That’s a pretty great idea; I’ve had to fight with automatic address fill ins on websites that insisted I lived in a different city. I shouldn’t have to go to dev tools to fix my address. From...
Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites.
That’s a pretty great idea; I’ve had to fight with automatic address fill ins on websites that insisted I lived in a different city. I shouldn’t have to go to dev tools to fix my address.
It is also hoped the service will ease the burden on postal workers, who often struggle to identify addresses when they are incorrectly displayed or difficult to confirm, Japan Post officials said.
With privacy as a key concern, the Digital Address links only to a physical location, not to any individual’s name. The service is free of charge, both for initial registration and updates.
Notably, Japan Post has clarified that it does not plan to use Digital Addresses for physical mail delivery.
Any time I do this to fix a form I wonder if the developers for the site are in a mental crisis wondering why the bug only happens sometimes because clearly some people are getting past it.
I shouldn’t have to go to dev tools to fix my address.
Any time I do this to fix a form I wonder if the developers for the site are in a mental crisis wondering why the bug only happens sometimes because clearly some people are getting past it.
I’ve done this enough times that whatever central database they’re pulling from has finally fixed itself for my address after a couple years. Which is nice, but also kind of spooky that there’s...
That’s a pretty great idea; I’ve had to fight with automatic address fill ins on websites that insisted I lived in a different city. I shouldn’t have to go to dev tools to fix my address.
I’ve done this enough times that whatever central database they’re pulling from has finally fixed itself for my address after a couple years. Which is nice, but also kind of spooky that there’s that much data sharing going on.
This is similar to, but not the same as, an idea I've long wanted for opaque addresses. This unfortunately seems like it has a few downsides that I'd still want to solve for: Each site needs to...
This is similar to, but not the same as, an idea I've long wanted for opaque addresses. This unfortunately seems like it has a few downsides that I'd still want to solve for:
Each site needs to implement this individually. It also can't be used at all by random people, preventing me from having an address book that doesn't rot as people move.
Privacy. It sounds like anyone that learns your code can forever figure out where you live by just putting your code into any supported site and seeing what it populates.
With those in mind the changes I would personally make are:
The code could replace a physical address. My gut instinct is the best way to handle this is the same as how sloppy, incorrect, or incomplete addresses are already dealt with in mail facilities: printing a correction over it.
In addition to the very useful feature of having the address follow you, also allow creation of disposable limited-use address codes. It's fine if these are longer and a bit more annoying. The use case is mostly so less-trusted entities (strangers, random retailers/internet sellers, fans, etc.) can send you stuff without being able to learn anything anything about you, not even being able to link you to data leaks that may contain your primary digital address.
Allow setting scopes on who can resolve them and what can be resolved. For example, if you had a digital address that only the post office could fully resolve (probably not possible to disable) and that [insert retailer] can resolve with them only being able to get the level of granularity required for taxes you could protect a lot more of your personal details even when buying things.
I love #2, that's a fantastic idea. Kind of like a one time use credit card, but for an address. It could expire as soon as it was used, maybe after 1-2 lookups. Limiting access to the full...
I love #2, that's a fantastic idea. Kind of like a one time use credit card, but for an address. It could expire as soon as it was used, maybe after 1-2 lookups.
Limiting access to the full information is what I see as the real challenge. If it's used for delivery, several companies would ultimately need access.
Credit cards use addresses for confirmation, but we now have a better solution in one time passwords, even a texted code would be better than using something as hard to keep private as an address. Moving creates all kinds of chaos in trying to remember which address which bank has at that very moment.
There's probably a bit more thinking that would need to go into data access. The primary intent is just to reduce the surface area for malice. One could argue they could always just mail an air...
There's probably a bit more thinking that would need to go into data access. The primary intent is just to reduce the surface area for malice. One could argue they could always just mail an air tag, but I'd assume that is less appealing to a stalker that doesn't want to leave obvious evidence like that.
Off the top of my head I'd go with that all registered parcel carriers and law enforcement all need to be able to resolve the full address. I assume all parcel carriers because limiting it (ex. allowing UPS but not FedEx) would break down pretty badly if the shipper picks a carrier that you didn't give permission. Registered parcel carriers should be a short and auditable list though.
Retailers would need to be able to resolve at least enough to figure out local taxes and restrictions (maybe this is city+county or something). Although since customers are actually picking the retailer this could support scopes, but it's debatable how worth it it would be if they only have access to the more-limited info anyway.
One challenge with a project like this is having a sufficiently large hamming distance between valid identifiers and sufficient check digit resolution. Would really suck to type your digital...
One challenge with a project like this is having a sufficiently large hamming distance between valid identifiers and sufficient check digit resolution. Would really suck to type your digital address and send your shipment elsewhere. Normal addresses can have typos as well but the human readability can help proof reading.
Not that this is a hard problem, I'm just curious how they designed their codeword space.
"digital address" is a bit of an overstatement. From reading, the project is more an individualised, personal postcode - it's an unchanging reference to a dynamic location, just as your personal...
"digital address" is a bit of an overstatement. From reading, the project is more an individualised, personal postcode - it's an unchanging reference to a dynamic location, just as your personal phone number is an unchanging reference to whichever device your SIM card is in.
EDIT: I'm not sure what a project that could be called a digital address would be, since web and email addresses are already things. Closest thing I can think of is a government platform giving everyone a publicly funded social media webpage and cloud storage, like in internet 1.0 when everyone built their own websites.
That’s a pretty great idea; I’ve had to fight with automatic address fill ins on websites that insisted I lived in a different city. I shouldn’t have to go to dev tools to fix my address.
From Japan Today
From Asahi
Any time I do this to fix a form I wonder if the developers for the site are in a mental crisis wondering why the bug only happens sometimes because clearly some people are getting past it.
Haha, I didn’t even think of that.
I’ve done this enough times that whatever central database they’re pulling from has finally fixed itself for my address after a couple years. Which is nice, but also kind of spooky that there’s that much data sharing going on.
This is similar to, but not the same as, an idea I've long wanted for opaque addresses. This unfortunately seems like it has a few downsides that I'd still want to solve for:
With those in mind the changes I would personally make are:
I love #2, that's a fantastic idea. Kind of like a one time use credit card, but for an address. It could expire as soon as it was used, maybe after 1-2 lookups.
Limiting access to the full information is what I see as the real challenge. If it's used for delivery, several companies would ultimately need access.
Credit cards use addresses for confirmation, but we now have a better solution in one time passwords, even a texted code would be better than using something as hard to keep private as an address. Moving creates all kinds of chaos in trying to remember which address which bank has at that very moment.
There's probably a bit more thinking that would need to go into data access. The primary intent is just to reduce the surface area for malice. One could argue they could always just mail an air tag, but I'd assume that is less appealing to a stalker that doesn't want to leave obvious evidence like that.
Off the top of my head I'd go with that all registered parcel carriers and law enforcement all need to be able to resolve the full address. I assume all parcel carriers because limiting it (ex. allowing UPS but not FedEx) would break down pretty badly if the shipper picks a carrier that you didn't give permission. Registered parcel carriers should be a short and auditable list though.
Retailers would need to be able to resolve at least enough to figure out local taxes and restrictions (maybe this is city+county or something). Although since customers are actually picking the retailer this could support scopes, but it's debatable how worth it it would be if they only have access to the more-limited info anyway.
One challenge with a project like this is having a sufficiently large hamming distance between valid identifiers and sufficient check digit resolution. Would really suck to type your digital address and send your shipment elsewhere. Normal addresses can have typos as well but the human readability can help proof reading.
Not that this is a hard problem, I'm just curious how they designed their codeword space.
"digital address" is a bit of an overstatement. From reading, the project is more an individualised, personal postcode - it's an unchanging reference to a dynamic location, just as your personal phone number is an unchanging reference to whichever device your SIM card is in.
EDIT: I'm not sure what a project that could be called a digital address would be, since web and email addresses are already things. Closest thing I can think of is a government platform giving everyone a publicly funded social media webpage and cloud storage, like in internet 1.0 when everyone built their own websites.
Ah, but it sounds like the address is literally made from digits, so there is that :)