HP Discusses Anti-Counterfeiting Measures

JohnA writes "While searching for drivers for an HP printer that was given to me, I noticed an article on the front page of hp.com that brags about how HP's R&D department was able to insert flaws into their products to 'deter' counterfeiting. I'm so glad we have HP looking out for us..."

Comments

Why the flap? ALL US bills are counterfiet!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

All of this discussion of anti-counterfeiting misses a significant point: ALL US currency is counterfeit. Has been for decades.

The US once printed "Silver Certificates". These were a promise to hand over, on demand, N dollars (defined as a particular weight of silver) in exchange for the certificates.

In reaction to the banking crisis around the crash of '29 and the depression of the '30s, the government established the Federal Reserve System. Silver Certificates (exchangable for actual money, in the form of a useful and valuable metal) were gradually replaced by Federal Reserve Notes (backed only by the government's threat to use force to require that everyone accept them as payment of debts).

The government can arrange to have as many of these printed as it wishes, injecting them into circulation as loans (in competition with private investors) to lower the interest rate. Sometimes it wishes to print a lot of them. This is the cause of inflation.

So by the definition of money as a valuable commodity or something exchangable for one, US paper currency has been counterfeit since the retirement of the Silver Certificates. B-)