KL,
USPS can never use Email as a carrier of official mail. Email is insecure inherently, and that would wreak havoc with the fact that reading another's mail is a felony.
If you are only thinking of conventional email as we are all accustomed to using now, they that would not work. Instead think in terms of proprietary USPS email formats with encryption and VPNs and with communications only between you and the post office which runs a propietary operating system. Your device has a specific ID like a MAC address and does not talk to anyother device accept the USPS computer.
Again, That's called thinking outside the box. Just because commone email is not secure does not mean that no email is secure nor that it cannot be made secure. I have been in the IT field for over 44 years now, and given the time and budget you can do almost anything you want with computers and they can be made secure.
Also, if the postal service uses email, then that gives the government carte blanche to have oversight over email exploitation of the text of the Constitution. Government oversight of the internet will meet with stalwart opposition, thankfully.
If the government wanted carte blanche to have oversight over email, they could do it now, and they are doing it now if they are investigating terroist, or drug dealers, etc. While I don't think we need more laws, we do need more laws to restrict what the government and politicians can do, and to insure they are not stepping on the rights of honest, law abiding citiizens.
if you want a simple computer that you don't have to do much with, that already exists. It's called a Mac. Unlike PCs, macs can go for years without needing upgrades. They're easy to use, and yet they do not have limited functionality.
I am talking about a preprogramed single function email only device to keep the cost down and retain security on the device. The device would be only used to connect to the post office and be totally useless to anyone else for any other reason. The device would be inexpensive and so simple to operate that even technology challenged seniors would not have any fears or problems using the device
What do you mean by "could check [your] mail daily"? You mean that you don't check your Snail Mail daily?!
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. There are people who are on the road a lot or who go on vacation and do not see their mail until they return. Well, if all USPS mail was electronic, you could take your USPS mail device with you, or run the special software on your laptop and be able to check your mail when ever you wanted...just like regular email.
Also, you won't have to have a relative pick up your mail, or have the post office hold it until you return from vacation, etc. For the elderly or handicapped, they won't even need to make a trip out to the mailbox.
Yep, it just gets better and better. I'm sure you disagree, but then there are always doubter who say that can't be done, or that won't work because it has been tried before. In reality they just don't want any changes and assume nobody else does either.
About a year ago, all TV broadcast were switched from Analog to Digital broadcasts making everybody's old analog TV obsolete....but for the most part everyone is still watching TV, even on their old sets and the world did not end. A simple, inexpensive converter box allowed the older analog TV's to continue picking up all the channels they did before. If you were on Cable or Satellite TV, you did not have to change anything.
The only people who complained were the doubters, and procrastinators who said it would never happen, or waited too late to get their converter box and all the $40 discount coupons were gone.
You know somebody had to be thinking out of the box to pull that off as smoothly as it did. I even had my doubts that it would work, but it did. So obviously, better minds than yours or mine worked out all the details for that conversion.
...Rich
