Postal Service Analogy for Message Privacy
Author: Peter Kaminski Issue: 2025-02-05
Postal Service Analogy for Message Privacy
by Peter Kaminski
adapted from a post to the OGM mailing list
When would you use Signal instead of email?
Email happens to be easy to surveil. Signal, much less so. Allow me to make an analogy with the postal system.
Messages in email are like notes written on postcards. Any postal employee or bot with access to the flow of mail can choose any or all postcards, and read both the addresses and the note. (None of the postcards are printed in a public place, so the public doesn’t read any of the postcards.)
Messages in Signal are like notes enclosed in a special Tyvek® envelope that is unopenable except by the sender and recipient. Postal employees or bots can note the addresses as the envelopes as they fly by, but they cannot surveil the notes themselves.
Now, imagine I want to send a particular note: “Friends, please tell your folks we’re going to have rallies in these key cities...,” and that the postal system has installed scanning bots in the sorting machines. The bots report to various authorities; perhaps the federal administration and/or the billionaires who run things have set certain rally topics as “of interest.”
Various and sundry notes are fine on postcards. But what might be better for that note about the rallies: postcard for easy surveillance, or Tyvek envelope to keep that note from prying eyes?
(Also to remember: Neither postcards nor envelopes is public for all to read – we’d use coffee shop bulletin boards or newspapers or billboards for that.)
Related:
- Peter Kaminski (author)
- 2025 (year)
- Topics: