[EvanAnderson]

I still have a vague hope that the United States Postal Service could be "pivoted" into being a PKI provider and distribute physical tokens to citizens. They already have substantial procedures and infrastructure for verifying identity. There would be problems, to be sure, but I'd much rather get my ubiquitous PKI for citizens from the USPS than the banks or "tech giants".

[derbOac]

I'd like to see the USPS expanded to become a public / municipal ISP of sorts.

If you read about the history of the institution, this is really what was intended in its constitutional incorporation. It really wasn't about physical mail per se, and you can't hold the founders accountable to something that was outside the realm of imagination at the time.

There's all sorts of information-structural things that are in the bounds of the USPS per the intent of its creation.

[KennyBlanken]

My main reservation with the USPS becoming an ISP lies in its investigative powers and long history of politically driven, unconstitutional use of its police force. Namely suppressing socialist newsletters, pornography, and the like.

I'm guessing most Americans do not realize that going back more than a decade, the USPS has scanned and stored imagery and metadata for every single piece of mail that passes through their automated sorting machines.

Look closely at the images they email you of mail coming into your mailbox and you'll notice that very often, the scans reveal the nature of the documents inside even without messing with contrast/levels.

[derbOac]

That's a good point, and I share that concern to some extent. But in thinking about it I guess I'm of the impression this happens anyway with private ISPs and the government? Private courts, state privilege, etc. Maybe if it were through the USPS it would force some transparency as well due to it not being private.

Also, I would be concerned if all the private ISPs disappeared also. Ideally I'd like to see something like is the case with physical delivery, where you have the USPS, FexEx, UPS, DHL, etc. Having the USPS be an ISP of sorts would hopefully not kill private offerings, along the same lines. Especially so given that we're in a de facto monopoly situation at the level of specific geographic locations often now. Introducing competition where the market has failed to do so shouldn't be a problem, and if it is, there are larger issues.

If anything I could see this being selling point for private ISPs, "use us and don't worry about the government because we have everything locked down in X, Y, and Z manner."

[throwaway6734]

It's a real shame the USPS didn't jump on email at the start and become an email provider

[rtourn]

They still can. A government doesn't have the need for first mover advantage because they have the power to make the official version. Also, the technology is very mature and best practices are better known. The userbase has been trained. And it's cheaper for them to do it now.

Though an official united states citizen email address has its own pitfalls for abuse, scams, and fraud.

[jeffbee]

Nothing about their organization prepares them for doing this. Having 50000 branch offices and half a million employees is their superpower.

[aeternum]

This would be great for things like voting, but I think it could also be easily abused.

Many services would want to use your PKI token as identification, we would likely give up a lot of privacy because of its existence/ease-of-use.

[nyokodo]

> I still have a vague hope that the United States Postal Service could be "pivoted" into being a PKI provider

It’s going to be an uphill battle or impossible as PKIs are too obscure for the average citizen to understand the benefits and any whiff of a federal ID card will be treated like the mark of the communist coup beast.