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Embedding Chips Into Paper Money
Khelder writes: "RF tags have been getting smaller and smaller. Now Hitachi has made ones small enough to put into paper money, according to
this article on CNET news. As the article says, 'Though the chip requires a reader unit to work, its size carries big implications for the future of identity technology.'" I can think of lots of other cool uses for a chip this size, especially once they're programmable with a little desktop box, but do you really want a record in place every time you pay with cash?
I never use cash out of an ATM. I always make sure all the cash I use is laundered through at least five South American drug cartels.
Then they remembered that money gets *abused*.
They constructed a series of brutal tests to put paper money through, to test its viability for life outside the press. I don't recall the majority of the tests, but I do remember that they wash the bills in laundry, bake them at high temperatures, run them through machines, etc. The hologram passed all the tests except the last test. There's a vertical metal tube a little over a half inch in diamater. A rod sits above the tube. The dollar bill is placed atop the tube, and the rod is pushed down, forcing the dollar bill into the tube. (or something like that.)
The hologram was crushed and wrinkled beyond recognition. Since holograms rely on light reflection to work properly, a crumpled hologram doesn't work well, if at all. They discarded the idea.
I'd like to see how well these chips fare in these torture tests.
By the way, what would be powering these chips? What happens when that power source dies?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Actually, if you check out tags intended to be used in products at grocery stores (one example used in testing) the tags can be scanned in mere seconds. (a shopping cart FULL of products). Now, since the chip suggested can be scanned from 12" away, I propose a portable scanner for pickpockets. They will know exactly how much cash your carrying.
They already can.
You go to your local A.T.M. machine an get $60 out. The machine scans the serial numbers and spits out the bills.
You walk away. Later that day you buy lunch at Subway, you pay with one of the $20. Subway deposits the $20 in their till/safe, etc till the end of day. At the end of the day they count their cash and deposit it in their bank.
The bank scans the serial numbers of all the money it receives and reports where it came from...
. Now, don't get paranoid about the damn chip... ok?
Personally I feel that the thought of living in a "free world" was killed off long ago at the inception of government. Call me a loon conspiracy theorist if you will, but again let's look at the reality of tracking: Facial Recognition in Tampa, ease of tunnel toll devices to track speeding, Echelon, Digital Angel, and the countless others. So why does would anyone want a chip in government? My thoughts on this would be simple, they expect to catch tax cheats and criminals with it, however what's going to be done when we live in a society where we've become drones who can't think for ourselves?
Take a look at what the Secret Service did to Gold Age, a raid with no charges all because they cannot monitor what people do with their currency, which scares Big Brother since they don't have control of the situation at any given time.
Is monitoring currency good for you? No because of the abuse that could take place behind it. What happens to a business man say Bill Gates should he have an affair and pass some cash (which until now is untraceable, sure there's serial numbers but that wouldn't work) to say a call girl. Can you imagine the joy in someone's eye should they feel like blackmailing Bill because they tracked him. Sure it's not right to cheat but open your eyes and get an honest look at where things could go.
For those who want a lesson in politics and money I suggest reading "The End of Ordinary Money
Want Root?
One reason for creating banknotes containing chips is to prevent forgery (or make it prohibitively expensive). A note without a working chip would be worthless. Banks and retailers wouldn't accept it; if an individual found out you'd passed them a de-chipped note they'd regard you as a forger.
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heck, the government will even go to lengths to replace money destroyed in a fire, so mildly damaged bills that are legit should not be an issue.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Since I spend most of my cash in the pub, it would be neat to be able to go to my landlord's website and answer the question what the hell was I drinking last night?
If there's a chip on my credit card it can track what I spend because it stays with me (until it gets stolen, lost or revoked). But a chip on my Ben Franklin leaves my possesion when I hand him to the lady at the cash register. Moral of the story: They can't track me or my purchases with it, they can just track what was bought by a lot of different people with one and the same bill.
Reminds me a lot of this news item that floated around in the 80's about how 99% of all $100 bills (or was it $20 bills?) have cocaine traces on them. As if that meant 99% of the population were snorting coke, instead of that almost every bill goes through so many hands that it eventually goes up somebody's nose, if you see what I mean.
No, this doesn't sound like Big Brother to me, and if it is, then it's the legal tender that needs to be worried, not the citizens.
Or am I missing something here?
Ron Obvious
Once the "bill chip" becomes available, I propose to test how well it works.
If you all send me one new bill of every denomination I will spend them wisely for you at various locations. If you can track the cash, then obviously I'll have to try harder to go undetected with the next batch you send me to test. If you can't, then I've done my job.
I offer my services freely and expect no renumeration for my time, effort or bare cheek.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
For those of you who aren't aware, we already have this technology imbedded into TODAY's paper currency. Ever notice the little strip about 1 inch from the left edge of the bill? That's the secret CIA transponder chip that is being used to trap the flow of currency. The FBI mind control conspirists want you to believe that it's just an additional counterfeit protection, but there are those of us out there who know the truth. The secret microchips imbedded into every US bill allow the NSA, CIA, and the FIBI to track you're whereabouts almost everywhere you go. They have covert sensors imbedded in airport metal detectors, and those little doors that open automatically at the supermarket. Burn all of your money right now before the CIA hypno-robuts eat your soul!
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
You have forgotten something: a drug smuggler isn't a criminal. The only difference between marijuana, coffee, alcohol, MDMA, LSD, crack, Tylenol©, heroin, Prozac, and Mountain Dew is political. The U.S. Government has made arbitrary distinctions between all drugs and convinced millions of people, yourself included, that some drugs are "bad" and that anyone involved with the bad "drugs" is a "criminal".
We have lost the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments, as well as the States' Rights Amendment(10th?) in the nearly 20 years since Reagan stepped up Nixon's War on (Some) Drugs. Chipping money will erode our right to Assembly. I don't feel any safer now.
To get back to the topic, our current currency is counterfeit-proof. I worked in various financial institutions for several years and firmly believe that even our old currency is distinguishable from counterfeit currency 100% of the time. We had a training session with some SS agents ~1991. They passed around some of their best examples of counterfeit bills. I was surrounded by people who couldn't detect them. I instructed them to close their eyes and feel the bills. All noticed the difference and could detect genuine bills slipped to them in their closed-eye state. Anyone else can too.
The new currency extends this by allowing even a machine to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit bills. Surely any human could, if properly trained to focus his/her attention on the bill: its weight, its feel, its colors, etc... Do people really have so many other things going on in their mind that they can't even focus their attention on the dollar bill in their hand?
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"