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RFID Tags in Euro Banknotes
psychictv writes "CNET News.com is reporting that Euro notes could be embedded with RFID tags in the future. 'RFID (radio frequency identification) tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in...'" The EU has been considering this for a while. You'll never even know they're there.
science is a religion
"RFID (radio frequency identification) tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in."
I think you'd be hard pressed to find an RFID tag that could record transaction information inside a bill. You'd need an external device to do the recording.
That would make robberies pretty pointless. If your cash register knows what money is in it, you can press the button to say "it was all stolen" and then no other connected cash register will accept that money anymore unless you get it authenticated by the police or whatever... I can see many massive misuses, but there's also a lot of potential good uses...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
"Well, I see you picked up this 5 Euro note as change for your purchase of Zovirax on May 12th at the BogoPharm pharmacy on the South Side. You know, you really should be more careful about who you sleep with, Mrs. Zambezi."
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Wouldn't this be a fairly decent way to track people? Most people carry money on them, and while the money wouldn't have a unique identifier, I'd imagine someone who's clever could sidestep such. But hey, it would probably be a great way to detect counterfeiting, you know, for about a month :-p
Tinfoil hats encouraged while reading this post (Too late!)
Um, excuse me. What about the privacy factor in all this?
If the government / police are able to track illegal transactions then what is stopping them looking at my normal transactions? I don't want just anybody having access to the information about where I buy everything from my lunch to my porn.
This is cash we are talking about and they wanna watch it. Pfft.
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There is no valid reason for tagging the money, since anyone who wants a transaction trail could use an e-cash card.
The Powers are going to eliminate the cash economy. Period. Nothing and no one escapes the net.
We are entering a prison like no other in history, for it will be the entire world.
Break into a computer system,
Transfer money to a Swiss bank account (Billions)...
Do the time (15years max)
Come out and retire.
Or if you white collar.
Get a job at XYZ bank.
Embezzle money in a Swiss bank account(trillions)
Do the time (10years max?)
Come out and retire.
If you a dirty scumbag
Buy a gun
Hold up a bank for a few hundred thousand.
Get shot, do the time (25years max)
Come out, and kill yourself.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Come on, where are all the European users talking about America being facist now? I want to hear about how the EU values privacy and the US is run by a nazi-like regime...
Come on guys, let's be consistent.
Alex
Now people in the EU will know who to sue when they get testicular cancer from all the Euros in their front pockets.
RFID chips are passive devices that respond when a reader transmits a certain RF code. The RFID chip uses the energy from the "ether" to respond. If anything, an RFID will absorb a small amount of radiation and convert it to heat, not the other way around.
You'll probably get cancer from having a cell phone strapped to your waist long before you get it from an RFID chip.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
That would make US dollars a lot more popular in some important quarters, which the EU doesn't want. Therefore, I predict that the Euro will get these embedded tags only after the U.S. starts seeding them into its own currency. The desire to create a "cashless society" here, and eliminate untraceable commerce, has a long and sordid history.
The problem with embedding these things is that they're easily fused, so banks would also need to start refusing fused notes, and people would have to start carrying detectors because they might otherwise end up with undepositable paper. The alternative is that fused notes are still negotiable, but then they would all get fused in short order.
Encrypt the bill's serial number with the treasury dept's private key?
Seems like that'd be pretty effective...
Of course, they can't possibly make this a *required* feature of all bills. You have to be able to microwave the money and still use it, otherwise y'all Europeans will start screaming bloody murder.
The privacy invasion happens when you aren't paying attention: When you don't realize that your subway card placed you at the scene of the crime, or whatever. As they gain more and more surveillance techniques, eventually it'll be impossible to pay attention to all of them.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Wonderful. Now how am I supposed to buy porn? Can't use credit card, it gets tracked. Can't use cash, it gets tracked. And with the price of porn these days, who's strong enough to haul around that much change?
Why are you buying something that you're ashamed to admit you buy?
I guess it's just me, but I have no problem going into an Adults Only Video and renting a porn in broad daylight, or buying a porno mag off the magazine rack at my local store. I also have no problem walking into a drug store to buy condoms, pregnancy tests, etc. If the clerk gives me a strange look, I just wink at her.
Don't get me wrong, I don't parade it around the store for all the little kids to see, but I'm certainly not ashamed to buy it.
Having travelled various parts of Europe, I also don't think most Europeans would be that worried about being "tracked" buying porn either. They're a lot more open with the idea of sexuality over there.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
This could destroy thieves and black markets.
You misspelled "personal privacy of any kind".
"...the net could report that you've been mugged immediately and 'deactivate' all those notes..."
and no doubt make an appropriate entry into your Total Information Awareness database file.
Or, to look at it from the other angle, if you are engaged in any "suspicious" behavior, what's to stop the TIA/Dept of Homeland Security system from deactivating your money?
I don't like this one bit. Nosir.
Just an observation...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
What happens if you put these bills in the microwave for 5 or 10 seconds? If that's enough to disable the RFID, I would probably just do that to every piece of currency I got.
This is a major problem with schemes like these: if the RFID tags are authoritative, they make legal tender impossible to distinguish from counterfeit without a special device, which I can't see everyone carrying around with them every time they have to collect money from their dorm buddies for pizza.
The problem here is that counterfeit money won't be detected until the recipient tries to use it in a store or a bank, and then he gets the double-anal: one, from losing the value of the currency he thought he had; two, from the police who arrest him for using counterfeit currency.
Cheers,
Kyle
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