tor session too by so doing. ![]() in what universe am I NOT associating that IP address with my physical address? How could anyone possibly not see this? Viewing anything having to do with your real name or address from an IP address associates that IP address and name/physical address together. If I write my real name and physical address on a clearly visible piece of paper (like an envelope or exterior of a package) and then “track” it by looking at where it is on a web site…. “I never realised couriers are in a position to match up physical addresses to IP addresses in this way.” So I think this data collection was set up very much intentionally (probably in response to their HTTPS deployment leaving the intelligence agencies shut out). The USPS website does use a POST request on the Track Your Package search form. Without it, intelligence agencies probably harvested the tracking codes to maintain such a database Johnston: “but Apache logs everything by default.” – most webservers will log the visiting IP and the URI visited that would include parameters of a GET request but not a POST request. On the other hand if you use Tor, you’d only flag yourself and home address as a Tor user.Īt least does support HTTPS. Of course the retailers are in such a position too.Įven if you routed all your web browsing through a privacy VPN, if you have a single fixed IP address, the courier can associate that with your name and postal address this way. Imagine the potential abuses of that data, if they sell it to online marketers, social networks, debt collectors, private investigators, government. I never realised couriers are in a position to match up physical addresses to IP addresses in this way. Tell me they don’t have enough inspectors to intercept drugs in the mail, when they sure enough intercept my books. I often get packages (books etc.) that have been delayed, sliced open and taped back together after I have tracked them online with no effort to hide myself. Any warrants needed are obtained by parallel construction. Program the tracking website not to show the diversion. Open it up, look at it, and if it passes inspection, peel the yellow sticker off, tape it up and drop it back in the mail. They can put a yellow sticker on it and divert it to one of those 400 inspectors just like that. ![]() It’s still en route, as far as the customer is concerned. If the package is flagged, and then it is scanned at some waypoint, there is no reason that that scan necessarily has to show up on the tracking website. Not just customs, but sorting and processing at various intermediate cities, etc. There are more points than just origin and delivery, especially for packages that come overseas, and then have to cross the continental U.S. Given a tracking number that has raised suspicion, that package could be flagged for further attention anywhere it’s sorted, processed, or scanned. Notwithstanding the Constitution, I don’t think it takes a warrant for postal inspectors to open mail, and I know it doesn’t take probable cause. It shows guilty knowledge and lessens the credibility of “I don’t know a thing about that parcel you delivered, I’m just receiving it for a friend”. Getting an IP address is just icing on the cake. The parcels have to be identified on the originating end. How many drug parcels could maybe 400 Inspectors nationwide identify by having a computer spit out a parcel ID at one of 30,000 delivery units and they: respond to the delivery unit, locate the package, obtain a search warrant, open the parcel, put together a search warrant for the receiving address, assemble a team to serve the warrant, and execute the warrant in such a time that the addressee doesn’t suspect something is awry? None. There are only about 1,200 total Postal Inspectors, including management in the US and they cover external crimes, physical security of Post Offices, child exploitation, revenue fraud and mail fraud in addition to drugs in the mail. In transit the parcel loses its individuality in a container as large as a 53 foot trailer. Either the mailer or the reciepient will query for a given parcel.Īssociating a physical package with a tracking number can be done at two places – at the origin or the delivery point. Inspectors notify the USPS admins over the tracking database to capture IP data for inquiries. A federal search warrant is obtained and the package is opened. You have it backwards – the package is identified by Postal Inspectors first.
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