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It's all metadata correlation. The UK will know with certainty that a specific stamp was used to send a specific envelope to Mullvad. (e.g., America has been l

It's all metadata correlation. The UK will know with certainty that a specific stamp was used to send a specific envelope to Mullvad. (e.g., America has been logging images of every envelope that passes through its postal service for over two decades). It would also be trivial for the UK to know: - When and where that stamp was initially sold (and to whom, if buying online!) - When and where an envelope bearing that stamp entered the postal system - When and where envelopes with other stamps from the same booklet entered the postal system Add up enough bits and you can pierce anonymity.

sgjohnson 3y ago
And all of this is null and void if you buy your stamps from aliexpress and for the low low effort of simply driving to a different city to throw the envelope into the postbox.
saberience 3y ago
Not really very realistic is it though? I can only imagine this sort of thing is only done if the suspect is someone like Bin Laden, not the average Joe using a VPN for pirating Photoshop.
jjav 3y ago
> Not really very realistic is it though? I can only imagine this sort of thing is only done if the suspect is someone like Bin Laden, not the average Joe using a VPN for pirating Photoshop. This is a misconception caused by the scale of surveillance today. In the old days you were right. To do this kind of tracing they'd have to assign someone to do it which takes human resources and is not infinitely scalable. So they'd only do it to people deemed interesting enough, so average Joe was safe. Today the scope has changed completely. Everything can be correlated all the time, so it is. No suspicion or probable cause needed.
panick21_ 3y ago
To make this happen each stamp would during product have to know where it would will be sold. Is that actually how it works? Can you show me the evidence for that.

sgjohnson 3y ago

And all of this is null and void if you buy your stamps from aliexpress and for the low low effort of simply driving to a different city to throw the envelope into the postbox.

saberience 3y ago

Not really very realistic is it though? I can only imagine this sort of thing is only done if the suspect is someone like Bin Laden, not the average Joe using a VPN for pirating Photoshop.

jjav 3y ago

> Not really very realistic is it though? I can only imagine this sort of thing is only done if the suspect is someone like Bin Laden, not the average Joe using a VPN for pirating Photoshop. This is a misconception caused by the scale of surveillance today. In the old days you were right. To do this kind of tracing they'd have to assign someone to do it which takes human resources and is not infinitely scalable. So they'd only do it to people deemed interesting enough, so average Joe was safe. Today the scope has changed completely. Everything can be correlated all the time, so it is. No suspicion or probable cause needed.

panick21_ 3y ago

To make this happen each stamp would during product have to know where it would will be sold. Is that actually how it works? Can you show me the evidence for that.