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?

Comments

Ah....but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Not going to work

[Accipiter]

A long time ago (when they were trying to design the look of the new bills), the treasury was looking for spiffy anti-counterfeit measures to implelemt in their bills. They came up with the idea of placing a Hologram on the bill. Since holograms would be damn near impossible to counterfeit, they thought they had the perfect solution.

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?

Tracking

[topham]

For those of you paranoid enough to decide this is a method of tracking your purchases, let me suggest a truley paranoid alternative.

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?

They can't track you with it ... can they?

[Mr. Obvious]

Hold on, hold on...

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

Help me to help you

[WIAKywbfatw]

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.

1984! The end is near!

[Dr. Prakash Kothari]

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!