Pitney Bowes Inc.

Other

Jose Pastor

Kevin D Hunter

Robert T Durst, Jr

Joseph L Gargiulo

Robert T Durst

Maya R Barton

Harry L Parker

David H Wilson

Evelina I Zemelman

A postage meter having the capability to print a zip code in bar code form. The postage meter includes an input for input of a postage value and input of a destination zip code, a display, a printer for printing an indicia on a mail piece, the indicia including a representation of a postage value and a representation of a destination zip code in bar code form. The postage meter also includes accounting means for accounting for expended postage and a controller responsive to the input. The controller controls the meter to receive a postage value and display a prompt requesting input of the destination zip code, convert the zip code to bar code form and add the bar code to the indicia. When a destination zip code is input the postage meter resets the postage value in accordance with a bar code discount. In one embodiment the postage meter of the subject invention may include a sensor for determining the position of the lower edge of the mail piece so that the bar code may be printed in accordance with regulations of a postal service. In another embodiment of the subject invention the postage meter includes a port for communication with a remote device and the remote device determines the amount of any postage discount.

Postage meter with barcode printing capability

A method and apparatus for the representation of binary data. Each bit of binary data corresponds to one of two representations, where each representation is a 3.times.3 array of cells. In a first representation five cells of the array are asserted and four cells are not asserted, and the second representation is complementary to the first representation. In the first representation the asserted cells are the four corner cells and the central cell of the 3.times.3 array. These representations are preferred since they minimize the possibility of long runs of contiguous cells having the same value in an indicia representing a plurality of data bits; which is useful to synchronize scanning of the indicia. An error in the transcription of a data bit is detected by comparison of a nominal representation with the received 3.times.3 array in determining the number of cells which differ between the nominal and the received representations. If the number of cells which differ between the nominal and the received representations is less than five, the received 3.times.3 array is assumed to correspond to the selected nominal representation, otherwise the received array is assumed to correspond to the complementary representation. In one embodiment disclosed, binary data is represented by printing indicia composed of pluralities of such 3.times.3 arrays. In another embodiment disclosed the printed binary data comprises encrypted information printed on an envelope to verify proper payment of postage for that mail piece.

Error tolerant 3x3 bit-map coding of binary data and method of decoding

An alphanumeric character is recognized by optically scanning that character, detecting the occurrence of predetermined geographical features in the scanned image, comparing the detected geographical features to a store of particular geographical features which identify respective alphanumeric characters, and identifying the scanned image as the alphanumeric character having those geographical features to which the detected geographical features favorably compare. The aforementioned geographical features comprise lagoons (formed as enclosed areas) and bays (formed as open areas). The types of bays and lagoons, as well as the relative positioning of such bays and lagoons with respect to each other, characterize the respective alphanumeric characters. By detecting the bays and lagoons and relative positions thereof in the scanned image, the identity of that image is ascertained.

Optical character recognition by detecting geo features

A method and system for authenication of communications. More particularly the subject application discloses a method and apparatus whereby a third party may validate that a communication is an authentic communication from a second party sent with the authorization of a first party. For example, the third party may be a postal service, the second party may be a mailer, and the communication may be a postal indicia showing that a mail piece has been properly franked. The first party and the second party share an encryption key, or a series of keys. The first party also has a second encryption key which the third party has the ability to decrypted. In the subject invention the first party encrypts a key shared with the second party with the first party's second key and transmits this to the second party. The second party then uses its copy of the key to encrypt information and appends its encrypted information to the message received from the first party and transmits all this to the third party. The third party may then decrypt the copy of the key encrypted by the first party and use this information to decrypt the information encrypted by the second party. The known technique of eliptical logarithms may be used to provide highly secure encryption of short messages. The second party may be a mailer and the apparatus of the subject invention may include a postage meter which prints the information transmitted to the third party, who may be a postal service, on a mail piece as a postal indicia.

Method and apparatus for authenticating messages

A method for the secure communication of messages. A first party is provided with a set of numbers that have the property that when encrypted using an RSA encryption key the resulting set of encrypted numbers is of an order substantially smaller than that of the original set. If the encryption key and the original set of numbers are of the order of 200 decimal digits then the resulting set of encrypted numbers may be of the order of 15-30 decimal digits. To communicate a message the first party selects a number from the original set and applies a hashing function to the selected number to obtain a 64 binary bit DES key. The selected number is then encrypted with the RSA key and a message is encrypted with the DES key obtained. The encrypted message and the encrypted selected number are combined and the combined message is sent to a second party who has the corresponding RSA decryption key and knows the hashing function. The second party then decrypts the number, applies the hashing function to obtain the DES key and decrypts the message. Thus the parties may communicate with substantially the security of RSA while significantly reducing the minimum message length which may be securely encrypted.

Method for secure communication

An item bearing an indicia which verifies a status of the item and a method and apparatus for applying such indicia. The indicia represents an encrypted message and has the form of a number n base N number system represented by characters selected from an unambiguous machine-readable character set having n characters. The characters consist of connected graphs drawn on a predetermined grid and meeting certain selected requirements. A set of descripters is selected, including a number of type 1 and type 3 points in a character and a subset of characters is selected from the set of all possible characters meeting the requirements so that each character is unambiguously described in terms of the selected descripters. In one embodiment disclosed the item is a mail piece and the status is the payment of postage.

Unambiguous alphabet for data compression

Recognition method for character set

An item bearing bit-mapped indicia with information encrypted by a public key which verifies a status of the item and a method and apparatus for applying such indicia. The indicia represents an encrypted message and has the form of an array of pixels, each pixel having a value selected from a predetermined set of values in accordance with a mapping of an encrypted message on to the array. Thus, a person having knowledge of the appropriate decryption key may scan the indicia to obtain the message and verify the status by decrypting the message. In one embodiment disclosed, the item is a mail piece and the status is the payment of postage. The indicia may have the form of a binary matrix transformed by matrix multiplication by a corresponding Hadamard matrix and the encrypted message may be encrypted using a public key encryption system.

Electronic indicia in bit-mapped form

A method and apparatus for generating cryptographic keys for a postal manifest and for synchronizing cryptographic keys for transmitting postal data securely on a communication link is presented. The techniques for generating a key and for synchronizing keys use the same apparatus but use slightly different data to create a cryptographic key. The postal data center maintains a unique set of data for each server station. Using this set of data along with a manifest sequence number (or communication transaction number) and the date, a cryptographic key is created. Each server station stores a fixed master key, KO, a permutation table, Pt, and ID, and GMT date. Using the manifest sequence number (or the communication transaction number) a row of the permutation table is altered and the master key KO is scrambled with the permutation table top get a new key K2. With K2, the date, server ID, and manifest sequence number (our communication transaction number) are encrypted. The result of this encryption yields another key K3. K3 is then used for encrypting the postal manifest or for communicating with a postal data center.

Method and apparatus for the generation and synchronization of

A system for conveying information for the reliable authentication of a plurality of documents includes a device for solving a set of polynomial equations to develop a string of characters and having a decryption key therein that, upon application to the string of characters provided, reveals not only a plain text message indicating the source of the authentication but, in addition, provides the decryption key for use with the information provided by the mailer. The solution of the set of polynomial equations requires the accumulation of individual documents, each having a random x.sub.i and a solution f(x.sub.i) associated therewith.

System for conveying information for the reliable authentification of a

An alphanumeric character is recognized by optically scanning that character, detecting the occurrence of predetermined geographical features in the scanned image, comparing the detected geographical features to a store of particlar geographical features which identify respective alphanumeric characters, and identifying the scanned image as the alphanumeric character having those geographical features to which the detected geographical features favorably compare. The aforementioned geographical features comprise lagoons (formed as enclosed areas) and bays (formed as open areas). A matrix representing the juxtapositions of the detected geographical features is generated and compared with stored predetermined matrices which, in turn, represent predetermined characters.

Optical character recognition by forming and detecting matrices of geo

A method and apparatus for verifying a total value for a batch of items, and particularly a total postage value for a batch of mail pieces. A batch of mail is prepared in a conventional manner in accordance with information generated by a data processing system. The information is also provided to a secure manifest system which generates an output to be marked on each item. The manifest system determines a particular value for each item and generates a message identifying the entire batch. The message is encrypted and expressed as k ordered numbers. The ordered numbers are taken as parameters of a function f(x)=a.sub.o +a.sub.1x +. . . a.sub.k-1 x.sup.k-1 mod p. A unique arbitrary value, x.sub.i, is selected for each item and a value f of x.sub.i is determined. Each item is then marked with indicia including the postage value v.sub.i, x.sub.i, and f(x.sub.i). A party may then sample the batch to obtain k items, determine the parameters, a, from k ordered pairs x.sub.i, f(x.sub.i), decrypt the message and verify the postage value, V. Where the batch includes a number of classes the values, x.sub.i, for each class may be chosen to be members of the same class of congruent residues. A second function g.sub.j (x.sub.i) may then be computed to identify each class and tested in the manner described above. Further assurance is provided by testing each value, x.sub.i, to assure that for a given class, each value, x.sub.i, is of the same class of congruent residues.

Method and apparatus for verifying a value for a batch of items

An encryption/decryption key is generated from an identification number ID by first generating two sets of numbers from the identification number ID, based upon known expressions. The first set of numbers are employed as coefficients of a first polynomial to generate N first numbers for x=0, 1 . . . N-1 (N is the number of bits of the key) and a second number corresponding to each first number is generating employing the second set of numbers as coefficients and the generated first numbers as variables. The ordered pairs of first and second numbers generated correspond to addresses of a memory at which bits of the key are stored, the order of the bits being determined by the corresponding values of X. The expressions employ modular arithmetic using prime numbers as bases.

Method and apparatus for generating encryption/decryption key

A secure postage dispensing system is provided, which comprises: apparatus for receiving mailing information including a list of addresses, wherein the list is associated with a number of mail pieces to be sent and information indicative of the postage due for the mail pieces; structure for calculating the total postage required for the mail pieces; and structure for establishing communication with a funds control center, which is adapted to receive the total postage and the total number of mail pieces to be mailed and includes instrumentalities for effecting a funds transfer in the amount of the total postage to a carrier service and, upon completion of such funds transfer, returning a cryptographic key and a batch identifier. In addition, the dispensing system includes apparatus for using said cryptographic key to provide a unique encrypted number for each address in the list of addresses, and apparatus for outputting the list of addresses with each address having the unique encrypted number appended thereto.

Secure postage dispensing system

A system for reliably authenticating a document includes a device having a decryption key therein that, upon application to information provided by a user, reveals not only a plain text message indicating the source of the authentication but, in addition, provides the decryption key for use with the information provided by the mailer.

Growing community of inventors

Westport, CT, United States of America

Jose Pastor