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Do Your $20 Bills Explode In the Microwave?
msaulters writes "After repeatedly setting off RFID scanners in a truck stop, the author discovered the culprit was a wad of $20's in his back pocket. In a paranoid attempt to keep the government from tracking him, he attempted to fry the embedded chips in his microwave, with interesting results." Alex Jones has interesting theories about a number of things, but evidently a lot of readers were interested in this one.
I tried it... it didnt work.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Nothing like a Slashdot post to jump to a conclusion.
Clearly, there's something funny going on with the microwaved bills... but stores don't have RFID scanners at the exits yet. They have an acousto-magnetic sensor that gets deactivated by a pad at the cash register so that paying customers aren't supposed to set them off. Big difference here is that the tags in a store system don't yet emit an identifying signal... they all emit the same reply. The store doesn't know what a shoplifter did to trip the alarm, just that they did trip it. There's not quite proof that each bill is emitting its serial number yet.
Also, having microwaved everything in a stack makes things a bit unclear. Did every eye burn on its own, or did just one or two bills in the middle of the stack catch flame which in turn burned all of the bills above and below in varying degrees. Notice that the top and bottom bills were unharmed. Could one bill alone be microwaved safely?
And, BTW, if you so much as put slightly crumpled tin foil in your microwave, you get a similar effect. Could there just be a small metal content in the bill designed so that somebody who has $1000 worth of $20 bills (rather than simply 10 $100's) in their wallet is sure to set off an airport security alarm until they show their wallet to make sure they get an extra security questions?
It's interesting, but I think more research needs to be done. Microwave carefully, people.
They may have exploded, but they're still valid currency. The treasury has an entire department which is solely for processing damaged money. I remember seeing an interview with one of the inspectors. I believe the essential part of it was that you had to have more than the majority of the bill material in OK condition to prove that you didn't just cut it up and try to claim all the pieces.
Since the bills are intact all the way around and it looks like in many cases the serials are OK, I'd say he's OK, and can get them exchanged for non-exploded ones. Of course, he better not go saying he microwaved them, as destruction of currency is a federal crime(the penny-mangling machines are 'licensed' to do it, to nip one question in the bud...)
What is interesting is that they burned so readily- US currency is supposed to be decently non-flammable(it's one of thousands of tests done on the paper and ink- that's why your bills make it through the laundry OK, for example). It's probably the toughest paper in the world, able to survive virtually anything. Except microwaving, apparently :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Why should it be illegal?
A $20 bank note is your receipt for lending $20 to the government with no interest.
If you'd like to lend $20 to the government and then not claim it back later, I'm sure that the government will be very happy.
Now, you should go look at Alex Jones' apparent infiltration of Bohemian Grove, an annual meeting of powerful people -- now that's intriguing.
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?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Here in MI if you have that kind of cash on a state highway the state police can seize it and hold it until you prove it wasn't being used in a drug transaction.
I used to set off these anti theft systems in some stores, but not every store. Couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally at one store, an employee told me it was my wallet. I had bought a new wallet about 9 months before, but never thought it was the cause because I left the store I bought it at without setting off the alarm. He deactivated my wallet and I've never had this happen again.
My guess is this guy had the same problem, but because of a bit of paranoia, he blamed his cash. Microwave money long enough and I bet it starts to burn near the center. And if you have a stack of them, I bet you might get a little explosion like they wrote about.
I think he needs to loosen his tin foil hat, it's starting to cut off circulation.
Actually it was my understanding that it was still illegal to melt down coins to redeem the base metals. I was under the impression that the metals in the penny are more valuable then the penny, but I may be mistaken.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Microwave radiation won't affect RFID. They are too small. Try nuking some ants and see what happens.
Secondly, who is STUPID enough to ruin that much money?
Third, I suspect this is FAKE and if so, someone may be guilty of counterfiting. If they printed up fake bills to make this fake "news" report, the Treasury folks may be interested.
And lastely, Alex Jones is a FLAKE that is in serious need of MEDS..
JMO..
Just a quick run-down on Alex Jones and his Infowars.com site.
This guy is viewed as a Class-A crackpot in Austin, Texas. He has a cable access show twice a week in which he rants about conspiracy theories of all kinds of varieties. He has run numerous shows on how the government literally has black helicopters following him around South Austin. He was predicting armageddon when the Y2K bug was supposed to hit. He fully espouses the notion that Bush not only had previous-knowledge of 9/11 but planned it. He did a special where he claims that all presidents past and present meet at Bohemiam Grove, worship an owl god, and sacrifice children. He also believes the United Nations is preparing to occupy the United States any day now (according to him it has been for at least the last ten years). A quick look at his shop will give you a pretty good indication of his beliefs.
Keep this in mind when judging the validity of this article
Did he try passing his wallet through the detector without the money?
I have a Kastanza wallet - I put everything in there, and it's waaay too big. The wallet I had was falling apart, and eventually my girlfriend pretty much forced me into buying a new one. Which I did, at the retail store she works at.
It just so happens that after this, I could no longer get through the metal detector at airport security. The wallet would set off the wand, and the TSA agent would spend a good 3-5 minutes examining the wallet, but couldn't find anything amiss and would eventually let me through.
The *FOURTH* time I went through security an agent finally managed to find the source of my problem: An anti-theft tag placed in some obscure fold of the wallet.
As it turns out, the guy at the store responsible for putting the anti-theft tags in things has a reputation for being able to hide them very well.
So I'd be willing to bet something similar is afoot here.
As for the money burning all in the same spot, it's pretty obvious why: Metal heats up in the microwave, and paper has low thermal conductivity. Put one bill in the microwave, the heat escapes from both sides of the bill fast enough that you don't get enough heat to initiate combustion. Stack 50 of them on top of each other, and now you've got a buncha metal in the middle of a buncha paper, the heat builds up in the center, and now your bills combust. The bills didn't all burn in the same spot - one bill started burning, and then the other bills - all stacked neatly on top of each other - burned in the same spot as the fire spread up and down the stack.
A conpiracy theorist needs to be smart enough to connect a bunch of unrelated facts, but not smart enough to realize that they're unrelated.
paintball
You know if I kept setting off a store alarm and I knew damn well I hadn't boosted anything I'd keep right on walking. "Would you step over here, sir?" would be met with a quick "Fuck you. Call the cops if you think I stole something. Who the hell do you think you are?
Retail employees with hand-scanning wands. Give me a break. If there's a living, breathing witness that saw me steal something, that's one thing. But no machine is going to bear false witness against me. I would refuse to cooperate. A truckstop is not an airport where the guards are employees with authority and jurisdiction to prevent "dangerous" items on board aircraft. I refuse to recognize that they have any authority to search or probe my person.
Those magnetic tag detectors you see in stores have only one valid purpose as far as I can see. To act as a deterrent and scare would-be thieves away. They convey no authority to perform a body scan.
In 1966 Australia introduced its new decimal currency. The 50c coin included a lot of silver, and shortly after the price of silver rose so that there was 58c worth of it in each coin. So the government quickly redesigned it with a new alloy with no silver at all.
If this actually does happen within two years, then it will certainly make life easier for muggers. Carry a small silent scanner with you and you will know who has the cash.
"Hey you, Show me the money!"
Well, this news may or may not be a hoax. However, I have personally had problems with a couple stores and their security devices crop up suddenly in the last few months. I tracked it as far as my wallet. Nothing had changed about my wallet's configuration. It had the same credit cards, id, etc. Suddenly I ran into a problem where I was setting off some security gates when going into or out of a couple of stores in the city where my girlfriend goes to school. So, after some trial and error, I eventually tracked it to my wallet (I tried going through each time I visited her and took one item at a time out of my pockets.. cell phone, loose change, gave her my car keys and had her walk in before me, etc. until eventually I got rid of the wallet and the problem went away--which presents a problem when you want to go to the store to buy something...).
So anyway, there might be something to this although it could be related to the partially conductive ink on newer bills. I haven't bothered to track it any farther (as to specific money arrangements) as I've grown tired of the murderous looks I get from other customers as I walk through and the alarm sounds. (Oddly, the employees never seem to care...)
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
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
Jeremy Logan's Website.
I'm not sure I understand his concerns at all.
Frankly, it has been years since local or national news programs had any real content other than the weather and sports. The rest is all who shot who, what burned down, and wildly inaccurate stories on science and technology. I fail to see how his feared FEMA takeover would make much difference.
As for being impossible to bypass, I doubt that very much.
I think the most relevant section is this:
"...with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note,or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued..."
Intent is the key -- if the intent isn't to make the bill "unfit", the defacement is perfectly legal. This is why the "Where's George" folks can write their URL in the margin of a $1 without a problem. The bill is still perfectly usable.
Now, writing "VOID" over it, or blacking out the denomination -- that would most likely fall under the 'unfit' definition (although unless you tried to pass one, I can't see where the suits would come knocking)
They don't know who is actually spending the money, only where it is going, if indeed they have a tracking device, and in any case they will only be able to track within a very short distance (inches) so they can't tell where you have been, only that maybe you pass a sensor occasionally. That tells them very little, conventional surveillance would give them a million times more.
Of course if it helps catch drug dealers, who then get a life sentence, I am all for it, although I doubt that the technology is that useful somehow.
Steve Wozniak has an interesting story about how he uses sheets of $2 bills on his site. I got a kick out of reading this a few weeks ago:
He ended up raising the suspicions of a casion manager in Las Vegas, who called in the Secret Service because he thought the bills were counterfeit...
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
But there is an easier way of knowing there are no rfid tags in 20 dollar bills. Basically it is that if there *were* rfid tags in $20 bills, then we would already know about it. I'm sure $20.00 bills have been completely disected with a microscope/metal-detector/mass-spectrometer-to-det ermine-ink-composition/whathaveyou by entrepreneurial money hackers ( aka counterfeiters ), and if they found anything this nasty, we'd know.
Eat at Joe's.
Have you ever actually tried it? This really doesn't work. The first time I blew up an egg in a microwave I thought of this and set a heavyish plastic jug over the egg. One minute later and the force of the explosion blew the door of the microwave open and slammed the jug against the opposite kitchen wall. Seriously, there's a lot of power in these things.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
Considering every bill already has a serial number, I fail to see the problem.
You need to be within about 4" to communicate with most RFID tech anyway. And US Govt certainly does not have extra money to add this technology.
Likely the burn is from the different concentrations of ink in the face of the bill.
A stack of 50 $20 bills is thin enough that they are headted essentially uniformly by microwaves. It may be that there's differential absorption in the inks, but the important thing is that a stack
of paper is a damn good insulator.
So apply heat uniformly to a block, but only let it escape (slowly) from the sides. The middle of the block is going to get really hot.
Do you notice how his disassembled bills have some less-injured ones on top? They had better cooling.
There's no magic RFID receiver with explosive anti-tampering protection; it's just that if you pump 1000 watts of power into a small space and don't let it escape, you're going to get some really dramatic heating! Lots of energy in a small space is basically the definition of an explosion.
The guy left the bills in the microwave too long. You put less than an ounce of anything in the microwave for a minute at full power and see if it doesn't get awfully damn hot...
I can back this up. well, anyone can, of course. Ever microwave a stack of paper? like a small stack, call it money sized, call it index-card sized
same effect.
I once microwaved some old monopoly money (to kill mold spores, naturally). If i zapped one bill at a time, no big deal. a couple seconds a piece, and they come out warm and mold-free. But do a whole stack
What happens is the lack of anything to absorb the microwaves causes all the energy to be re-absorbed back into the magnetron, heating it up. Fortunately, the designers of microwave ovens put heat fuses on the magnetrons so they stop working (hopefully) before the tube itself dies. You can heat lots of unusual items relatively safely by putting a mug of cold water in the oven to absorb the excess energy.
Once upon a time I was employed to actually do microwave oven research, and the duties involved microwaving all kinds of odd things to see what would happen. (Wood pencils are my favorite since they exhibit burn marks at a nice half-wavelength intervals, or about 6cm. Put one in your oven with a small mug of water with the turntable off and see). The research was done in a jury-rigged "oven" that had no safety interlocks or heat fuses.
When a magnetron is overheated to excess it doesn't explode. The ceramic permanent magnets can crack badly, but I've never seen one explode. It simply doesn't heat up fast enough.
Most things are unexciting when microwaved. In general, metals just get hot. Tinfoil and neon bulbs were both fun. (foil sparks, bulbs flash.) The only thing I tested that actually exploded was chicken wire wrapped in aluminum foil, and even then it's not a movie-style explosion but simply a nice capactitive buildup until finally the resulting arc rips the foil apart rather dramatically.
It does make a really nice bang when it goes.
A far more dramatic explosion could be had by simply heating a thick 1L bottle half-full of water until the steam pressure built up enough for an explosion.
Coin and bill collectors might disagree with you there. So if I own a 1900 Silver Dollar, it's not my property? By your logic the Treasury can reclaim any rare coins by buying it back at face value.
Yeah, they PAID me to do that. Not a lot, mind you, but it's definately good for storytelling after the fact.
Best part: burning things for money
Worst part: accidently burning myself (for money)
You've never felt a burn until you've been RF-burned. It hurts all the way through.
Accidently brushing the 4500 volt RF-modulated power supply was also pretty unpleasant.
But again, both are great for stories.