Some time back the TCUEC website resurrected the Reliable Remailer User’s Manual” that’s was unavailable on the web for over a year. Amid the continuing news of the NSA’s data-collection endeavours, privacy, anonymity, and the obfuscation of traffic analysis is more important than ever.

The right to privacy: use it, or lose it.

Airborne Express used to be a great way to ship stuff quickly… and then they were bought by DHL. For that matter, DHL used to be a great way to ship stuff quickly; not anymore.

Friday morning I had a piece of computer hardware fail, and purchased a replacement from a major online retailer; I paid for “next-day shipping”, which turned out to be Airborne Express, i.e. DHL. I received the tracking number that afternoon - next-day, the DHL website said, with “Saturday Delivery”. Woo-hoo, right? Nope. Saturday came and went, and the package wasn’t delivered. In fact, it remained in the warehouse in it’s city of origin, as far as I can tell.

Monday, they did actually try to deliver… but I was at a funeral, and missed them. No problem, they try to redeliver the next business day.

Tuesday, they didn’t deliver. From 0930 to 1200, I was sitting in the kitchen with two relatives, taking and eating. DHL had said they were going to deliver in the “AM”, so at noon I went and checked the tracking number on their website. Imagine my surprise when I found out that apparently they’d tried to deliver again at five minutes to eleven. None of us had seen them show up - because they didn’t. Nor was there a delivery notice on the door.

I called DHL, and they said the driver had tried to deliver, but nobody was home. Bull; three people were here, the front door was open, and music was playing on the stereo. I explained how they’d failed to deliver on Saturday, as they should have, and how I’d missed them on Monday because of a funeral, and they said they’d try and contact the driver. A few minutes on hold later, I was told the driver was almost at the end of his run for the morning, and would swing by to redeliver the package shortly.

He didn’t.

So, here I am, four days after my “next-day” package was supposed to be delivered, and DHL has screwed up once and lied twice. I don’t know whether the local DHL outfit is a “real” DHL union-run hub (which would be bad enough) or an independant subcontractor outfit; either way, their driver lied twice, which I find inexcusable.

Presumably, the part is on it’s way back to the company. That’s fine; I’ve ordered another one from an outfit that ships via the more expensive but considerably more reliable, and competent, UPS.