Tiny Transistors Could Be Used To Track Cash 175
disco_tracy writes "Banks have long considered placing silicon transistors on currency for security purposes, but the technology was too chunky and intensive for paper bills. Now, tiny low-power organic transistors developed by German scientists could make it possible to really follow the money."
Damn (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damn (Score:4, Interesting)
Back to the barter system anyone??
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Re:Damn (Score:5, Insightful)
Toss your bills in the microwave.
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And then don't forget to launder them.
-molo
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I always though that the dollar bill, as opposed to just any money in the world, was made on purpose easy to counterfeit so that it would be used as the de facto worldwide currency.
I doubt it. Massive counterfeiting can easily make your currency worthless. The US gained worldwide currency status not by being easy to counterfeit, but by having a huge economy and a relatively stable currency.
Many of the security measures are just very old, and they've been conservative in introducing new ones.
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Counterfeiting any currency is trivial when you have a government backing you.
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Didn't you get the memo? When the government does it (with "it" being anything), it's not illegal.
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And I'm pretty sure that none of these governments think their actions deserve being arrested. After all, if US foreign politics told me anything, then that everything's ok if it's for the good of the country.
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I tend to like the look of the recent redesigns, however slowly they're being rolled out (partially hindered by an epic screwup in printing the first batch of next-generation $100s). They certainly do address the color issue, although I'd like to see the denominations remain the same size. New "paper" might be a good idea...
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Pretty much this. The last guy who thought aloud about trading his oil for Euros was hung for ... umm... for what exactly did we hang Hussein? I mean, officially?
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Not that easy (Score:3)
I always though that the dollar bill, as opposed to just any money in the world, was made on purpose easy to counterfeit so that it would be used as the de facto worldwide currency.
Yeah, I'm sure the facts that the US economy is by far the largest economy of any single country in the world by a wide margin and the fact that most money is not printed plays no role at all in the dollar being the world's reserve currency. [/sarcasm] The US maintains about $800 billion in circulation at any given time. This amount while large is dwarfed by the amount of money in circulation that is not printed currency. The US GDP is somewhere around $14 Trillion by comparison.
I mean it's only 2 colors (green and black) and the security measures on it are ridiculous (some hair in the paper, are you serious?).
It's not two colors and h
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Then they'll no longer be accepted as genuine.
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A nice idea in theory, a horrible one in practice.
So a bill with a faulty chip isn't legal tender anymore. Who's gonna notice? The mom'n'pop shop where you buy your ice cream with that fiver you just fried? Hardly. They won't even have the facilities to test every bill that they get. Worse, how about shops with a huge number of customers buying penny items (like newspaper stands)? You think they'll be even able to test the bills, even provided that they had the facilities? It's a time issue.
What would happe
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How about an industrial strength press?
At worst, several tons of pressure might make vending machines a bit unhappy about accepting your dollars.
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Well, mostly harmless.
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tiny low-power organic transistors
Me thinks that no matter what, they are going to be fried.
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O, I don't know. Seems like 12 seconds in the microwave, or under a steam iron, or maybe thru the delicate cycle in the washer would pretty much render these inoperable.
Re: inoperable (Score:2)
Only terrorists use inoperable cash!
Paranoia (Score:2)
O, I don't know. Seems like 12 seconds in the microwave, or under a steam iron, or maybe thru the delicate cycle in the washer would pretty much render these inoperable.
Terrific. And then when you try to pass these inoperable bills at Walmart they'll run them by a scanner to see if they are real and then refuse to accept them as valid currency. Congratulations! You just literally threw away perfectly good money in a fit of paranoia.
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Terrific. And then when you try to pass these inoperable bills at Walmart they'll run them by a scanner to see if they are real and then refuse to accept them as valid currency. Congratulations! You just literally threw away perfectly good money in a fit of paranoia.
Nope.
Money is legal tender even if degraded.
That Crinkled, defaced, partially torn dollar is still a dollar. If it was valid the day it was issued its valid until destroyed. Even partially burned bills are still valid if they have enough characteristics intact to prove that they were valid when issued.
That their electronic device failed in service is not your fault, (even when it is your fault). There is no statute that enables them to track every bill, and declare your money invalid when that tracking d
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I can see this technology doing one thing:
People afraid rightfully so for their anonymity will spend more money on it. Only now, doing so will be one massive black hole of spending.
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The protesters in the middle east could be seen as criminals. Anonymity is important because it can protect dissenters from retribution from those in power. It may mean that there will be people that buy drugs or whatever, but I fear tyrants more than I fear crime.
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I'm not in the middle east. If you're hiding money from my government, you're a criminal here.
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In other words, if I don't want the government (or some companies that pay enough for the data) to know what I spend my money on, I'm a criminal?
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Depends on the drugs. Depends on what else you're doing with them. Depends on who you're getting them from. Depends on why you're doing them and how much your addiction is costing everyone else.
Re:Damn (Score:4, Insightful)
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I can deal with nosy people.
I can't deal with criminals who are hiding their transactions using money that I paid to have printed and that has value only because the system of laws that I pay for knows the difference between tyrannical transgressions against human rights and simple methods of preventing crime.
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I can deal with nosy people.
How about nosy people that employ well-armed and coordinated forces able to track you down, imprison, and/or kill you if you make them unhappy?
There's a big difference between the power over your life and freedom held by some random busybody vs that of a government.
Strat
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If you have evidence that banks are committing crimes, bring them up to my Attorney General. His job is to stop that even if it's the Fed that's doing it.
As for my being saddled with debt, I don't vote Republican, so I count myself blameless in that.
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Shame on you for even saying it even in jest, because some people will no doubt think it. The attitude that just because something is secret or private it must be a tool of crime is just wrong. There should exist a right to privacy, being able to make purchases in anonymity at least of things we have not specifically classified as controlled is a pretty basic part of that.
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Shame on you for being so illogical.
I didn't say that things that are private are crimes.
I said that someone who makes a lot of noise about keeping his transactions private is so likely to be doing something that the police should know about that I am safe in assuming so.
If you're making transactions with your cash that you wouldn't willingly make with a credit card, then you're doing exactly what I'm talking about.
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I'm mostly afraid of what's to come.
First of all, how should I be sure that what I, a law abiding citizen, do will not be criminalised in the future? You might buy a service or an item that will be outlawed in the future. Did you stop using it? And even if, you wanted to use it in the past, did you stop just because it was outlawed?
Or how about our "war on cigarettes"? Let's go on and do more for the public health, let's monitor how often people go to eat fast food. Let's track their eating behaviour and re
(-4, incorrect troll template) (Score:2)
if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide
most effective in the line for the free TSA prostate exam
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No, the proper form is:
If you want to a vehicle of fungible value that the government printed and protects, then you'll have to abide by the rules that prevent crimes from being done with that vehicle.
"if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" is not justification for a search of your person or your home; but spending money, like driving the freeway, is the use of a public infrastructure and no longer a private act.
If you want to keep your crimes secret, barter. I'm not paying for a treasur
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I'm not paying for a treasury and a rule of law and a stable business climate
hilarious!
But you're only receiving one of those three things you're paying for. 33% is failure just about any way you look at it.
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The perfect reply to this is that I have not done anything wrong... but is that enough?
In the current terror craze, buying the wrong stuff at the wrong time can easily put you in the focus of some witchhunters. You recently bought a microcontroller kit and 2 months later something like this is used in an attack? And you bought a few chemicals (to etch your own PCBs)? You even have a technical background (duh, else, why buy that crap?)? Leave the door unlocked, it costs more to replace the lock if they first
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What is a crime? Well, everything a government declares as such.
I have a friend in Libya. You might want to discuss the question with him...
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But it sounds like the banks, and I presume Government, would be the ones actually interested in tracking the money.
7-Eleven (for example) doesn't care whose dollars are going into their registers. Of course they might start to care if banks refuse deposits without a data file representing the serial numbers they think they have. But without such drastic measures you're never going to get small businesses to take on the expense/headache of tracking their currency.
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I'd kinda consider it quite hard to track money that way.
Think about it: Yes, 7/11 and Wallmart might be able to establish the kind of equipment necessary to track. But let's watch a bill on its way and tell me what this will tell you about me.
I withdraw money from the ATM. ATM will know that I now am the "legal" holder of that bill. On my way to the bus, I buy a newspaper. I highly doubt that the person there that is barely able to speak my language, let alone have a "real" store (he pretty much offers his
Reminded of a hobby... (Score:2)
Wheres George? (www.wheresgeorge.com) is a game I play that revolves around user input of serial numbers (and denomination/date to form a unique key)
Re:Damn (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Damn (Score:5, Insightful)
You're using the government's own printed scrip, backed by the government's health and stability, all of which is costly to all of us.
Exactly, it's costly to us. It's not the government's scrip. It's our scrip. We pay for it. And we simply trust the government to print it in a responsible manner. That means, logically, that we should be able to, as citizens, do whatever the hell we want with our scrip without oversight from our government overlords. We, the citizenry, are supposed to be tracking and monitoring our government, and all of their powers, to keep them in check. Our government is not supposed to be tracking and monitoring we citizens to keep us in check. The government is little more than a necessary evil to help manage and contend with the more unpredictable, shitty portions of being a human being living on this planet (like dealing with sociopathic criminals and such). The government is not supposed to be, and should never be, an overbearing social entity that regulates all citizens' lives to protect them from themselves.
My government should answer to me. I fund it. I contribute to it. I take time out of my busy damn life to help it function (jury duty, voting, registering my vehicle with DMV, smog checks, etc. etc. etc.). That means that the government is mine (more appropriately ours) to oversee and monitor. Not the other way around. The fact that I purchase legal tender from the government via my taxes and contributions to society does not mean that I am purchasing government oversight of my life. It means that I am entering into a social contract with the government that says, "I'll give you a portion of my earnings to help support the society that helps support me. In return, I expect access to the legal tender we (the citizenry) grant you (the government) the power to print that I may partake in whatever social transactions I see fit." What is not included in that contract, and what should never be included in that contract, is a clause that says, "I expect access to the legal tender only for goods and services that the government approves of." Money is not under the control of the Executive branch, it is under control of the Legislative branch. Money is not intended to be used as crime prevention tool. It is intended to be used as a social contract between two individuals partaking in a private transaction in a common society. To conflate those two roles is a violation of the principle of the Separation of Powers and is downright fucking stupid.
The government is not explicitly granted the power to track my private financial transactions in the Constitution of the United States of America. And, until we citizens get together and vote to amend that document and, thus, yield that power to the government that we hold a social contract with, it never has the right, responsibility, or duty to do so. Just because you wish the government has that power, does not give the government that power. Learning and understanding that principle could actually help you grow into the informed citizen that you are supposed to be in this society. Good day sir.
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...you're committing an offense against all of us.
Until you show me the text of the law I am breaching by keeping my transactions private I will consider that little more than a wish on your part.
Hell, if you're so convinced of your argument, how's about you post your own financial history (complete financial
Where's George? (Score:2, Informative)
Why not just use "Where's George" stamps?
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I love that site; thing is, it's entirely voluntary and the input is unvalidated. (the webmaster is constantly trying to keep bad data out of the system)
Using that site has made it clear that many "common people" don't pay much attention to the details of their physical monetary objects, partially evidenced by the low response rate
Microwave? (Score:3)
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Re:Microwave? (Score:5, Funny)
So is your currency invalid if you microwave it?
Yes, because only a terrorist would do that, so you would be arrested on the spot if you tried to use it!! Yeh, sure your "friend" gave it to you, or you got it from selling stuff at a "yard sale", thats just terrorist speak for fellow terrorist and Arms Sale!
-tm
what about old and beat up bills? (Score:2)
what about old and beat up bills?
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Increasing spending increases the national deficit - it's not like people are going to buy locally produced stuff when there's cheaper stuff from China sitting on the shelf.
and how long will it take to roll this out? 10 yea (Score:2)
and how long will it take to roll this out? 10 years when there lot's of old bill with out this?
and what about install scanners all over the place?
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New money already has an expiration date.
Wrong. From moneyfactory.gov [moneyfactory.gov]:
Which is not nearly the same as an expiration date.
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An authentic pedant.
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So remember folks, it's illegal to buy beer for Bill. It makes him unfit for driving.
What happens when... (Score:2)
What happens when I launder the bills in my pocket?
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They shred. Only now they do it in a futuramic way.
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They shred in the wash if they're in your pocket when your pants are washed. The linen fibers makes them a little more sturdy than other papers but they're not like handkercheifs.
End result? (Score:2)
The found conclusively that It almost always ends up at strip clubs.
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Thanks, science! (Score:2)
barcodes? (Score:2)
No? Too simple? Or can OCR software simply not read the serial numbers printed on the notes?
Ah wait. They want to be able to do it clandestinely... I see...
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My thought exactly. Simple OCR and lookups can validate bills. If each bill gets scanned and location data, timecode, and (unique, already printed) S/N, you could know for certain if there was a duplicate somewhere. You could add other data, too. It's not like they don't already get individually counted when they're deposited at a bank.
Even more ways to get in trouble. (Score:2)
Where's George? (Score:3)
The web sight and voluntary tracking are no doubt a toy.
However it is a thought provoking toy. I bet all bills get scanned at the bank every time they are deposited. Adding OCR for serial numbers has been computationally trivial for at least a decade, standard fonts and all. There is even a valid reason as many batches of counterfeit cash share serial numbers.
Anybody want to bet the bill counting machines are network connected?
Who works at a bank? Clandestine traffic analysis? If they are tracking th
Don't Worry. This is never going to happen. (Score:2)
Do you really think Congress would pass a law that would allow cash tracking?
Think of the mayhem such a law would create with the current "system" of campaign financing and "political contributions."
Get real. This will never happen.
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Or were you being sarcastic, and I missed it?
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Oh I don't know. Surely there's some way to spin cash-tracking as stopping pedophiles.
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Don't these guys need money to buy candy to lure the kids?
It's quite obvious what we should do: ban candy!
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Do you really think Congress would pass a law that would allow cash tracking?
Think of the mayhem such a law would create with the current "system" of campaign financing and "political contributions."
Get real. This will never happen.
They'll just exempt themselves from the law by finding a "legitimate" need for such an exception.
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Do you really think Congress would pass a law that would allow cash tracking?
Yes, in a heartbeat.
why not just get rid of cash (Score:2)
it might upset a few people though (mostly christians)
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They tried that in Logan's Run, but then they started using the chip to kill off all the old people.
neatly solves the SS & medical crisises, too! (Score:2)
kill off all the old people.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Obviously you've never been to South Florida.
X-Files was right (Score:2)
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More or less. They extracted the denomination strip from a bill and claimed that it was used for remote tracking purposes.
But will it run (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:2)
Every day I find myself wanting a personal EMP generator more and more.
Another stupid materials science article (Score:2)
Somebody makes a modest advance in materials science, and it's hyped into an application. Again. The Discovery crowd is notorious for these.
The usual subjects for this class of hype are batteries, displays, and memory devices.
Silly Big Brother (Score:2)
Before such tainted cash even hits the streets, you will be able to buy a shielded billfold, or an inexpensive device that fries the tracking chip.
That, or the smart ones among us will make a concerted effort to displace tainted cash with a new money system. Maybe something like the funny money some communities have started using for local businesses.
WHY??? (Score:2)
question is - who would want that? (Score:2)
the advantage of banknotes is their anonymity, the abstraction to the underlying transaction of real goods and services.
Don't we already have this? (Score:2)
Not really, no (Score:2)
Don't all bills have a unique serial number?
Yes but that is relatively easy to copy and relatively difficult to read. It does get read but few organizations have the equipment to do so with any amount of efficiency. Furthermore a serial number is useless without a database to compare it too. A chip could carry actual data beyond simply a serial number.
So they can already be tracked, just scan the number.
Possible in theory but not really in practice for private enterprise. OCR systems are still quite complicated and expensive. Plus having a chip in the currency allows you to do other things besides
This is going to help ... (Score:2)
Already obsolete by older extant technology: (Score:2)
The technology is called OCR. You just optically read the serial number off the bill as it's processed. This is hardly a new thing.
I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that this is already done when bills go back to reserve banks for the purpose of detecting counterfeiting.
37 bills all with the same serial number would be a touch suspicious.
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Maybe.
How about if you microwave your head by accident?
Shouldn't it be more robust than your money?
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it kills all the nasty germs that the isopropyl bath misses.
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So it only needs 3 volts, eh? Cool, we can talk to it with Arduinos!
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Or with the proper amount of thought, you can "talk" to it with a system of any voltage. Alternately, you can "talk" to a system of any voltage using Arduinos. Of course, if you're depending on someone else to do the hardware, then you might just be out of luck. If you care enough, well, building interfaces to deal with different voltages isn't all that hard.