The US Post Office just killed a project that would have created a digital postage/e-cash system. This would have been a digital replacement for the Pitney-Bose style Postage Metering machines. To use a PM machine one has to take the entire machine physically to a Postal Station and purchase some fixed dollar amount of postage. The Postal clerk unseals and unlocks the machine, dials in the amount of postage purchased and then relocks and reseals the machine. This mechanical system would have been replaced by a serial-port dongle and a piece of software. The dongle would contain an EEPROM in a replacable button (made by Dallas Semiconductor) into which would be loaded data indicating the amount of postage that had been purchased and not yet used. The software package would be able to print the address, postage seal, routing codes, etc directly on the envelope via a laser printer and decrement the amount of available postage left in the dongle. In the original test, customers would have to take the dongle to a Postal Station to purchase additional postage, but the ultimate goal was to have been to have a commerical dial-up service available that one could dial into and purchase additional postage directly. A proof-of-concept prototype was developed in VB and a production prototype was then developed in VC++. Unfortunately the crypto wasn't very strong. The USPO contracted with Carnege-Mellon to try and break the system and they were able to within a couple of weeks. USPO then killed the project. Dale H.