| 摘要 |
A secure metering vault for use with a host printing module via a secur e communication link includes a secure output device such as a light emitting diode (LED) configured for outputting the available postal funds stored in the secure metering module in response to a detected malfunction in the secure communication link. The vault includes a processor that monitors the conditi on of the secure communication link, and that controls the storage and updating of the stored available postal funds in a nonvolatile memory. If a failure is detected in the communication link, the processor outputs to the LED the stored value of the available postal funds based upon a prescribed format, such as Morse cod e or some other blinking pattern that is equivalent to the postal funds remaining in the vault. Use of the secure output device to output the stored available postal funds enables a user to recover the funds without tampering with the secure meteri ng module, which may otherwise cause self-destruction of the vault or deletion of the available postal funds from memory.
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