___________________________________________________ | ..... | | CYB0RG/ASM : : | | 2oo5-11-o4 : : | | :...: | | | | Canada Post: | | A Phacker's Guide | | V0O 0O2 | | | | | | | | || | ||| | || | | |___________________________________________________| Introduction (o) Disclaimer (1) Anatomy of a Delivery (2) Faster Routing (3) Mail for the Blind (4) Stamp Recycling (5) No Postage Necessary (6) Oldest Scam in the Book (7) Postage-Paid Abuse (8) POSTpac / POSTroute / POSTcct (9) Phonebook (1o) Resources (11) Revision History (12) ___ ______________ (( o ) (( Introduction ) PHACKING is the art of Postal Hacking; or manipulating the mail system in a variety of high and low tech ways; sometimes legal, sometimes illegal; sometimes to get free delivery and sometimes to get faster delivery. Phacking has been around since the first stamps were invented in 1847 and were shortly thereafter forged by hand. Since then, Phacking has progressed to a very high-tech level thanks to an assiduous but predominantly unheard of band of pioneers such as The Postmasters, PhedEx, Zip C0de, PoD, Dr. Sort, Post Officer, C-Rate, X-Press, Maleman, NonFunc, and The Courier). Phacking has certainly been kept fairly hush-hush. Indeed, most people have never even heard of Phacking, and I have certainly never seen any Canadian Phacking information, much less met or spoken to a Canadian Phacker. Heck, try to find ANY Phacking information on the 'Net and you will likely come up empty-handed. At any rate, having never worked in the postal industry and having never spoken to a Phacker, I certainly do not have the knowledge of the postal systems inner-workings that would allow me to present any truly advanced Phacking techniques. The Phacks included are what I could come up with based on the research I have done so far and are all quite primitive. Hopefully, those in the know will contribute information for a future version of this file, and I will continue to learn more when I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time. Honestly, I'm sure you're asking yourself "why bother? snail-mail is so obsolete and snail-like". I hear ya', don't ask me why I do the things I do. Hackers are just an intellectually migratory life form with a positive tropism for computers. I guess it's the journey and not the destination or something. So, uh, let's get postal. ___ ____________ (( 1 ) (( Disclaimer ) Phucking with the mail is generally a VERY SERIOUS CRIME. Keep this in mind -- sending a letter for free is easy, but habitually abusing the postal service will land you in a heap of trouble. You're far better off playing with the tricks to get your mail routed faster and leaving the free-mail scams to those who enjoy prison. That being said, I accept absolutely no responsibility or liability for your actions or for the applicability, legality, or use of the information in this document. Fairly warned be thee, says I. Now phack-off. ___ _______________________ (( 2 ) (( Anatomy of a Delivery ) Canada Post Corporation (CPC) delivers approximately 8 billion pieces of mail every year. There are numerous places for things to go horribly wrong, resulting in slower delivery, or even failed delivery. The following diagram shows the highlights of a letters adventure as near as I've been able to determine it. I also detail each stage of the journey and point out potential postal pitfalls, as well as opportunities for you to improve your letters chances for successful and "speedy" delivery. Please note that this analysis is not comprehensive and may even contain factual errors, but it is the best I've been able to piece together thus far as a CPC outsider. Letter -----(a)----> Mailbox -----(b)----> Delivery Facility -----(c)---. : : : : : ,---- MLOCR <---(e)--- MARK <---(d)--- Distribution Centre Facility <---' : : : : .--(f1)--> BCS --. : / \ : / \ '------<----(f2)---> LSM ----->-----(g)-----> Destination Facility -----. \ / : \ / : `--(f3)--> FSM --' : : : : Addressee <----(i)---- Carrier <----(h)---' a) Letter ---> Mailbox This is you, taking your letter to the mailbox... DUH! Note the pick-up days and times which are usually labeled on the mailbox. Not a lot of things can go wrong at this stage and it would take a very special kind of retard to screw up the mission at this juncture. b) Mailbox ---> Delivery Facility The letters in the mailbox are picked up on schedule and moved by a CPC van to a CPC Delivery Facility. c) Delivery Facility ---> Distribution Centre Facility A Distribution Centre Facility (DCF) is a major postal facility where mail is received, sorted, handled and sent to, or received from, a group of dependent postal facilities. d) Distribution Centre Facility ---> MARK At the DCF is where your letter meets the MARK. The MARK facer-canceller automatically cancels stamped letter-size mail and arranges letters so that they all face the same direction. Using phosphorescent detectors, the MARK determines if a letter is stamped by detecting minute traces of phosphor in stamps. Unstamped mail is sorted into a separate bin for human processing. e) MARK ---> MLOCR From the MARK, your letter travels to the Multi-Line Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) machine. This machine reads the complete address on a properly addressed mail item and encodes the corresponding fluorescent bar code. If you don't want a human messing with your mail and slowing things down it is critical that you address your mail in a clear and proper manner so that the MLOCR can read the address correctly. If the machine can't read it, then a human is given a fraction of a second to decipher the Postal Code and key it in. One typo and your letter may end up in Kugluktuk. f1) MLOCR ---> BCS The Bar Code Sorter (BCS) machine sorts high volume mail such as bar coded Business Reply Mail (BRM). f2) MLOCR ---> LSM The Letter Sorting Machine (LSM) sorts mail by reading fluorescent bar codes printed on letter-sized mail. f3) MLOCR ---> FSM Flats Sorting Machine (FSM) – A machine that sorts mail flats (larger than letter-size items) by reading addresses and/or the bar codes printed on such mail, and encodes mail with the bar code as required. Properly and legibly formatting your destination address will ensure your letter gets sorted quickly and correctly. Or better yet, barcode it yourself. More on that later. g) BCS / LSM / FSM ---> Destination Facility After being sorted at the Distribution Centre Facility, your letter is forwarded on to its destination Delivery Facility. h) Destination Facility ---> Carrier The Letter Carriers retrieve the mail for their route from this delivery facility. This is the facility from which the mode of delivery emanates (e.g. location of postal box, origination of the rural route or letter carrier route) and can include urban postal stations, letter carrier depots, and rural postal facilities. i) Carrier ---> Addressee Postman Dan carries the letter to the person's mailbox that you addressed it to. Postman Dan might shoot his co-workers and get indicted before even hitting the street or he might trade his mail for crack cocaine. =/ As you can see, it's a miracle any letters ever get delivered at all, what with those humans in there always bungling things up. Read on to learn what you can do to get some of those post-office philistines out of the loop. ___ ________________ (( 3 ) (( Faster Routing ) Let's face it; humans are slow, fat, lazy, and often not too bright. When you want the job done right, machines are faster and sexier. It's just a fact. This holds especially true in the world of Canada Post. There are some simple (and legal!) things you can do to ensure your letter is handled by as few humans as possible. The benefit here is not only faster (and sexier) delivery, but also, if you are pulling some of the other tricks in this document, it is often to your benefit to have as few postal-workers as possible scrutinizin' and molestin' your "handi-work". So, just follow the tips and the faster it'll ship... Properly format your mailing addresses: . Type (or print clearly) the address all in uppercase. . Format address with a uniform left margin. . Use proper Unit identifiers (APT = Apartment, SUITE = Suite, UNIT = Unit). Unit number is placed before the civic number (official number assigned to an address by the municipality) with a hyphen between, OR after the Street Type, using an acceptable Unit identifier (ex. APT 69). . Use proper Street Type identifiers (ST = Street, AVE = Avenue, BLVD = Boulevard). . Use proper Street Directions (E, N, NE, NW, S, SE, SW, W). . Post Office Boxes are indicated in the form "PO BOX 111" and followed with the Station or Retail Postal Outlet where appropriate (STN = Station, RPO = Retail Postal Outlet). . Rural Routes should be indicated in the form "RR 2" and followed with the Station or Retail Postal Outlet where appropriate. . City, Province, and Postal Code should all be on the same line with two spaces between Province and Postal Code. Use the appropriate two character Province Code (AB, BC, MB, NB, NF, NT, NS, NU, ON, PE, QC, SK, YT). . Addresses must be less than 40 characters per line, including spaces. . Postal codes should be printed in upper case with the first three characters separated from the last three by one space (no hyphens). . Do not use punctuation unless it is part of a proper name. Never use the # symbol either. . Use monospace (non-proportional) fonts such as Courier. . All characters must be larger than 2 mm and smaller than 5 mm (10 to 12 point). Return addresses may use smaller characters and must not be larger than the destination address. . Space between address lines must be at least 0.5 mm but no more than one blank line. . Return Addresses are formatted in the same way as the destination address, and located in the top-left corner of the envelope, clearly separated from the destination address, or on the back of the envelope at the top. If you're still confused, check out the "Canadian Addressing Guide" available from Canada Post Corporation. Ok, that was pretty basic stuff and it will certainly help the MLOCR (Multi- Line Optical Character Reader) read your address, but to make it completely foolproof you'll want to use... - BAR CODES - Bar codes are the miracle of modern science that, among other things, would have the checkout lines at the grocery stores moving blazing fast if it weren't for the ignorant masses holding things up while they piss around with their fooking cash cards and wait to be authorized at 2400 baud by a system overloaded with hose-monkeys eager to share their spending habits with Big Brother and whoever else might want to buy their info for some nefarious purpose. But I digress, Bar Codes in the postal world are a godsend. Bar Codes have gotten the mail moving through the postal system faster than lead from a disgruntled postal workers .44 caliber sidearm. Ok, maybe not that fast. How about faster than a snail on methamphetamine? Awe jeah. That is fast. Canada Post uses a barcode standard known as the "4-State Barcode". The 4-State barcode is a height modulated barcode consisting of both alpha and numeric character sets. This code may be applied by the customer, or by Canada Post's automated sorting equipment. A properly designed and rendered barcode will allow the FSM (Flats Sorting Machine) to sort the mail items based on the 4-State barcode thereby increasing the speed at which your letter will flow through the system. I was going to give a detailed guide to creating your own 4-state barcodes, but it truly bores the hell out of me... maybe some other time. So for now I will leave you to refer to the Canada Post 4-State Barcode Handbook (available from Canada Post) for design information. ___ ____________________ (( 4 ) (( Mail for the Blind ) Canada Post offers free mail services for blind people and institutions serving the blind. This service is available within Canada, to the U.S.A., and to international destinations at no charge when sent by surface mail. Mail for the blind is generally indicated on the envelope with a simple rubber stamp. The printing or inkpad stamp should look like this in Canada: ______________________________________ | | | LITERATURE FOR THE BLIND | | | | DOCUMENTATION À L'USAGE DES AVEUGLES | |______________________________________| In the United States, they tend to look like this: ___________________________ | | | FREE MATTER FOR THE BLIND | | AND PHYS. HANDICAPPED | |___________________________| A non-serif (i.e. Arial) style font is typically used, and the mark is placed in the upper right hand corner of the envelope where the postage stamp would normally be placed. Even a novice counterfeiter should have no problem duplicating this mark with a basic graphics program and a printer. According to Canada Post Corporation only these items may be mailed using this free service: . Books, periodicals, papers, and unsealed letters impressed in Braille or similar raised type. . Tapes and records sent by a blind person. . Plates for printing literature for the blind. . Tapes, records, and special writing paper intended solely for the use of the blind when mailed by, or addressed to, a recognized institution for the blind. Of course only a callous asshole would abuse this service and risk ruining it for those who truly need it. ___ _________________ (( 5 ) (( Stamp Recycling ) Reusing stamps not only makes good economic sense, but good environmental sense as well. Save a tree, mail for free! Here are a few methods for reusing those stamps which one can occasionally get away with: A. Someone sent you a letter and the postmark didn't even hit the stamp. Well, just cut that stamp out and tape or glue it on the letter you want to send. B. If the postmark damage to the stamp is not too severe, you can often use an eraser to scrub off the postmark. C. Tape over your stamp with "magic tape". You know, that transparent tape that is easy to peel off. Do a good job of it so it's not too noticeable. Your recipient will be able to peel that tape off and reuse the stamp. "Hey, sometimes the dang stamp just won't stick by itself." D. Canada Post is constantly raising the price of stamps by a penny or two in an effort to screw the postage paying consumer. They then declare that you must buy 2 cent stamps to use in conjunction with your old stamps that don't quite meet the new postal rate. Often people end up buying new stamps and the old stamps go to waste. Or, they end up doubling up the old stamps they have and grossly exceeding the minimum required postage just to ensure the letter gets delivered. Well, I say phuck that and phuck Canada Post. Use your old stamps as you normally would. Canada Post does not waste their time and money returning a letter that is just a few cents short on postage. ___ ______________________ (( 6 ) (( No Postage Necessary ) Wouldn't it be nice to just mail stuff without worrying about postage at all? Well, some people have that privilege. The "Franking Privilege" is a statutory privilege available to the Governor General (http://www.gg.ca/), the secretary to the Governor General, Speaker or Clerk of the Senate or the House of Commons, the Parliamentary Librarian or Associate, members of the Senate and of the House of Commons, and certain privileged others. Franking privilege allows for the marking on an item of mail with an official signature, initials, or sign (franking) indicating the right of the sender to free mailing privileges. If you knew what a "frank" looked like you could probably send mail for free this way. I'd never seen a piece of "franked" mail so I decided to write a letter to the Governor General (currently Adrienne Clarkson) with some suitable social engineering and see if I could get her to write back using her franking privileges. As an added bonus there is no postage necessary when writing to the Governor General of Canada either so it didn't cost me anything. Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson Governor General of Canada Rideau Hall 1 Sussex Drive Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1 Of course my social engineering is first-class and in less than a week I had received an autographed image of her sexcellency Ms. Clarkson in an envelope which had been franked by the secretary to the Governor General. The frank mark was stamped in red ink and was basically like this: 04.07.13 Secretary to the Governor General Secretaire du Gouverneur General Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1 It is interesting to me that the date of mailing is built into the stamp. Obviously one of those fancy stamps that has the little dials to set the date, but I've never seen one built into a larger stamp like this. Also, the name in the frank mark is not the same name or signature as the secretary that responded to my letter. Anyway, if you were trying to mail a letter fraudulently "franked" with the secretary to the Governor General's "frank mark" on it, I would think your chances for success would be very slight unless you were to drop the letter in a mailbox outside of Rideau Hall. But who knows? ___ _________________________ (( 7 ) (( Oldest Scam in the Book ) Surely the oldest scam in the Phackers bag of tricks is to switch the return address with the destination address and mail it without postage. CPC will have it Returned to Sender (RTS) free of charge. You would think this would only work when it is mailed in the same city as the intended recipient, however, it has been successfully perpetrated city to city. Yeah, that is totally retarded. ___ ____________________ (( 8 ) (( Postage-Paid Abuse ) People freak out about e-mail spam, but I hate physical junk mail much more than electronic junk mail. I can simply delete spam, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together can figure out how to set up some simple spam filters which reject most spam before it hits their inbox. But junk mail? For fuck-sakes! They cram it in your mailboxes, under your doors, and leave piles of it in the lobby of your building. It all ends up in landfills and is a major waste of paper. Just try and make them stop forcing that shit on you. Forget it! I've gotten into fist-fights with the fuckers delivering that crap because they felt they had the right to cram it in my mailbox in spite of my "no junk mail" signs and my direct requests to them to stop it. They bring garbage to your house and you're forced to pick it up and dispose of it! And this is legal!? We see governments scrambling to legislate against spam, but not junk mail. At least spam is non-polluting. So why the double-standard? Could it be that our slave-masters simply hate spam because: a) it's so easy for clever computer people to become exceptionally wealthy by doing it and our slave-masters abhor "newbies" getting rich and interfering with the status quo of the old-boys network b) it reduces their efficiency in spying on real e-mails I strongly suspect both reasons are true. So what to do? Exact some revenge and vent your frustration via Postage-Paid mail. Postage-Paid mail (aka Business Reply Mail (BRM)) is made available to junk mail spammers through an agreement with Canada Post. Business Reply Mail is used by businesses, publishers, government departments, fund raisers and other organizations to allow the recipient to respond on the sender's dime. It is available in two pre-addressed and postage-paid formats: envelope and card. Customers only pay for the items that are returned to them. You've all seen them but probably never used them. The tend to look something like this: .----------------------------------------------------------------------. | (1) | CANADA POST | | # # # |----------------: | # # # | Postage Paid | | (2) # # # | Business Reply | | # # # | Mail | | # # # | 1234567 01 | | '----------------| | '##. ,##' | | (3) '##.,##' | | '##' | | (4) 1234567891-A1A1A1-0001 | | ||'||'.''||'.||.|.''||' | | | | SUCK MY SPAM LTD | | (5) 666 ASSHOLE ST | | DILDO NF E4T 4S5 (6) | | | | | `----------------------------------------------------------------------' (1) Business Reply Mail Indicia – The Business Reply Mail indicia is the "postage stamp". It contains the Customer Number and Customer Sortation Code. (2) Three Extraction Bars – The three vertical bars to the left of the indicia prompt the mail processing equipment to extract Business Reply Mail items for special handling. (3) Chevrons – The chevrons below the indicia are the Business Reply Mail service identifier. These chevrons are not to be used on any other Canada Post service. (4) Business Reply Mail Bar Code and Human-Readable Line – The bar code and the human-readable line directly above it contain the information necessary for invoicing and delivery. (5) Business Reply Mail Address – This area is for the spammer's company name and the Business Reply Mail address. (6) Business Reply Mail Postal Code – The Business Reply Mail postal code may differ from the spammer's regular postal code. NOTE: For spammers who have a rural address (postal code with a zero as the second character), the postal code will remain the same. So when you see these -- mail them. Every one you drop back into a mailbox costs the junk mail spammer money. When I get ones on envelopes I like to take the other junk mail I received that day and stuff it in the envelope and mail them the other spammer's garbage. I'll often collect all the other BRM envelopes other people discard and stuff those full of junk mail too. It's very therapeutic. You often get these kinds of things from credit card companies. Those are my favorite as credit card companies are nothing more than cock- sucking shit-eaters. (Note: I've NEVER had a credit card in my life and I NEVER will.) The truly devious could photocopy the Business Reply Mail a few hundred or thousand times and dump them into several mailboxes around town. Ho ho ho that's gotta hurt! Or if you're really adventurous you could scan a piece of Business Reply Mail into your computer, doctor the return address to wherever you want it to go instead, and try using it to send whatever you want for free. I don't know if it would get there, but it would be fun to try. Of course the recipient might have some explaining to do if Canada Post catches on. But who says you have to mail it to someone you like? ___ _______________________________ (( 9 ) (( POSTpac / POSTroute / POSTcct ) POSTpac is Canada Post Corporations packet switched data network. It is based on the X.25 protocol and its DNIC (Data Network Identification Code) is 3038. CPC operates their Wide Area Network based on Motorola's Codex Frame Relay Switch and also included is a large FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) based campus which services over 3000 users supporting protocols such as Novell IPX, TCP/IP, DECnet, LAT, and XNS. The FDDI LAN uses a token ring media access control protocol and operates at 100Mbps. Network management platforms such as Digital Polycenter, SunNet Manager, HP Openview, Cisco Works, and Synoptics Optivity are used for managing and troubleshooting the network. The Digital POLYCENTER (DECmcc) Network Management Platform runs on a Digital VAX Model 4000-90 for the purpose of managing and monitoring DECnet traffic over CPC's POSTcct and POSTpac networks. Cisco Works and Synoptics' OPTIVITY Network Management Platforms are ran on Sun Sparc 10 workstations. Chipcom's On-line Hub Management Module is utilized on an HP Openview Network Management Station. Other network hardware includes DECnet Phase IV routers and end nodes, X25 Routers/DEMSAs, as well as Datability Terminal Servers and the complete line of Cisco Multi-protocol Router Products. Novell networked PCs are used for the purpose of X-Windowing to the various Network Management Platforms using the TCP/IP network transport. Clearly one bitching high-end network. And that is all I know about that. Good luck finding further information on this topic. ____ ___________ (( 1o ) (( Phonebook ) 8oo-267-1177 Product & Sales Info / Customer Service 8oo-26o-7678 Product & Sales Info (business) 416-979-8822 Customer Service (international) 8oo-267-2797 Customer Service (TDD) 8oo-565-4362 Product & Sales Info (stamps & collectibles) 877-376-1212 Product & Sales Info / Support (epost) 877-269-9711 Product & Sales Info (epost fax) 888-55o-6333 Distribution Services: Priority Courier/Xpresspost/Skypak/Parcels 8oo-267-7651 Billing & Credit 613-734-9o92 Billing & Credit Fax 613-734-8888 Corporate Resource Center 877-2o2-2292 Free order entry software (eSOM) 8oo-277-4799 Free distribution services software (Expediter) 866-511-o546 PosteCS support (web secure mail & e-messaging) 8oo-363-3459 Address Management Help Line ____ ___________ (( 11 ) (( Resources ) Canada Post Corporation Website - http://www.canadapost.ca Postal code lookup, postal outlet lookup, asstd. reference materials, ... epost - http://www.epost.ca Receive and pay your bills online. Good grief, like I'd trust CPC with that kind of information. A Brief History of Postal Hacking - 2600 Magazine, Vol.15-No.1, Spring 1998 Postal Hacking - 2600 Magazine, Vol.8-No.3, Autumn 1991 Postnet Programs - 2600 Magazine, Vol.8-No.4, Winter 1991-92 Off the Hook, December 18, 1991 http://www.2600.com/offthehook/1991/1291.html ____ __________________ (( 12 ) (( Revision History ) 2oo4-o8-o1 - V0O 0O1: The first version. Duh. 2oo5-11-o4 - V0O 0O2: Added 'Postage-Paid Abuse' section and 'Revision History'. 8< - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Copyright (c) 2oo4 - 2oo5 Hack Canada www.hackcanada.com || | ||| | || || |