Slashdot Mirror

Busted

Oh yea, they do... http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

Actually, the serial numbers are generally NOT tracked much beyond being used by the Federal Reserve to verify a bill is valid and properly monetized. Not that a bank couldn't, which is why the rumors are running about the tin foil hat lobby. If you really care or think they do this, just get cash back on your purchases or cash a check at the bank.. No way they can track that.

With traditional currency only a small group of organizations can get access to transaction data, which includes the NSA but doesn't include you.

I didn't know that where's george was some secrete conspiracy. Oh your meant those silly electronic record updates not real currency. If you are really paranoid about people tracking your use of money use cash. It is hard to trace and hangs around in anonymous circulation for a while (bills smaller than a $20) before getting deposited at a bank. Also if you are really paranoid filter your cash through a casino, put it into a slot machine, cash out (don't play) and get your tokens or pay ticket and then redeem it for a fresh batch of currency, rinse and repeat as necessary for you level of paranoia at different casinos. Finally if you are at this level of paranoia don't forget to wear a wide brim hat (lined with tin foil) and keep your head down.

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

I have to wonder if there has even been a truly dedicated group of people who have set to track a person that they could audit cash.

Yes. But you need a tinfoil hat. :^D

You can use coins until RFID tags get put into them. Seriously, even cash transactions can be traced.

BTW, in terms of serial number trackers for U.S. currency, this website does a pretty good job:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

This isn't even paranoia, and you might be surprised at how much of the cash in your wallet is being tracked.

George Washington's portrait is on the US $1 bill. He was the leading general in the US revolution, and was the first president under the current system of government (though not actually the first US president - there were several under the Articles of Confederation government before the current US constitution was adopted.)

George W. Bush was a recent US president, and a real loser who was often on vacation, typically at his farm in Texas instead of in Washington, and there were people who thought this was a bad idea. (I'm not one of them - since just about everything he did was evil, incompetent, or both, the less of it he did, the better :-) A popular rant at the time went "___some_event___ happened - where was George?".

Some years ago, somebody set up a "Where's George" website to track dollar bills by serial number, and stamping "Where was George" on them. You can type in the serial numbers and see where that bill has been, and watch how money flows around the economy.

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
a game based around tracking circulation of US paper currency
enter bill information into the site database (denomination, date, serial number) as well the postal code of your current location. Entries are timestamped.
If someone has entered that bill before, you see its past travel history. If someone enters that bill later, you get an update on its future travels.
Many entered bills are marked with the site URL

Similar sites exist for some other currencies. For example, there isn't one for the Romanian leu, but there is for the euro: http://www.eurobilltracker.com/

There's a paper trail. Bitcoin has to know you have the money and they have to know that your money became GeoHot's money, otherwise they have no way to know that you had that much to give to GeoHot.

The only way to make it such that it couldn't be labeled with you as sender and him as receiver is if it has a unique identifier for each unit of the smallest units it could be divided into.

But then the identifier can be tracked. See "Where's George" for an example.

But BitCoin doesn't work without the banking system. Their bank account exists, and the virtual scrip they create consists of user deposits.

... the Where's George folks out.

Anonymity of Bitcoin users is a big deal, and there are some on the Bitcoin forums who have raised the issue already and suggested various ways to identify who has used a Bitcoin or not.

As an example, the publicly known address for the EFF has caused a rather clear and public record of how many Bitcoins have been donated to that address. Obviously the EFF could use other addresses if somebody wants an "anonymous" donation, but the record is pretty clear that total anonymity is a false statement being perpetuated by some of the fans in the Bitcoin community.

Another perhaps more sinister example was a scammer who bilked a bunch of early Bitcoin users for about 2-3k Bitcoins early on, and a serious attempt was made to try and trace or even follow the coin transactions of that scammer. The trail ran cold after awhile when the coins were mixed with other transactions and thrown onto one of the exchanges... where the exchange didn't want to reveal who put the money in. For that kind of transaction, it has the anonymity of a paper bank note with a serial number. See also http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ for an example of how cash can be monitored and tracked... where Bitcoins are about as safe as most government currency in terms of preserving anonymity.

Fortunately, new addresses are easy to generate, and most of the websites that allow you to transfer Bitcoins to their service will allow you to generate a "one time" address for that one transaction. I've heard it is good for bookkeeping too as it separates the customers to identify exactly who has made a payment or not. In such a situation, anonymity is pretty strong and hard to break. You know that the coin has been spent, but you don't really know who has it until after it is spent again... likely to another one-off address.

What happens in terms of keeping double spending of the currency from happening is that any attempt to put in a transaction that has already been "spent" has that transaction simply rejected from the transaction block chain. Each block is created by a "block miner", and in order to "win" the block they have to trace all of the other incorporated transactions and verify that no double spending has happened. So they "earn" some Bitcoins (how new coins are created) plus get "transaction fees" for processing the block as well.... only if no double spending has happened. Yes, a meticulous search is done on each block to make sure that the complete history of all transactions has been followed to the origin.

There is a proposal to simplify the protocol a little bit in terms of eliminating transaction histories where all of the "outputs" have been spent in subsequent transactions, but that currently isn't happening yet. If that happens, it will improve anonymity a bit more so far as once you have spent the money you have received, the record of your even having it may be eventually eliminated too unless somebody is preserving that extended and expanded transaction history.

seriously though, once cash is traceable, it ceases to be useful. unless they only use it on very large bills and they reinstate the higher denomination bills

Even if Slashdot wanted $0.99 to post, one could snail mail a dollar with no return address and requesting access for your handle. Completely anonymous.
First I would check all my dollars to ensure the last know location was somewhere far away -- or use quarters.

While at the bank, pick up some $2 bills - they are lots of fun too!

They take up half as much space in the wallet as an equal value of $1 bills.

You could even track them via the http://wheresgeorge.com/ website - there seem to be a bunch of people who specialize in $2 bills, called "Top Toms" at http://www.primereloading.com/z/toptoms.htm

Well, that helps answer the question Where's George.

Apparently, he's been some pretty nasty places.

... be using where's george to plan their next drug busts?

In short, cash is exceedingly hard to trace. Yes, even with receipts. Receipts can be forged, deposits can be fudged, and cash can "just vanish without a trace". And forget about asking where George is, that's just an experiment.

So, that said, the university has to take a means that reduces lossage. Take certifiable or tractable funds. You know, checks, credit cards, money orders, cashiers checks, that sort of thing.

Word of advice: get a checking account, or look into options like MIO or ADP. If you really don't like banks, find a good credit union.

Either you only want to track that person for a very short amount of time, or you're really interested in tracking the money itself.

I doubt this is intended as a coinage solution for Where's Willy, the Canadian currency form of Where's George. And the duration of the track of an individual depends on when the subject is expected to make another purchase. And it doesn't have to be very long to get useful, potentially compromising information, or just get the subject close enough to a reader wired to an explosive device.

Scarier is the thought that such RF trackers are just the test run, gathering distribution data to see what will happen when they replace the RFID chips with tiny samples of Polonium-210 or other more deadly toxins.

Wow, and I thought I was on the cutting edge by stamping bills and entering them into Where's George?

In fact, a April Fool's joke I recall was that WG had developed a way to track US dollar coins, with a machine that would emboss a unique serial number into the coin's smooth edge. The new project would be "Where's Sackie?"

Looks like the Canadian government is way ahead of the curve on that one. Better alert the folks at Where's Willy?, the northern branch of Where's George?.

I'm darned if I see how it provides "tools to virtually construct nearly any kind of object," "Ways to rapidly prototype virtual objects into real ones," or implements "'Cradle-to-cradle' life-spans for objects: cheap effective recycling."

It appears to me to have, by my account, approximate 1-3/8 of the six facets of spimes.

This seems more like Where's George. But less interesting.

Cash is printed with a unique serial number on each bill. Mints track the institutions they give money to. Those institutions track the money they give you.

Oh, and there's always http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

I didn't realize a Slashdotting was underway, so I just signed up and plunked in a few bills. Kind of a postmodern way to solve the Slashdot Effect, huh? So it's up now.

Just when you think you've seen it all on the internet... truly excellent that it helped scientists, too. Weird and fun.

Also, the site is http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ but http://www.whereisgeorge.com/ redirects to the former anyway.

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/faq.php

No they don't. Thanks for playing.

Cash is already trackable: http://www.wheresgeorge.com.

All U.S. bills have serial numbers; I imagine Euro notes do as well. On U.S. bills, they're printed prominently in bright green type with nothing* behind them. Looks pretty OCR-friendly to me. You wouldn't even need any extra time -- a scanner-equipped ATM could scan each bill's serial number as it dispensed it.

RFID in cash should not be a primary target in the battle for privacy.

(* Well, actually, the newer-style U.S. $10 and up do have an image behind the serial number, and so do euro notes, but since the image is relatively faint, and is the same on each bill, it should be a minor hurdle. More troublesome would be old, worn-out bills.)

Probably illegal I'd guess in the United States, to deface money?

According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it's only illegal if it's done "with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued." Since this type of modification is made with the intent to keep the bill in circulation, it's perfectly legal.

Which is why they haven't shut down sites like Where's George.

My company rents the car, books the flight, books the hotel. But then it does come down to risk management. With the theft of 1800 in cash (btw I'd never buy that laptop myself it's another company thing.) I lose 1800. With the theft of my ID I can lose my home. ...... personally ....... I'd rather lose the 1800.

In the case of the mugging (which is what it takes to lose the 1800) The police have more to go on, and are better prepared to handle the crime. The time of discovery of the crime is immediate. With the a crime like identity theft there is a tremendous lag in time between the commonission of the crime and the discovery. By the time the crime is discovered the perp is probably long gone and the trail is cold.

Cash is eaiser to trace, ala Where's George Most money counters are capable of both reading the serial number of a bill and counting it almost instantly. Cash is easy to trace. One of the reasons your local congressperson doesn't like it.

Recently spent some two dollar bills. Some cashiers accepted without a second glance, some had to ask others if they were actually currency, and some looked at me and asked what I was trying to pull. Of that last group, some accepted my explanation that they're real, for others, I paid with a larger denomination. For some people - I think they'd accept a three dollar bill if I said it was real.

These bills were marked for tracking at WheresGeorge.com - and it's amazing to see how few cashiers actually notice the big red stamp let alone read it. I feel like it could say "this bill was stolen - call the police" and few would notice.

Oh well.

And while you're trying to scan all your bills, why don't you enter them at Where's George? It's an interesting project.

Why not have a bar-code on every dollar bill that can validate each bill. If a serial comes up in the same place more than once, then it is fake and disabled. This would be a global database, but not unrealistic.

That's a fabulous idea!

I do this already. I always make sure to check every bill I get has been properly updated in the database. You wouldn't believe how many people out there are trying to use unregistered money. I mean really would you take just any old dollar? Who knows where it's been.

Once this takes off maybe we can expand it to $5 and $10 bills. The US Gov really is going at this wrong. They need to start small and prove the system works with the poor before bothering wealthy people who carry $50 bills.

There's already an effort to do that, albeit not automated. Check out http://www.wheresgeorge.com/.

I think you mean this: Where's George?

There is a way to check serial numbers. Where's George.com

...though since I almost never close Mozilla, it doesn't really matter. What I really like is having a group of tabs associated with the "Home" bookmark. At the moment, one click opens up: /., explodingdog, maddox, the LP's homepage, wikipedia, suprnova, where's george?, and google news. These are all the pages I view at least daily, so I like having them at my fingertips.

So those wheresgeorge.com stamps you find on dollar bills are illegal.

well... my first clue that they had no idea what they were talking about was when I looked at the picture. The article clearly said that it was over $1000 in cash. There's only $600 in the pic. It also said that it was burned uniformly... it clearly isn't.

in response to the tracking of money... people even do it voluntarily... Where's George

this isn't interesting, insightful, or anything else... I just wanted to point it out

>> Once you aquire the money by legal means, it becomes yours so you can do to it as you please.

It is not yours to do with as you please. Ask the guy at WheresGeorge about his run in with the Secret Service.

Stuff here and here.

I assume that the parent was modded "Informative" because there's no "Counter-informative" tag?

>> Once you aquire the money by legal means, it becomes yours so you can do to it as you please.

It is not yours to do with as you please. Ask the guy at WheresGeorge about his run in with the Secret Service.

Stuff here and here.

I assume that the parent was modded "Informative" because there's no "Counter-informative" tag?

A couple more quick points I just thought of:

1) Even if the money was designed to set off anti-theft systems (which would be dumb, for the reason I parenthetically enumerated above) it could only deliver one bit of data: on or off, yes or no, it was or was not tagged with a theft prevention device.

2) Even being able to track money at all is not new. Why d'ya think mobsters need to launder it?

What we resent is the fact that the government or a corporation can track our 'cash'. Credit purchases and check purchases have been tracked for years, but cash was not traceble until now...

Where I live, bank branches are asking for thumbprints from non-account holders wanting to cash checks.

This, despite:

1. The check was written on that bank.
2. The person can produce a driver's license to verify that they are the payee.

Heavy-handed tactics like this have really driven people to want to use cash more and more.

The fun side of money tracing is wheresgeorge.com

But imagine if ATM machines used OCR to record the serial numbers of bills dispensed to people and if banks were required to inventory serial numbers of incoming currency, too.

Credit card and debit card transactions have already reduced the proportion of anonymous financial transactions. The technology exists to reduce financial anonymity a lot further.

Where's George?

Where's George enthusiasts are aggressively analysing the new bill with regards to writing adverts on any cash they come across

As an active Georger myself, I'd like to make one correction to your statement. We're not "advertising" anything. We're simply tracking the bills. Advertising on a bill treads just a bit closer to the border between "fun" and "defacement". As an example of what happens when you get too close to the border, Hank (the WG? webmaster) was "urged" by the Feds to stop selling "Where's George?" rubber stamps on wheresgeorge.com, to avoid the appearance that the stamp was intended to push stamp sales.

No "your homeland security department at work" rants, please -- this was long before 9/11. Besides, the paranoid would see WG? as yet another tracking system, and would avoid such marked bills like alien death rays.

Where's George enthusiasts are aggressively analysing the new bill with regards to writing adverts on any cash they come across. 'Will my red ink stamp still be readable over the pink colour?' 'Think of the children; will someone please think of the children?!' etc. It's actually rather quaint that this unveiling can generate as much buzz inside small communities as the California Recall.

For us Americans, there's Wheres George? Keep your eyes open for marked bills and see where they've been or get a stamp and start marking your own!

Obligatory Where's George link.

That would sure take a lot of the challenge out of WheresGeorge.

There is a way to track our bills.

It'll make this site: Track your dollars A lot easier run.

Oops. Sorry, I believe you have misread the article title. It was gorge , and not george.