ESCHER

COMPUTER HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE, TOGETHER WITH THE INSTRUCTIONAL MANUALS THEREFOR, FOR USE IN POSTAL COUNTER AUTOMATION AND PROCESSING RETAIL POSTAL POINT-OF-SALE TRANSACTIONS; FOR PROCESSING POINT-OF-SALE TRANSACTIONS OVER A MULTIPLE-USER GLOBAL COMPUTER NETWORK; FOR EMBEDDING, ENCRYPTING AND DECODING MACHINE-READABLE DATA WITHIN GRAPHIC IMAGES; AND FOR MESSAGE-BASED DATA REPLICATION FOR USE IN DISTRIBUTED MESSAGING APPLICATIONS