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USPS suspends packages from China

Lakados said:
They are also uncovering that there’s a massive repackaging scheme going on where Chinese shipments are being relabeled as coming from other countries to bypass tariffs and have been for years.

https://apnews.com/general-news-3e8d620a800a45d788ecc96d44e4b61c

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/tariff-evasions-us-trade-c7f3cb27

The new administration is cracking down on it.
Click to expand...

It's not just that though.

So much shit you can order on Ali-Express, Temu, and eBay that ships direct from China circumvents enforcement of U.S. regulations due to never being checked as it crosses the border.

Lasers that violate all FDA regulations, electric parts that are not UL (or other) listed for safety regulations, fake medications from shady online "pharmacies" that may or may not contain what they are supposed to, not to mention, that's where a huge amount of the fentanyl is coming from. It has been a wide open door for shady shit to come pouring into the country.

If we just closed that down completely, it would be a HUGE benefit to society. Just completely end any and all small shipments directly from China or anywhere else in the world. If you want to sell stuff in the U.S. you need to warehouse it and market it here, so that you have an entity that is present in the U.S. where enforcement is possible.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's not just that though.

So much shit you can order on Ali-Express, Temu, and eBay that ships direct from China circumvents enforcement of U.S. regulations due to never being checked as it crosses the border.

Lasers that violate all FDA regulations, electric parts that are not UL (or other) listed for safety regulations, fake medications from shady online "pharmacies" that may or may not contain what they are supposed to, not to mention, that's where a huge amount of the fentanyl is coming from. It has been a wide open door for shady shit to come pouring into the country.

If we just closed that down completely, it would be a HUGE benefit to society. Just completely end any and all small shipments directly from China or anywhere else in the world. If you want to sell stuff in the U.S. you need to warehouse it and market it here, so that you have an entity that is present in the U.S. where enforcement is possible.
Click to expand...
Shipping and port inspections have been historically lax, too many containers and not enough people to check them and properly verify the paper trail with too many ways to fake that paper trail.
This is made even worse by bad actors and corrupt inspectors working at those docks in charge of the loading, unloading, and inspecting.

Customs and shipping is one of the very few agencies where I think the implementation of Blockchain technologies could be a net benefit. It's traceable and harder to alter if they secure the API's as they do for banking networks it would, at the very least, greatly increase the difficulty for things to be tampered with or smuggled.
Pair this with automated systems for loading and unloading, and you greatly reduce the unsupervised human element for the grunt work and you can instead put additional personnel on inspections and verification.
 
Lakados said:
Shipping and port inspections have been historically lax, too many containers and not enough people to check them and properly verify the paper trail with too many ways to fake that paper trail.
This is made even worse by bad actors and corrupt inspectors working at those docks in charge of the loading, unloading, and inspecting.
Click to expand...

I'd suggest enforcing every small package being opened, inspected, and checked against relevant U.S. regulations before being let through.

Yes, this would slow down small package uncontrolled imports to the point where they would become completely useless, We are talking decades long backlogs. And as mentioned above, that might not be a bad thing.

Force foreign entities to - if they want access to U.S. consumers - set up proper importers, warehousing and ordering/sales systems domestically. Import everytyhing they sell in bulk, warehouse it here, and sell it from here. Importantly, if they are found to violate U.S. law (like selling line level electrical parts without the proper UL or other safety listings) fine them, and suspend their ability to operate until they fix the issue.

It would also mostly kill bullshit sites like Ali-express and Temu and prevent them from taking advantage of Americans. It would also force the likes of eBay, Amazon and Newegg with their marketplace sales to improve a lot.


Lakados said:
Customs and shipping is one of the very few agencies where I think the implementation of Blockchain technologies could be a net benefit. It's traceable and harder to alter if they secure the API's as they do for banking networks it would, at the very least, greatly increase the difficulty for things to be tampered with or smuggled.
Pair this with automated systems for loading and unloading, and you greatly reduce the unsupervised human element for the grunt work and you can instead put additional personnel on inspections and verification.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting concept. I kind of like it. I hate blockchain used in cryptocurrency, but for something like this it could work.

It may even be overkill though. A simple Public key / Private Key verification system might do the trick.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'd suggest enforcing every small package being opened, inspected, and checked against relevant U.S. regulations before being let through.

Yes, this would slow down small package uncontrolled imports to the point where they would become completely useless, We are talking decades long backlogs. And as mentioned above, that might not be a bad thing.

Force foreign entities to - if they want access to U.S. consumers - set up proper importers, warehousing and ordering/sales systems domestically. Import everytyhing they sell in bulk, warehouse it here, and sell it from here. Importantly, if they are found to violate U.S. law (like selling line level electrical parts without the proper UL or other safety listings) fine them, and suspend their ability to operate until they fix the issue.

It would also mostly kill bullshit sites like Ali-express and Temu and prevent them from taking advantage of Americans. It would also force the likes of eBay, Amazon and Newegg with their marketplace sales to improve a lot.
Click to expand...

There are pros and cons to it. There's countries where they do that with imports or even anything sent in the mail within the country. They typically have extreme corruption and you end up not being able to send anything valuable. In the USA I Imagine it would end up similar to how the TSA handles things.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'd suggest enforcing every small package being opened, inspected, and checked against relevant U.S. regulations before being let through.

Yes, this would slow down small package uncontrolled imports to the point where they would become completely useless, We are talking decades long backlogs. And as mentioned above, that might not be a bad thing.

Force foreign entities to - if they want access to U.S. consumers - set up proper importers, warehousing and ordering/sales systems domestically. Import everytyhing they sell in bulk, warehouse it here, and sell it from here. Importantly, if they are found to violate U.S. law (like selling line level electrical parts without the proper UL or other safety listings) fine them, and suspend their ability to operate until they fix the issue.

It would also mostly kill bullshit sites like Ali-express and Temu and prevent them from taking advantage of Americans. It would also force the likes of eBay, Amazon and Newegg with their marketplace sales to improve a lot.




That's an interesting concept. I kind of like it. I hate blockchain used in cryptocurrency, but for something like this it could work.

It may even be overkill though. A simple Public key / Private Key verification system might do the trick.
Click to expand...
Blockchain might be overkill, but it is the only method I can think of that would give clear and built-in protections from data being altered mid-way through transit.
 
sharknice said:
There are pros and cons to it. There's countries where they do that with imports or even anything sent in the mail within the country. They typically have extreme corruption and you end up not being able to send anything valuable. In the USA I Imagine it would end up similar to how the TSA handles things.
Click to expand...

That kind of corruption usually happens due to low wages.

What's some poor south or central American dude who makes a pittance from his federal job, struggling to feed his family going to do, when a drug cartel offers him potentially life changing money just to look the other way. (especially when saying no, can be hazardous to his and his family's health.)

If you pay people in these roles a good western salary, and provide them with good benefits, then the risk of losing that job and those benefits outweighs the short term gain from corruption. You never completely eliminate it, but the cost to criminals to provide "life changing money" is much much higher, and you have robust law enforcement that is also not on the dole that can protect and crack down if anyone gets threatening. Still, some of these employees will likely make bad choices, but it would be way less than in some third world country. And for those more rare cases, that's what standard carrier insurance is for.

I would never suggest opening personal packages or mail within the U.S. though. That is WAY too "surveillance state" for a free society, IMHO. This would simply be a way to stop the flow of illegal items across the borders.
 
Lakados said:
Blockchain might be overkill, but it is the only method I can think of that would give clear and built-in protections from data being altered mid-way through transit.
Click to expand...

Well, with a standard private key public key authentication, - provided the key has not been stolen, and the cipher has not been compromised - no one can alter the original data (because you lack the private key of the sender). If anyone else tries to replace the senders data, it is detected through use of the public key. If the sender isn't trusted - however - that becomes more difficult.

There is also the question in transit theft of labeling, and using it to ship something other than the sender intended.

This - however - all comes into question when quantum computing becomes more readily available.

And as a side note, this also begs the question. How resilient to quantum computing brute force hacks are blockchain designs?

Once Quantum Computing becomes more commonplace, is that going to make absolutely all cryptocurrency mined to date completely worthless?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Well, with a standard private key public key authentication, - provided the key has not been stolen, and the cipher has not been compromised - no one can alter the original data (because you lack the private key of the sender). If anyone else tries to replace the senders data, it is detected through use of the public key. If the sender isn't trusted - however - that becomes more difficult.

There is also the question in transit theft of labeling, and using it to ship something other than the sender intended.

This - however - all comes into question when quantum computing becomes more readily available.

And as a side note, this also begs the question. How resilient to quantum computing brute force hacks are blockchain designs?

Once Quantum Computing becomes more commonplace, is that going to make absolutely all cryptocurrency mined to date completely worthless?
Click to expand...
The current use of Asymmetric Key Encryption is vulnerable to attack by quantum computers, but that is where Symmetric Key Encryption comes in. Symmetric Key Encryption is a technology that is fundamental to how Blockchains work, other encryption methods use symmetric keys as well, so blockchain isn't the only one, banks have been using them for years for internal traffic. Symmetric keys, though, are not vulnerable to quantum computer attack methods in any way that would give them an advantage over a normal high-powered PC.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
It's not just that though.

So much shit you can order on Ali-Express, Temu, and eBay that ships direct from China circumvents enforcement of U.S. regulations due to never being checked as it crosses the border.

Lasers that violate all FDA regulations, electric parts that are not UL (or other) listed for safety regulations, fake medications from shady online "pharmacies" that may or may not contain what they are supposed to, not to mention, that's where a huge amount of the fentanyl is coming from. It has been a wide open door for shady shit to come pouring into the country.

If we just closed that down completely, it would be a HUGE benefit to society. Just completely end any and all small shipments directly from China or anywhere else in the world. If you want to sell stuff in the U.S. you need to warehouse it and market it here, so that you have an entity that is present in the U.S. where enforcement is possible.
Click to expand...
Why would the Food and Drug Administration have anything to do with lasers?
 
cyclone3d said:
Why would the Food and Drug Administration have anything to do with lasers?
Click to expand...

CDRH (The Center for Devices and Radiological Health) a division of FDA is the agency charged with regulating lasers in the U.S.

I'm not quite sure why this is. I guess it falls under their charter to regulate "radiation emitting devices", which is - IMHO - an overly broad charter and could implicate almost anything, but it is what it is. Someone has to do it I guess, and FDA is pretty good at safety related things, so why not I guess?

I don't know man. Ask congress. They are the ones who came up with it :p
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
CDRH (The Center for Devices and Radiological Health) a division of FDA is the agency charged with regulating lasers in the U.S.

I'm not quite sure why this is. I guess it falls under their charter to regulate "radiation emitting devices", which is - IMHO - an overly broad charter and could implicate almost anything, but it is what it is. Someone has to do it I guess, and FDA is pretty good at safety related things, so why not I guess?

I don't know man. Ask congress. They are the ones who came up with it :p
Click to expand...
Maybe they were giving out laser pointers with happy meals?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
...

Once Quantum Computing becomes more commonplace, is that going to make absolutely all cryptocurrency mined to date completely worthless?
Click to expand...
From what I gather, most common "cryptocurrencies" already implement some form of quantum resistance; it is one of the reasons why it is recommended not to reuse an existing address after transferring from it.

Apart from that, we are about as close to decrypting with quantum computers as we are to commercially viable nuclear fusion.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I'd suggest enforcing every small package being opened, inspected, and checked against relevant U.S. regulations before being let through.

Yes, this would slow down small package uncontrolled imports to the point where they would become completely useless, We are talking decades long backlogs. And as mentioned above, that might not be a bad thing.
Click to expand...

They should send them through deep scanning and let AI determine if they need further scrutiny, however AI is too expensive so they will use the cheaper Chinese AI to get it done :D
 
I'm not sure that the cost/benefit trade-offs of massive importation regulation overhauls, by opening all packages or "deep scans," etc, make any sense. The vast, vast majority of crap that people order from Aliexpress would not be vulnerable to spyware or be all that dangerous to anyone.

If there's a particular class of goods that we regularly have problems with, we can pressure the high-volume of sellers to stop allowing their sales or risk being blocked in the US by one of various means. Ultra-nationalist protective measures have never led anywhere good. If you want to be a free-market capitalist, allow the free market to function naturally, to some extent.
 
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