> You can hack the internet, you can hack the phone system... evidently
> you can hack the USPS as well.
>
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN68186.DTL&dir
> ectory=/chronicle/archive/1997/08/15
>
> Almost everybody in America thinks it costs 32 cents to mail a
> first-class letter.
>
> It doesn't.
there is a bar code you can laser print on your letters to make it bulk.
the postal services assumes you have a bulk mailing licence and sends it.
>
> The equipment is designed to recognize a phosphorescent band on stamps.
> However, the amount of the chemical is the same on most stamps, allowing
> letters with insufficient postage to sail through, the experts say,
> exposing a potential hole in the Postal Service's lucrative revenue
> stream.
the same can be said of dollar bills in vending machines. these things
simply look at the top of the bill and compare it to an image of a $1 bill.
so usually any old xerox of a dollar bill will work. sometimes better than
the real thing.
> As a test of that vulnerability, The Chronicle mailed out 96 letters
> around the nation, some with as little as 5 cents postage, and none with
> a 32 cent stamp.
> Almost all the letters were delivered with no questions asked.
of course I have *never* tested any of these methods, it's just what I
hear....
Tim
-
Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.
-Toa Te Ching
<>tbyars@earthlink.net <>