4 ms·

You can forward someone else's mail too. Just go to the post office, fill out the form, and drop it in the mailbox. There's no verification, though there is not

You can forward someone else's mail too. Just go to the post office, fill out the form, and drop it in the mailbox. There's no verification, though there is notification at both the old and the new address. Not to mention it's a crime to do that.

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
Here in Sweden, everyone's address has to be registered with the Tax Agency. In their (securely authenticated by digital ID which can only be obtained using photo ID) online services you can choose to disallow changes of your registered address which are not made digitally to prevent this kind of thing. Personally I have this turned on, because I'm conscious that every piece of information you'd need to send a fake address change notification for me is either public or easily obtainable with a call to the Tax Agency, which is far from reassuring.
- SamBam 8y ago
  That system would also allow us to completely get rid of our horrendous voter registration system, and make universal voting a reality.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    It would. In fact, Sweden has no “voter registration” per se, everyone who is registered as living here just gets a voting card in the mail before the election, I did earlier this year. (I only moved to Sweden this year and had no idea how to register to vote, turns out I don't need to!) It's not great for privacy though, so I understand the resistance of the US and the UK to it. Mind you, the US wouldn't have to make the whole thing public like Sweden does for… reasons.
    - dwighttk 8y ago
      What if you have like 10 addresses? Can you vote 10x?
      - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
        One registered main address per person, though you can register an additional “special post address” if you want to get your mail somewhere other than where you sleep for an extended period of time. You can't vote twice even if you did get two cards, you have to show ID (which I dislike, but it's at least relatively easy to obtain here) and your name is crossed out on the voter list once you've voted.
  - groby_b 8y ago
    Yeah, but it'd have a bunch of people scream about government overreach, and have them invoke the spectre of "papers please" and authoritarianism, and so, OMG, Nazis. (Electing Nazis is fine, though, because free speech!)
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Except in the USA, voting is constitutionally a state thing, not federal.
    - specialist 8y ago
      Federal laws, oversight. Local administration. https://www.eac.gov https://www.eac.gov Cue the fever dreams whenever anyone merely suggests we harmonize, normalize the details. As if predictable standards for signature verification will inevitably lead to a military coup.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      Even if that were entirely true, which it isn't, the Constitution is not fixed (except maybe the part about equal representation in the Senate, and there's a two-step trick to change that, too.)
  - pjc50 8y ago
    The failures of the US voter registration system are deliberate, targeted disenfranchisement.
  - eigenvector 8y ago
    Lots of countries use the tax system to automatically sign up voters. Obviously this doesn't catch all potential voters - the people who don't file taxes because they have no income are likely a lot of the most disenfranchised individuals - but it gets you 90% of the way there. In Canada, whenever you file your taxes you have a box to tick 'automatically share my information with federal and provincial elections authorities'.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
      While it's administered by the Swedish Tax Agency, what Sweden has is actually a general population registration system that everyone* has to be in and which is used across the entire government. *Asylum seekers and various types of temporary residents and such are not technically considered to be in the population register, though they are usually still in fact in the database, just with less information and a flag saying they don't count
macintux 8y ago
It struck me how easy it would be to get someone else's social security card this way: with the information from the Equifax breach, you have all the data you need to request a replacement card online, and by forwarding their mail you can get the card when it arrives.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  It's always been easy to commit crime, it's just harder to get away with them, and luckily most people don't want to commit crimes (and then another percentage don't think the risk is worth the reward -- hence deterrence) . In this case, anything related to stealing someone else's mail is an insta-felony.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Last time I got social security cards, they were printed on cardstock with absolutely no security features. They would be trivial to counterfeit, if you had the number to begin with. It's amazing that they are accepted as a form of ID to get e.g. a passport.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    They may be one form of ID required. (And I'm not sure that's even the case.) They are certainly not sufficient. You need proof of citizenship. You need some form of government-issued ID. I haven't personally had a social security card in many decades. For the first time in I don't know how long, I do need to provide some form of proof of SSN to get a RealID drivers license renewal but last year's W2 is sufficient for that.
    - ams6110 8y ago
      Yeah not required, but accepted. And not sufficient by itself. Birth certificate is good to prove citizenship and those appear to be easily forgeable also, at least the ones I've seen.
      - ghaff 8y ago
aqme28 8y ago
People have been abusing this already https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-ups-scam-investigation-20180417-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-up...
eigenvector 8y ago
The thing that stunned me about mail forwarding in the US is that it's free. There's as little verification here in Canada as in the US, but it's a pretty pricey service (minimum ~$60 depending on length of time) which naturally rate-limits fraud attempts.
- analogmemory 8y ago
  Oh it's "Free" in the normal way. In that they sell your new address to marketers. I stopped using it years ago when I moved and then started getting catalogs for what felt like every business out there.

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago

Here in Sweden, everyone's address has to be registered with the Tax Agency. In their (securely authenticated by digital ID which can only be obtained using photo ID) online services you can choose to disallow changes of your registered address which are not made digitally to prevent this kind of thing. Personally I have this turned on, because I'm conscious that every piece of information you'd need to send a fake address change notification for me is either public or easily obtainable with a call to the Tax Agency, which is far from reassuring.

SamBam 8y ago
That system would also allow us to completely get rid of our horrendous voter registration system, and make universal voting a reality.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  It would. In fact, Sweden has no “voter registration” per se, everyone who is registered as living here just gets a voting card in the mail before the election, I did earlier this year. (I only moved to Sweden this year and had no idea how to register to vote, turns out I don't need to!) It's not great for privacy though, so I understand the resistance of the US and the UK to it. Mind you, the US wouldn't have to make the whole thing public like Sweden does for… reasons.
  - dwighttk 8y ago
    What if you have like 10 addresses? Can you vote 10x?
    - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
      One registered main address per person, though you can register an additional “special post address” if you want to get your mail somewhere other than where you sleep for an extended period of time. You can't vote twice even if you did get two cards, you have to show ID (which I dislike, but it's at least relatively easy to obtain here) and your name is crossed out on the voter list once you've voted.
- groby_b 8y ago
  Yeah, but it'd have a bunch of people scream about government overreach, and have them invoke the spectre of "papers please" and authoritarianism, and so, OMG, Nazis. (Electing Nazis is fine, though, because free speech!)
- ams6110 8y ago
  Except in the USA, voting is constitutionally a state thing, not federal.
  - specialist 8y ago
    Federal laws, oversight. Local administration. https://www.eac.gov https://www.eac.gov Cue the fever dreams whenever anyone merely suggests we harmonize, normalize the details. As if predictable standards for signature verification will inevitably lead to a military coup.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Even if that were entirely true, which it isn't, the Constitution is not fixed (except maybe the part about equal representation in the Senate, and there's a two-step trick to change that, too.)
- pjc50 8y ago
  The failures of the US voter registration system are deliberate, targeted disenfranchisement.
- eigenvector 8y ago
  Lots of countries use the tax system to automatically sign up voters. Obviously this doesn't catch all potential voters - the people who don't file taxes because they have no income are likely a lot of the most disenfranchised individuals - but it gets you 90% of the way there. In Canada, whenever you file your taxes you have a box to tick 'automatically share my information with federal and provincial elections authorities'.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    While it's administered by the Swedish Tax Agency, what Sweden has is actually a general population registration system that everyone* has to be in and which is used across the entire government. *Asylum seekers and various types of temporary residents and such are not technically considered to be in the population register, though they are usually still in fact in the database, just with less information and a flag saying they don't count

macintux 8y ago

It struck me how easy it would be to get someone else's social security card this way: with the information from the Equifax breach, you have all the data you need to request a replacement card online, and by forwarding their mail you can get the card when it arrives.

jimmy1 8y ago
It's always been easy to commit crime, it's just harder to get away with them, and luckily most people don't want to commit crimes (and then another percentage don't think the risk is worth the reward -- hence deterrence) . In this case, anything related to stealing someone else's mail is an insta-felony.
ams6110 8y ago
Last time I got social security cards, they were printed on cardstock with absolutely no security features. They would be trivial to counterfeit, if you had the number to begin with. It's amazing that they are accepted as a form of ID to get e.g. a passport.
- ghaff 8y ago
  They may be one form of ID required. (And I'm not sure that's even the case.) They are certainly not sufficient. You need proof of citizenship. You need some form of government-issued ID. I haven't personally had a social security card in many decades. For the first time in I don't know how long, I do need to provide some form of proof of SSN to get a RealID drivers license renewal but last year's W2 is sufficient for that.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Yeah not required, but accepted. And not sufficient by itself. Birth certificate is good to prove citizenship and those appear to be easily forgeable also, at least the ones I've seen.
    - ghaff 8y ago

aqme28 8y ago

People have been abusing this already https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-ups-scam-investigation-20180417-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-up...

eigenvector 8y ago

The thing that stunned me about mail forwarding in the US is that it's free. There's as little verification here in Canada as in the US, but it's a pretty pricey service (minimum ~$60 depending on length of time) which naturally rate-limits fraud attempts.

analogmemory 8y ago
Oh it's "Free" in the normal way. In that they sell your new address to marketers. I stopped using it years ago when I moved and then started getting catalogs for what felt like every business out there.