
Hacker sends this through the mail to record a video of the process - angersock
http://hackaday.com/2013/04/10/hacker-sends-this-through-the-mail-to-record-a-video-of-the-process/
======
ChuckMcM
This has come through before, I wondered then if, had this been done in the
US, the last bit of video would be the bomb robot coming up and shooting the
package with a shotgun :-)

I was Fry's the other day and they have "spy pens" (those pocket video
cameras) and I thought it would be an interesting way to do this project.
Basically put one camera on each corner of the box (four sided) and then edit
the camera contents together once you got to the destination (eliminating the
boring /not useful bits).

I saw an interesting hack at a dinner the other day which used a camera and a
6DOF attitude sensor, to post transform the camera input so that it was always
"up" (basically if you turn the camera upside down the orientation of the
picture doesn't change). It seemed like a pretty cool application of these
cheap orientation sensors to cameras.

------
hazz
In January a similar thing was done in the UK, with the package being sent to
Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

[http://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/assange/](http://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/assange/)

~~~
gberger
What's up with the amount of Ws in this address?

~~~
nxn
My guesses are: 1) maybe it's a mockery of the redundancy of using "www" in
URLs, 2) a clever prank on anyone that attempts to communicate the site's
address verbally and doesn't know that the sub-domain portion is optional, 3)
a way of making the link catch the eye and create enough curiosity to result
in a click.

Just guesses though, I really couldn't find anything concrete about it.

------
bmoresbest55
Cool video and idea on the mailing system. Looks to be in a country that is
not the U.S., maybe European??? Anyway, a U.S. version would be pretty cool to
see as well.

~~~
AlecSchueler
Looks like Denmark (the logo at the front of the Post Office is from Post
Danmark).

~~~
donaldtoyou
I thought so too, thanks for the confirmation.

------
zwieback
Everything looks so clean and organized. If this was done in the US,
especially via UPS, it would look a lot different.

~~~
agumonkey
Me too, I expected a lot more mess (from working at post offices)

------
Aldo_MX
This is something I need to do in my country, I have developed resentment
towards Sepomex (Servicio Postal Mexicano / Mexican Postal Service), due to
the way they treat my packages.

What I hate the most is that companies like DHL that are established in
Mexico, will use their own service _in the country the delivery is being paid_
, but when the package reaches Mexico, they give the package to Sepomex, which
basically defeats the purpose of using a different company...

~~~
cafard
In the US some vendors will send using UPS to USPS. I don't know what they
save, but I think that the system loses a day or two compared to just UPS or
just USPS. This is annoying if it is something that you need soon.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Fedex and UPS save _a lot_ by delivering to the USPS distribution hub instead
of your door:

[http://www.fedex.com/us/smart-post/index.html](http://www.fedex.com/us/smart-
post/index.html) [http://consumerist.com/2012/11/21/insider-explains-why-
fedex...](http://consumerist.com/2012/11/21/insider-explains-why-fedex-
smartpost-is-so-terrible/)

[http://www.upsmailinnovations.com/services/domestic_mail.htm...](http://www.upsmailinnovations.com/services/domestic_mail.html)

------
pearjuice
In other news: HaD is looking for a new owner??!

[http://hackaday.com/2013/07/01/hackaday-looking-for-a-
good-h...](http://hackaday.com/2013/07/01/hackaday-looking-for-a-good-home/)

~~~
Maxious
They found one [http://hackaday.com/2013/07/25/hello-from-
supplyframe/](http://hackaday.com/2013/07/25/hello-from-supplyframe/)

------
belorn
I wonder how long time the package spent time in transit, and how much time it
simply spent idle.

------
weirdkid
Wow. I'd love for someone to do this with luggage on a flight.

~~~
lwf
its a DL advert, but they did this on a ATL->JFK flight:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocbxS5aWUSo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocbxS5aWUSo)

~~~
Groxx
I've never seen _any_ airline be that gentle with loading / unloading luggage.
Every glimpse I've seen has made me glad I never pack anything fragile.

------
markcmyers
This seems fishy to me. On a 6-sided package, why is the pinhole side always
facing the action? Why is the shot never blocked by another package?

~~~
wyck
He edited out the boring parts, no one wants to watch a wall for 2 hours. Also
he probably had a notice on the package to keep one side facing the top, at
one point a machine did flip it over.

------
benjamincburns
It's interesting to me how you can just look to the way that people are
dressed as an indicator of where the package is in transit.

------
alan_cx
How did some scanner not think this weird bundle of electronics was a bomb? Or
at least cause some one to inspect it closely.

~~~
y0ghur7_xxx
Because outside of the US people are not paranoid.

~~~
k-mcgrady
There are countries in the world where this would rightly trigger a bomb
scare. It's nothing to do with paranoia - in some places mail bombs are a
reality.

~~~
Sprint
Which places would that be?

~~~
k-mcgrady
Here is one example:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Cooper_letter_bomb_campai...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Cooper_letter_bomb_campaign)

------
fractalsea
It would be interesting to do the same kind of thing with airline luggage, or
at least international freight.

------
RDeckard
Very cool.

------
e3pi
We need more cracked screen smartphone apps at Google play and itunes.

This cool postal logger generalizes to recycled smartphone hackaday DIY probes
recording their adventure and uplink data of anything desired, intrepidly set
adrift in the wild:

Telemetry

...is the highly automated communications process by which measurements are
made and other data collected at remote or inaccessible points and transmitted
to receiving equipment for monitoring. The word is derived from Greek roots:
tele = remote, and metron = measure. Systems that need external instructions
and data to operate require the counterpart of telemetry, telecommand.

Although the term commonly refers to wireless data transfer mechanisms (e.g.,
using radio, hypersonic, or infrared systems), it also encompasses data
transferred over other media such as a telephone or computer network, optical
link or other wired communications like phase line carriers. Many modern
telemetry systems take advantage of the low cost and ubiquity of GSM networks
by using SMS to receive and transmit telemetry data.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry)

Telemetry intelligence (TELINT)

...is a subdiscipline of FISINT which is concerned with missiles and other
remotely-monitored devices sending back continuous streams of data about their
location, speed, engine status and other metrics. This data can provide
information on the performance of the missile and especially its throw-weight,
i.e. the potential size of its warhead\s.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry_intelligence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry_intelligence)

Also, when your probe is far far away, HN's second page magically concurrent
today, provides minimalist command line bash telecommands:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6223022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6223022)

[http://shadabahmed.com/blog/2013/08/16/bang-
bang](http://shadabahmed.com/blog/2013/08/16/bang-bang)

