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We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

royalmail.com

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Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#41

Post by Gigachad »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #14

"Why are you adding barcodes to stamps?" "The move is part of the Company’s extensive and ongoing modernisation drive and will allow the unique barcodes to facilitate operational efficiencies, enable the introduction of added security features and pave the way for innovative services for customers." Answer my question without answering my question.

It’s pretty clear. It’s primarily to prevent fraud. The security feature is the letters can now be scanned and the number can be checked on an online system to check it is a valid stamp which has not been used before.

The second part seems to suggest they could add extra functions on like letting you track letter delivery as you would a parcel.

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#43

Post by londons_explore »

p1necone wrote: post #15
danuker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to check whether they are the right denomination This is a trivial problem compared to handwriting OCR going on in some post offices in the world, and does not require barcodes.

It is possible that the lower CPU time scanning barcodes vs scanning color images and detecting the stamp is a big enough optimization to be worth it at scale.

The old stamps already had machine readable UV markers to mark their money value.

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#45

Post by moring »

Zamicol wrote: post #42

What information is being encoded in the QR code? Any details on the size of the barcode payload?

If the picture is an actual code used (BTW it's a data matrix, not QR, you can tell by the solid L / dotted L outline): The code has 48x16 pixels. Subtract the outlines (solid) / timers (dotted), that's 44x14 = 616 bits. IIRC error correction takes around 1/4 of that, leaving 462 bits or 57 ASCII characters.

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#46

Post by londons_explore »

mikelward wrote: post #38

Not in the FAQ: "If this is so important, why don't these changes apply to special stamps?" and "You're designing new stamps, but you're putting the Late Queen on them, not the new King?"

Fraud levels on special stamps are still low. And because lots of people have collections if special stamps and would baulk if they all became unusable. Don't worry, they'll add barcodes on those too when fraud switches to them.

Royal mail is a slow company... They'll take a long time to update the design.

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#47

Post by signa11 »

MarchKilroy89 wrote: post #20
scrollaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to make this claim, at least give a reasonable explanation as to how this deanonymisation works. Otherwise your comment is no better than "they're putting microchips in the vaccines" junk.

A simple scenario that comes to mind is that given a letter, it's now easier to tie it back to the stamp's point of sale. "Who purchased this stamp?" is a very hard question to answer in their current (essentially fungible) form. Adding barcodes makes this much easier. This assumes that stamps are scanned when sold, to tie their barcodes to the purchaser. That may happen. It may not. But clearly the more scans a stam…

```

"Who purchased this stamp?" is a very hard question to answer in their current (essentially fungible) form. Adding barcodes makes this much easier.

```

so reselling stamps is not an option ?

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#49

Post by moring »

pabs3 wrote: post #34

What is a good tool for decoding these barcodes? Neither zbar nor zxing-cpp seem to be able to decode the DataMatrix image on Wikipedia.

What did the error correction report -- is it valid on a byte level? They might use a new highlevel encoding, but I doubt it, and they are certainly not re-inventing the error correction level. This stuff is hard math and there is no value in re-inventing that.

The higher level might be encrypted to prevent fraud, but that would show as valid on the error correction level.

Other than that, my first guess is that the image shown there is not an actual data matrix code but a fake image made for the web site.

On a second thought, they might have used a simple pseudo-encryption (read: security through obscurity) on a lower level, such as flipping the inner pixels. But then again, this means you cannot use standard tools for anything, so I doubt it.

Re: We’re adding barcodes to our regular stamps

#50

Post by moring »

rippercushions wrote: post #7
HuangYuSan wrote: post #3

I see a barcode without bars but ok

Does anybody know which standard they're using? It's not either of the common 2D codes, namely QR Code or PDF417, and while it looks a bit like Data Matrix, AFAIK those are always square.

The Data Matrix spec allows certain rectangular sizes, they are just not used often.
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