113 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
113 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
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MAIL SECRETS
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There is a little secret coding or gimmickry on U.S. mail. All U.S. postage
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stamps have an invisible ink coding that flouresces in ultraviolet light.
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Partly this is to detere counterfeiting of stamps. Mostly, it is to speed up
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sorting. Canceling machines shine an ultraviolet beam on letters and check for
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a glow. Calcium silicate (which glows orange-red) and zinc orthosilicate
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(which glows yellow-green) are used. They are printed over the entire surface
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of stamps or in a geometric pattern.
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Personal letters to the U.S. President have a secret numerical code. The
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president often gets 10,000 letters a day. Virtually all must be opened, read,
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and answered by the White House mail staff. So that letters from friends get
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to the president and family unopened, all close friends are given a sequence of
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numbers to write on the outside of the envelope. The code changes with each
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president. Ronald Reagan's code was described as a number with a special
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meaning to Reagan and his wife. Jimmy Carter used an old phone number of
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Rosalynn's.
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---------
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WAX SEALS
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Wax seals are not a guarantee against unauthorized opening of a letter.
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According to the CIA Flaps and Seals Manual, edited by John M. Harrison
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(Boulder, Colo.: Paladin Press, 1975), there is a way to remove and replace
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seals.
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First the opener takes a plaster-of-paris cast of the seal. This is set
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aside to harden. The wax is gently heated with an infrared lamp. When soft,
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it is rolled into a ball and set aside. The flap of the envelope is steamed
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open, and the letter is taken outand photocopied.
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After the envelope's contents and replaced and the flap resealed, the same
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wax is used to re-create the seal. It is heated till pliable and pressed back
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into shape with the plaster-of-paris mold.
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One type of seal is secure, even according to CIA Flaps And Seals Manual:
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one made of two or more colors of wax melted together. The colors inevitably
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come out different on the second, surreptitious pressing. But a color Polaroid
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of the seal must be sent under seperate cover so that the letter's recipient
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can compare it wiht the seal on the message letter.
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None of the common seals are reliable against unauthorized opening, assuming
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that knowledgeable letter-openers may want to open your mail. Scoth tape
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across the flap of an envelpoe come of cleany with carbon tetrachloride
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(applied with a brush or a hypodermic needle). If you suspect that someone is
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opening your mail, the manual suggests sending yourself a letter containing a
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sheet of carbon or wax paper. The heat and mechanical treatment of the letter
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opening will smudge the carbon and melt the wax. Otherwise, you have to
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examine letters carefully to detect prior opening. A torn flap, smudging of
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the flap glue, flattened ridges in the flap, or concave (from the back) curling
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due to steaming are evidence of opening.
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A more sophisticated test requires steaming part of the envelope near the
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flap for fifteen seconds. Then place the envelope under an ultraviolet lamp.
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If there is a difference in flourescence between the steamed and the unsteamed
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part of the envelope, then the envelope paper is suitable for the test. If so,
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examine the unsteamed part of the flap under the ultraviolet lamp. If it shows
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a different flourescence than the other unsteamed parts of the envelope, it
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indicates that the flap may have been previously steamed.
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The ultraviolet lamp is also useful in detecting invisible writing. An
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effective ultraviolet ink need not flouresce brightly, as the silicate stamps
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inks do. Any substance that changes the flourescence of paper in ultraviolet
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light yet is invisible in ordinary light will work. Prisoners have used human
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urine as an invisible ink (not hard to get, ehh?). Salt water, vinegar, milk,
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fruit juices, saliva, and water solutions of soap or drugs also work, with
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varying degrees of legibility.
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---------------------------
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HOW TO MAIL WITHOUT A STAMP
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---------------------------
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Postal chiselers used to mail letters unstamped in the knowledge that they
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would be delievered anyway--postage due to the recipient. It took a niggardly
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person to mail personal letters this way, but many people did it on bill
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payments. So the post office changed its policy. It stopped delivering
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letters without stamps. A letter with a stamp--even a one-cent stamp--is
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delivered (postage due if need be). A letter with no stamp is returned to the
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sender.
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Naturally, this had just opened up a new way of cheating. Letters can now be
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maileed for free by switching the positions of the delivery address and the
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return address. If there is no stamp on the envelope, it will be "returned"--
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that is, delivered to the address in the upper left corner--which is where the
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sender wanted it to go in the first place. Unlike under the old system, the
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letter is not postage-due. At most the recipient gets a stamped purple
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reminder that "the post office does not deliver mail without postage."
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At least one large company seems to have adapted this principle to its
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billing. Citibank bases its MasterCard operations in Sioux Falls, South
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Dakota. The bill payment envelopes have the Citibank Sioux Falls address in
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both the delivery address and the return address positions. (Most bill payment
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envelopes have three lines for the customer to write in his return address.)
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Therefore, regardless of whether the customer puts a stamp on the envelope, it
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is delivered to Citibank. (The return-address gimmick works even when the
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return address is in a different state from the mailing point.)
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Who is cheating whom? If the customer puts the correct postage on the
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envelope, it is delivered to Sioux Falls at customer expense. No one is
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slighted. If, on the other hand, the customer intentionally omits the stamp,
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the payment is delivered at the post office expense. Then the customer has
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cheated the post office. The post office also loses out if the customer
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honestly forgets to put a stamp on the envelope. But the blame ought to be
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shared with the peculiar design of Citibank's envelope.
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Citibank's motive is plain: If payment envelopes are returned to forgetful
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customers, it delays payment.
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