I used to work for a Direct Mail company and they would process returns envelopes attached to used tires, stuffed with used tampons, razor blades and even seminal fluids. Used tissues, fingernail clippings; you name it! The way business return mail worked then, they had to pay whatever postage was due. I would think the most difficult part would be to get the mail-person to accept a tire with an enveloped taped to it!
My dad works in security at a large company and they have their laptops configured to dial toll-free into a central computer whenever they are booted up and plugged into an analog line. This 'ping' let's the home office know who they are, and captures the the calling phone number (caller ID).
This has proven very successful because they were able to track down a large 'lost in transit' shipment of laptops. From the one contact, they were able to find and prosecute the culprits and recover most of the hardware.
Doesn't help recover or protect the data, but it was sucessful in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the same as e-SPAM. When I worked for a Direct Mail company, a 2-3% return rate on a solicitation was considered a success and very proffitable.
I'm not condoning it (I hate snail-SPAM), but those were the facts back in 1996.
I used to work for a Direct Mail company and they would process returns envelopes attached to used tires, stuffed with used tampons, razor blades and even seminal fluids. Used tissues, fingernail clippings; you name it! The way business return mail worked then, they had to pay whatever postage was due. I would think the most difficult part would be to get the mail-person to accept a tire with an enveloped taped to it!
My dad works in security at a large company and they have their laptops configured to dial toll-free into a central computer whenever they are booted up and plugged into an analog line. This 'ping' let's the home office know who they are, and captures the the calling phone number (caller ID).
This has proven very successful because they were able to track down a large 'lost in transit' shipment of laptops. From the one contact, they were able to find and prosecute the culprits and recover most of the hardware.
Doesn't help recover or protect the data, but it was sucessful in this case.
tminator