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Let's call the venture AMS.  Suppose S wishes to send a package to R.  S could use the standard mail system or one of the large package carriers, like FedEx, but such methods are not anonymous, costly, and slow.  They are costly and slow because it is assumed that the carrier will be delivering to a home or business, not to a hub.  They are not anonymous because names are attached to S and R.  The names could be false, but using false names throws a wrench into the normal operations of these businesses.

The reason these services are not anonymous, cheap, and fast is because they operate using an old model, requiring enormous manpower and infrastructure.  If we were building the system from the ground up today, using the technology of today as the starting point, it would look radically different.

For many people, going somewhere in their city to pick up or drop off a package poses no challenge.  With this, we eliminate the last-mile problem of package delivery, but if customers require home/business pick up or drop off, private couriers would be able to handle that load.  So the real idea is simply this, a nameless system for delivering packages between cities.  Let's suppose we did this in only Texas, where there are several major cities.  The model can cover any geographic area, though.  Simply put, one need only have deliveries between cities several times per day before you end up with a system radically faster than the post office.

S wants to send a package to R.  S doesn't want to know who R is and R doesn't want to know who S is.  Neither party wishes to know where the other party is.  S lives in San Antonio, but R doesn't know this.  R lives in Waco, but S doesn't know this.  Neither party wishes to know.  Both have accounts with AMS and they create an encrypted shipping label QR code on the AMS website.  The QR code contains limited information.  Translated it will show only R's bitcoin address, postage amount required to deliver, AMS's bitcoin address to be funded, and the name of the AMS office where the package is destined.  The only one who can decrypt the label is AMS.  When they do, it reads..

Receiver = 16DJXXZBX7JZQWwnYoqt6Xe9VjUDRRvHpK
Postage = .025 BTC to 1AvttuYUd6Xtv3Vt8B96UbT9xDns7Yzzt1
Waco

The only information revealed to both parties in this process is the postage amount and bitcoin address to which it must be sent.  One or the other or both may fund it.  When funded, S merely drives to the package to the San Antonio office and hands it off.  Behind the scenes, the QR code is read and decrypted.  AMS now may verify with the blockchain that the postage is paid and the end point is Waco.  There is a major city between San Antonio and Waco, Austin.  AMS San Antonio has a list of all other AMS hubs and it knows that all packages going to Waco must first go through Austin.  From the AMS office in San Antonio, there are only perhaps 5 places their packages may go.  From those places, there are also only limited numbers of immediate destinations.  Is this network reminding you of anything?  Routing would be as simple as placing the package on the correct conveyor belt and letting it reach the end where it is stacked onto a cart.

Eventually, the package gets to the AMS Waco office and a message is sent to R.  "Your package is ready to pick up.  Your verification code is (the transaction ID for the first deposit into the postage address)."  In order for R to pick up the package, he must prove that he is the owner of 16DJXXZBX7JZQWwnYoqt6Xe9VjUDRRvHpK.  He signs the transaction ID with the private key to 16DJXXZBX7JZQWwnYoqt6Xe9VjUDRRvHpK and after AMS verifies the signature, now AMS knows that this person, whoever he or she is, may receive the package.  AMS hands him his package.

The system works just as well if you do wish to know who the parties are as none of the steps change.  It works exactly the same way.  But now let's go a step further.  S doesn't want even AMS to know that that he is in San Antonio.  Now S may route the package through any number of hubs by simply putting packages in packages and making the receiver on the outermost package AMS itself.  AMS has an internal policy whereby S may give to AMS a package with a label that only AMS my verify.  R is unaware that this is happening.  S puts the package described above into another package with its own shipping label.  This shipping label is a combination of S and AMS's information and S decides to route it through Dallas.  Now the package makes its way to Dallas in the manner described above, only now, it gets opened by AMS Dallas itself, where inside they find yet another package, with its own shipping label.  They throw it on the pile and scan it along with everyone else's packages that are coming from Dallas.  When it arrives in Waco, AMS only knows that it last came from Dallas.  S may pay for as much anonymity as he desires, routing it through multiple hubs before eventually the last package is left for R.

Imagine each truck going from city to city holds about 500 packages and each hop is calculated to be $2 flat rate up to 3 pounds or something.  Going from San Antonio to Waco would have 2 hops so the postage would be $4.  Delivery drivers are essentially independent contractors, going to the AMS office and seeing which run needs to be made.  Drivers get a negotiated percentage of the hop, so a full hop with 500 packages at $2 would be a percentage of $1,000.  And they'd need to come home as well, so they'd get their hop on the way back as well, because there will be packages going San Antonio.  Imagine the speed this would foster, with drivers doing everything in their power to make their runs for the day, bidding down the cost so that it is profitable for them ... but cheap for AMS.  At 25%, the driver could make $500 going from San Antonio to Austin and back again.  The driver might be loading and unloading, but with small boxes, this is trivial.  With enough hops, say 10 hops from LA to NY, a plane covering them all could become profitable.  All S and R know is that they're paying for 10 hops.  Little do they know they will all be covered in one fell swoop with a same day plane.

A pilot would cover 10 hops, so $20 per package and he might have at his disposal enough room for 10,000 packages or more.  Now all these S's going from LA to to R's in NY wind up with possible same day delivery because the pilot sees a profit at $50,000 per flight to NY... and of course another $50,000 on the way back, at 25% of the hop.

Something worth looking into?  I suspect the vast majority of this operation could be franchised out, with entrepreneurs opening up their own hubs, drivers running their own rigs, and private couriers covering the last mile for end S's and R's.

Not everybody are willing to go to the local delivery point (think at impaired people).

There should be a free market of people willing to deliver your package at home

That's a wonderful wall of text. You would make a great architect ::)

I covered that.


It's an easy read.

Amazing idea.
I wish this became reality

Since you read it, would you mind summarizing it for me? ;)

Sorry I missed it

Wonderful idea

You want to send package anonymously to anonymous person.  You create an encrypted shipping label, fund a bitcoin address and drop off at the facility in your city.  Through the network it goes until it reaches a destination city, wherein the anonymous recipient signs a bitcoin address and is able to pick up the package.  For more information, please see the following link ...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=311976.0

i like the idea, but there is one possible problem. What if I used your service to deliver a bomb to an enemy? Could you find me after I dropped off the package?

I would venture to say no.  Keeping tabs on senders is a costly endeavor that even the post office doesn't take on, as you can see with all the public and unmonitored mailboxes all over the place.

Hmm. I never thought about it, but your right. The post office does not know the sender either. I guess that is why the anthrax killer got away with it.

And why there are a lot fewer mailboxes than there used to be.

Fedex has many drop off boxes. You can ship already to a pickup location. All they need to add is buy for cash shipping accounts and the verification of user step.

But I don't they there is enough demand to make it worth their while and Government will want to stop it as well.

But can you instruct FedEx to remail your package without a trace?

Could anybody summarize that to 10 points? So long to read.

great idea. unfortunately the government would never let it happen. we can dream though.

Onion router for packages

?

Yup this is just tor or mixmaster or whatever you want to call it, the kind of thing where you wrap it up in layers.  This physical version is easy to implement if people are willing to participate.  You just put boxes inside each other.  The trouble is, with the physical implementation, it would get costly quick, because people generally don't work for free, and to do layers, you're effectively mailing it multiple times, so for example to make it worth while to have a 3 node circuit, you have to pay 3 people.

Sure, but for pretty good anonymity, you don't even need 1 layer... you just send out the package.  And it would be expensive if no one participated, but it could become cheap if entrepreneurs opened their own nodes out of their storefronts or something.

I've thought a lot about a bitcoin denominated shipping service, simply because it's such a significant expense for BitBrew and I hate having to convert my BTC earnings to fiat to pay for it. I've thought of a few hurdles that would need to be overcome:

• Establishing "hubs" - AMS locations would have to be public knowledge in order for customers to know where to pick up or drop off their packages. How often do you think DEA or local law enforcement would stop by with drug sniffing dogs? Even if they never found anything, who would voluntarily expose themselves to the possibility that they would?
• Trust - The increased anonymity resulting from shipping through unnecessary nodes requires increased cost to the customer. What's to stop an AMS hub from opening all outer packaging and simply shipping to the final destination after waiting for a few days to simulate shipping time?
• Hitting the ground running - Carrying packages between San Antonio and Austin is relatively inexpensive if you are already making the trip but it's unlikely that AMS would be able to find drivers who do so on a regular basis. To make it profitable, AMS would either have to charge a premium or wait until they had enough packages to make it worthwhile. Either way discourages customers from using this service for "legitimate" reasons.
• Tracking - As someone who uses FedEx regularly, I can tell you one of the greatest benefits to me is the ability for my customers to tell where their package is and how long it will take for them to get it. If a package was lost or damaged en route, how would AMS know? Some records would have to be kept and the customer would just have to trust that they would be destroyed afterward.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea, these are just some issues that would have to be addressed before it could really take off.

1 - What good would it do?  Even if a drug dog sniffed drugs in a package, they know neither where it came from, nor where it is going.  Perhaps AMS could have an internal policy whereby if a package is found to contain something illicit (even if it is the police who found it) the package is destroyed, so that the police wouldn't be able to track it to its ultimate location.  I suppose the short answer is, the risk is there whether one uses AMS or not.

2 - This one is more interesting.  Remember the limited information on the QR code.  The only thing the sending hub knows is whether or not their postage fee has been paid, the end hub city, and the recipient address.  The only goal when onion routing the package is to merely conceal the fact that the receiving hub is the owner of the recipient address.  You never know when you're at the last box because unless you can sign a message with your own address ... it may be the last box.  Opening it would be just like opening someone else's mail.  Why go through all that when you can just do your leg of the journey.  The cheating hub wouldn't benefit anyway as all the postage is already paid out by the original sender.  Best to just scan, throw in pile, and drive a couple hours to the next hub.

3 - It would depend only on general volume.  Remember, we're not only counting the packages going from San Antonio to Austin, but also from San Antonio to everywhere else that uses Austin as an intermediate hub between San Antonio and itself.  It all starts be become very economical very quickly if there's enough volume to justify 2 or 3 times a day runs.  How many of your Waco customers would pay $4 for same/next day shipping, if only they travel to AMS Waco to pick up their package?

4 - I could envision some system of record keeping, but I haven't really thought too much about that.  It seems like a trivial add-on once the general project is up and running.

I'm more concerned as to how law enforcement would treat the owner of an AMS hub.

If I'm running a small business and moonlighting as an AMS hub, would I be held responsible for the contents of a package in my possession that has no identifying information other than an QR code with encrypted data? Packages at a FedEx Office location demonstrate at least an attempt by the shipper to identify sender and recipient to each package. Here's how I imagine it might go:

Agent: "This package is full of drugs! You're under arrest for possession with intent to distribute."

Hub operator: "Officer, that package doesn't belong to me. I was simply delivering it the same way the Post Office does."

Agent: "Okay, then tell me who sent it and where it's going."

Hub operator: "That information is in our computer system that suffered an unfortunate crash just a few minutes ago, erasing everything beyond retrieval."

Agent: "How convenient. Well, if you can't tell me who it belongs to, we'll have to assume it's yours. You're under arrest for possession with the intent to distribute."





Ah, it's a decentralized system. I was picturing a single website to generate the payment addresses and create user accounts. So there wouldn't be an overreaching AMS arm to help identify hubs and recruit couriers while taking a cut of hubs' profits? I guess hubs could pay a "franchise fee" to get listed in an AMS directory and place Want Ads for drivers, etc.




Volume is the key.  Realistically, I only have about one customer a month within the state of Texas. Depending on how many bitcoiners were willing to try this, it could take a while to get off the ground. Still not a reason to forego it, just trying to be realistic.





Seems to me potential customers might feel more secure knowing a courier can't run off with their package with no repercussions.

After reading Dawn of Autonomous Corporations, Powered by Bitcoin (http://btcgeek.com/dawn-of-autonomous-corporations/) (credit to Ephebus for the link (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=315922.0)), I'm beginning to wonder if this might be a good candidate for an "autonomous" Bitcoin based business.

The most obvious hurdle I see is making it decentralized. AMS hubs must be able to decrypt an address label, therefore someone must be able to decide who is a hub (authorized to download or utilize the decryption software) and who is merely a customer.

Perhaps it could be the sender who determines that, with each hub setting their own fees.  The sender can pay x for 3 hops with 100% delivery ratings, or y for 2 hops with 99% delivery ratings.  Something like that.

Okay, I've been giving this some thought over the last few days and think I may have a workable solution.

Please prepare for another wall of text.

Using a network and protocol similar to Bitcoin, I believe it is possible to have a (somewhat) decentralized, anonymous, transparent and open mail service. (DATOM)

Essentially, DATOM would be built on top of an alt-coin which creates "coins" that represent packages in different states. DATOM coins won't have any value in and of themselves, they will only be traded between DATOM Hubs, senders and recipients, created when package transactions are initiated and discarded once the package reaches its final destination. Anyone will be able to act as a node but there won't be any incentive built in, so, realistically, only Hubs (and possibly some related services) would find it useful to support the network.

Here's how I imagine it might work:

R buys a t-shirt from S online. R agrees to pay shipping from DATOM Hub 1 to DATOM Hub 2.
R generates a public key representing package "SHIRT", the package origin (Hub 1) and the package destination (Hub 2). This key is the "coin" of the DATOM network and, as such, can be generated by R himself if he happens to be running the client, but will more likely be generated by one of the Hubs offering this as a service to their customers. A corresponding private key is generated as well that R will keep private until he needs to present it as proof of ownership of package "SHIRT".
R then logs onto the website belonging to Hub 1, calculating and paying for shipping from Hub 1 to Hub 2. Each Hub will determine their own prices based on size, weight and rates charged by the drivers they utilize.
R sends the QR code representing public key of package "SHIRT" to S, along with the receipt of payment to Hub 1.

S prints out the QR code and affixes it to the package, which he has ready for shipping. S doesn't live near Hub 1, however. S is obfuscating his location. S follows the same steps R did but the originating location will be his local Hub, Hub 3 and the destination Hub will be Hub 1.
S re-packages the shirt inside an outer layer and affixes the appropriate label, including the new QR code.
S drives over to Hub 3 and drops off the package. Before S leaves Hub 3, he pulls out his smartphone and visits a site similar to blockchain.info designed for the DATOM network. After a few seconds, he can see that Hub 3 has scanned the package and broadcast to the network the fact that his packge "ONION" is ready for pickup by a driver headed to Hub 1.

Alice is a freelance driver registered with Hub 3. She picks up all the packages destined for Hub 1 after having her Driver Badge scanned by the operator of Hub 3. Hub 3 broadcasts over the DATOM network that package "ONION" is now en route to Hub 1.

Several hours later, Alice arrives at Hub 1 and waits while the Hub operator scans the incoming packages and broadcasts that they have arrived over the DATOM network. Alice stretches her legs and drinks a cup of coffee while she waits for Hub 3 to acknowledge the deliveries and sends payment to her BTC address.

S has been waiting for the arrival status of package "ONION" to be broadcast. He now contacts Hub 1 with the private key that corresponds to package "ONION" proving ownership and gives instructions to open the package and scan the next code which indicates it is now package "SHIRT" and payment has already been tendered.

Package "SHIRT" follows a similar journey as package "ONION", culminating in its arrival at Hub 2. R receives a text via the service he is subscribed to indicating his package "SHIRT" is ready for pickup.

But R doesn't live near Hub 2! R also wishes to keep his home city from S, so he contacts Hub 2, provides the private key to prove ownership, and instructions and payment to send the package "FINAL" on to Hub 4. The Hub 2 operator prints out a new shipping label and slaps it over the old.

One last time, the package is picked up by a driver, delivered to Hub 4 and, when it arrives, its status is broadcast over the DATOM network so that R may retrieve it.

Incidentally, R would not be able to tell the difference if S simply held on to the package for 24 hours before dropping it off at Hub 1 and vice versa.

Nice.  I think what I like most about this whole mail service deal is the freelance nature of it.

"Yah have a job?"

"No."

"Yah want one?"

"Yes."

"Gotta car?"

"Yes."

"Well ... there's good money to be made driving from Denver to Cheyenne and back 3 times a day."

The downside is, what happens when some freelance driver who is about to retire from the gig decides to pilfer all the packages.  Perhaps some kind of escrow system could be put in place where in order to drive, one needs to deposit a large amount of Bitcoin into the system.  They can make good money ... but only if they put up $100,000 into the pot...

Wait ... I know.  The driver himself is the insurer.  So suppose the sum total of his delivery for the ride is insured for $100,000.  One can assume that the total contents of the packages will be worth less than $100,000.  So the only driver who can deliver is one who can put that sum, you can almost call it a bond, into escrow.  If the driver fails to deliver or he steals the packages or something, the insured get their money.  If he does deliver, he gets the delivery fee + his $100,000 bond back.  And now he's going to find that when he steals the packages, he loses money.  If everyone insures their stuff for 10% more than the actual value, theft would be non-existent.