A causa di potenziali problemi di sicurezza, la Camera dei rappresentanti degli Stati Uniti ha vietato l’installazione e l’uso di WhatsApp su tutti i dispositivi appartenenti al personale del Congresso. Il divieto si applica ai telefoni cellulari, ai computer portatili, ai computer desktop e a tutti i browser web utilizzati sui dispositivi governativi.

Tuttavia, i membri del Congresso possono continuare a usare WhatsApp sui propri dispositivi personali, che, in base alle norme vigenti, non possono essere utilizzati per riunioni informative riservate e strutture protette. La Camera dei Rappresentanti degli Stati Uniti è la camera bassa del Congresso degli Stati Uniti, composta da rappresentanti degli stati in numero proporzionale alla loro popolazione. La Camera dei Rappresentanti è responsabile della creazione delle leggi, dell’approvazione dei bilanci e della rappresentanza del pubblico attraverso 435 rappresentanti eletti.

Secondo Axios , il divieto è stato presentato con un’e-mail interna trapelata e inviata ai dipendenti, che sostanzialmente classifica WhatsApp come una piattaforma di comunicazione “ad alto rischio”. La responsabile amministrativa della Camera, Catherine Szpindor, ha confermato ai media che tale lettera e tale divieto sono effettivamente in vigore.

“Proteggere la Camera dei rappresentanti è la nostra massima priorità e monitoriamo e analizziamo costantemente i potenziali rischi per la sicurezza informatica che potrebbero compromettere i dati dei membri e del personale della Camera”, ha affermato Spindor, aggiungendo che l’elenco delle app approvate viene regolarmente rivisto per riflettere i rischi per la sicurezza informatica.

Il divieto di WhatsApp rientra in un’iniziativa più ampia della Camera per limitare l’uso di piattaforme e app tecnologiche potenzialmente pericolose, tra cui le app ByteDance come TikTok e gli strumenti di intelligenza artificiale come ChatGPT, consentito solo in una versione speciale.

Ora i dipendenti sono incoraggiati a scegliere uno dei seguenti programmi come sostituto di WhatsApp: Microsoft Teams, Wickr, Signal, iMessage e FaceTime. I rappresentanti di WhatsApp affermano di essere fortemente in disaccordo con la posizione del Direttore amministrativo della Camera.

“Sappiamo che i membri della Camera dei Rappresentanti e il loro staff usano regolarmente WhatsApp e non vediamo l’ora che i membri della Camera si uniscano formalmente ai loro colleghi del Senato [dove WhatsApp è ufficialmente approvato]. I messaggi di WhatsApp sono crittografati end-to-end per impostazione predefinita, il che significa che possono essere visualizzati solo dai destinatari e non da WhatsApp stessa. Si tratta di un livello di sicurezza superiore rispetto alla maggior parte delle app presenti nell’elenco approvato, che non offrono questo livello di protezione”, ha affermato il messenger.

Il problema è che sono in circolazione moltissime 0day e moltissime piattaforme spyware che possono hackerare un telefono e accedere alle chat crittografate di whatsapp perchè lavorano nativamente sullo smartphone del suo proprietario.

L'articolo WhatsApp bandito dal Congresso USA: troppo rischioso per la cybersecurity proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

La politica e la sicurezza europea ti appassionano? Non perdere l’occasione di partecipare alla Pirate Academy, che si terrà da settembre a novembre 2025. Trenta candidati selezionati prenderanno parte a sessioni online incentrate su sfide e aree problematiche chiave, dove acquisiranno una comprensione più approfondita del funzionamento delle istituzioni europee. Dieci di loro avranno l’…

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As the Industrial Age took the world by storm, city centers became burgeoning hubs of commerce and activity. New offices and apartments were built higher and higher as density increased and skylines grew ever upwards. One could live and work at height, but this created a simple inconvenience—if you wanted to send any mail, you had to go all the way down to ground level.

In true American fashion, this minor inconvenience would not be allowed to stand. A simple invention would solve the problem, only to later fall out of vogue as technology and safety standards moved on. Today, we explore the rise and fall of the humble mail chute.

Going Down

Born in 1848 in Albany, New York, James Goold Cutler would come to build his life in the state. He lived and worked in the growing state, and as an architect, he soon came to identify an obvious problem. For those occupying higher floors in taller buildings, the simple act of sending a piece of mail could quickly become a tedious exercise. One would have to make their way all the way to a street level post box, which grew increasingly tiresome as buildings grew ever taller.
Cutler’s original patent for the mail chute. Note element G – a hand guard that prevented people from reaching into the chute to grab mail falling from above. Security of the mail was a key part of the design. Credit: US Patent, public domain
Cutler saw that there was an obvious solution—install a vertical chute running through the building’s core, add mail slots on each floor, and let gravity do the work. It then became as simple as dropping a letter in, and down it would go to a collection box at the bottom, where postal workers could retrieve it during their regular rounds. Cutler filed a patent for this simple design in 1883. He was sure to include a critical security feature—a hand guard behind each floor’s mail chute. This was intended to stop those on lower levels reaching into the chute to steal the mail passing by from above. Installations in taller buildings were also to be fitted with an “elastic cushion” in the bottom to “prevent injury to the mail” from higher drop heights.
A Cutler Receiving Box that was built in 1920. This box would have lived at the bottom of a long mail chute, with the large door for access by postal workers. The brass design is typical of the era. Credit: National Postal Museum, CC0
One year later, the first installation went live in the Elwood Building, built in Rochester, New York to Cutler’s own design. The chute proved fit for purpose in the seven-story building, but there was a problem. The collection box at the bottom of Cutler’s chute was seen by the postal authorities as a mailbox. Federal mail laws were taken quite seriously, then as now, and they stated that mailboxes could only be installed in public buildings such as hotels, railway stations, or government facilities. The Elwood was a private building, and thus postal carriers refused to service the collection box.

It consists of a chute running down through each story to a mail box on the ground floor, where the postman can come and take up the entire mail of the tenants of the building. A patent was easily secured, for nobody else had before thought of nailing four boards together and calling it a great thing.

Letters could be dropped in the apertures on the fourth and fifth floors and they always fell down to the ground floor all right, but there they stated. The postman would not touch them. The trouble with the mail chute was the law which says that mail boxes shall be put only in Government and public buildings.

–The Sun, New York, 20 Dec 1886

Cutler’s brilliantly simple invention seemed dashed at the first hurdle. However, rationality soon prevailed. Postal laws were revised in 1893, and mail chutes were placed under the authority of the US Post Office Department. This had important security implications. Only post-office approved technicians would be allowed to clear mail clogs and repair and maintain the chutes, to ensure the safety and integrity of the mail.
The Cutler Mail chutes are easy to spot at the Empire State Building. Credit: Teknorat, CC BY-SA 2.0
With the legal issues solved, the mail chute soared in popularity. As skyscrapers became ever more popular at the dawn of the 20th century, so did the mail chute, with over 1,600 installed by 1905. The Cutler Manufacturing Company had been the sole manufacturer reaping the benefits of this boom up until 1904, when the US Post Office looked to permit competition in the market. However, Cutler’s patent held fast, with his company merging with some rivals and suing others to dominate the market. The company also began selling around the world, with London’s famous Savoy Hotel installing a Cutler chute in 1904. By 1961, the company held 70 percent of the mail chute market, despite Cutler’s passing and the expiry of the patent many years prior.

The value of the mail chute was obvious, but its success was not to last. Many companies began implementing dedicated mail rooms, which provided both delivery and pickup services across the floors of larger buildings. This required more manual handling, but avoided issues with clogs and lost mail and better suited bigger operations. As postal volumes increased, the chutes became seen as a liability more than a convenience when it came to important correspondence. Larger oversized envelopes proved a particular problem, with most chutes only designed to handle smaller envelopes. A particularly famous event in 1986 saw 40,000 pieces of mail stuck in a monster jam at the McGraw-Hill building, which took 23 mailbags to clear. It wasn’t unusual for a piece of mail to get lost in a chute, only to turn up many decades later, undelivered.
An active mail chute in the Law Building in Akron, Ohio. The chute is still regularly visited by postal workers for pickup. Credit: Cards84664, CC BY SA 4.0Mail chutes were often given fine, detailed designs befitting the building they were installed in. This example is from the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Colorado. Credit: Mikepascoe, CC BY SA 4.0
The final death knell for the mail chute, though, was a safety matter. Come 1997, the National Fire Protection Association outright banned the installation of new mail chutes in new and existing buildings. The reasoning was simple. A mail chute was a single continuous cavity between many floors of a building, which could easily spread smoke and even flames, just like a chimney.

Despite falling out of favor, however, some functional mail chutes do persist to this day. Real examples can still be spotted in places like the Empire State Building and New York’s Grand Central station. Whether in use or deactivated, many still remain in older buildings as a visible piece of mail history.

Better building design standards and the unstoppable rise of email mean that the mail chute is ultimately a piece of history rather than a convenience of our modern age. Still, it’s neat to think that once upon a time, you could climb to the very highest floors of an office building and drop your important letters all the way to the bottom without having to use the elevator or stairs.

Collage of mail chutes from Wikimedia Commons, Mark Turnauckas, and Britta Gustafson.

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Era ora, ERA ORA!

Non capisco perché ci abbiano messo tanto.

E comunque da questa iniziativa resta fuori per lo meno la Toscana.

EDIT: come segnalato da Baylee, al boicottaggio partecipano anche Unicoop Firenze e Unicoop Tirreno.

#bds

ilpost.it/2025/06/24/coop-supe…