Any Postal Phackers?

[sT4mp5 1]

So I have been on the hunt for a community of people who find the postal system not only interesting, but hackable. 

So far I have reached into the realms of postal machinery like Multi Line Optical Character Readers (MLOCR) or Facer Cancellers(FC), 4 state and 2D barcodes, Return To Senders (RTS), Facing Identifying Marks (FIM), Phosphor in postage, etc

I have spent a long time systematically testing the machinery and even the staff of the postal company, and have executed many successfully experiments. including international phacs. 

so I guess I just wanted to know if there is any other OCD mail hackers out there? 

Phack Yeah!

sT4mP5

 

[eth0enigma 5]

I've never done anything regarding postal hacking but have plenty of experinece when it comes to Postal standards. I would love to learn more about what types of hacks your eluding to.

 

-E

[sT4mp5 1]

hello friendly mod. i also have experience with postal standards. 

I study the PDFs that the networks make available, and try to gain new ideas for a new phac.

recently I have reverse engineered the CPC machine cancel over the postage to read YYMMDDMM.

I have been trying to reverse engineer the 4state barcode including the reed solomon correction error snd have and getting closer to the specs. 

as for actual mail. I have sent "mail proxies" nationally and internationally, where you send a letter to "ATTN POSTMASTER" and have them open the mail. inside the opened mail is another letter for them to add to their outgoing mail. 

lately I have been testing the mlocr to find out what type of characters are readable, and what ones are ejected from the machines and are read manually. backwards text, jumbled up, anything goes really. 

the FC also is interesting. placment of the stamp on the letter can avoid having the stamp cancelled by machine. I have had RTSs with a stamp attached be "returned" to the forwarding address as "postage due return to sender"....

 

I could go on and on... it's my thing guess.

 

 

[prrp 0]

On 2/26/2016 at 11:20 PM, sT4mp5 said:

hello friendly mod. i also have experience with postal standards. 

I study the PDFs that the networks make available, and try to gain new ideas for a new phac.

recently I have reverse engineered the CPC machine cancel over the postage to read YYMMDDMM.

I have been trying to reverse engineer the 4state barcode including the reed solomon correction error snd have and getting closer to the specs. 

as for actual mail. I have sent "mail proxies" nationally and internationally, where you send a letter to "ATTN POSTMASTER" and have them open the mail. inside the opened mail is another letter for them to add to their outgoing mail. 

lately I have been testing the mlocr to find out what type of characters are readable, and what ones are ejected from the machines and are read manually. backwards text, jumbled up, anything goes really. 

the FC also is interesting. placment of the stamp on the letter can avoid having the stamp cancelled by machine. I have had RTSs with a stamp attached be "returned" to the forwarding address as "postage due return to sender"....

 

I could go on and on... it's my thing guess.

 

 

 

This is all really quite interesting.  I am familiar with the stamp placement thing.  In fact during times when I've had to write letters to people in the past as my sole means of communication and sent over 7 pages requiring 2 stamps and also wanted to ensure a reply I would place a stamp in the normal place and below it in the same column i would place the 2nd stamp.. instead of placing them side by side as one is taught to normally do.. the machine would miss post-marking the 2nd stamp; thus in my letter I'd instruct the recipient to respond to my letter using the stamp on the outside envelope that wasn't hit by the post mark... This is how I got replies to my letters while incarcerated without the recipients being too lazy or "forgetting" to go get stamps.. 

 

Are you still participating in this msg board?  I'd like to get in contact with you and perhaps have you write an article for a zine or something one day.

[scratchytcarrier 105]

A few years ago I was discussing with some other people on IRC (don't remember if it was Binrev or some other system, probably not important) the USPS network and how similar it is, structurally, to the phone company. Both serve customers through routing/sorting centers (COs) connected through intermediate points (tandem offices), they both have trunks (wire/road; air/radio), they interconnect with third-party long distance companies (UPS, FE, DHL etc.) along with their own, your mailbox (phone) is connected to your local routing center (CO) which may home on another larger sectional and regional center for inter-local routing (like my office in Vancouver which homes on the big postal center in Portland since Vancouver is a tributary of Portland) et cetera, et cetera. Postal COs were once all manual switching (hand sorting) then evolved into semi-manual exchanges (LSM) and eventually a fully automated network (MLOCR, BCS and whatever's replaced those by now). You do still deal with local and rate & route operators (postal clerks) occasionally.

We concluded the networks are so similar it's possible to describe each CO, tandem, business office and such in the postal network with a standardized common language similar if not identical to that used by the phone company. Suddenly the idea of lamp posts having CLLI codes doesn't seem so CLLI.

[tekio 117]

Unsure if this counts.

 

I made an online digital footprint for a fictitious person. Subscribed to a bunch of random stuff online, submitted information with a the fictitious address, browsing history with Google, etc... etc... etc..  USPS still delivers mail to this person about once every few weeks. They have a Facebook, twitter, etc..... where posts and comments were made to put them in a specific demographic class.

 

Every few days there will be mail for this person on the top off the mailboxes where I live because the postperson cannot find unit #1337.   Buhahaha!