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Canadian Coins Not Nano-Tech Espionage Devices
Necrotica writes "An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year.
The odd-looking — but harmless — "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP."
Kind of expected in a state of overly paranoid affairs. Paranoia is where rationality gets thrown out of the window.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
No kidding "wow"..
It was a Remembrance Day (ww2) coin.. why would this strike anyone as suspicious? As for the "man-made" bit.. well, it's a coin.. who'd they expect made it?
MABASPLOOM!
Aren't those the special Tim Hortons(Canadian version of crack in a cup) Remembrance Day coins they gave out a few years back? Funny they thought it had a microchip in them. Man some people can be so naive.
All this tells me is that the Americans think it's possible for coins to be used as spying devices. They wouldn't think it if they weren't somehow certain. I'd be carefull with American coins if I were you ;)
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I can't think of a more appropriate example to illustrate the differences between our two countries.
I would rather they have lots of false positives to avoid true negatives
Unfortunately, this sort of indiscriminate paranoia ensures that the true negatives will be missed in the midst of a sea of garbage.
The intelligent response to events like 9/11 is to recognize that law enforcement effort should be prioritized as always, focussing resources on the people most likely to do harm, and to accept that a certain level of risk is necessary to preserve some essential liberty.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I was telling myself that if I was a spy and my target was american, I think I'll try using something that looks like a nickel, not an odd-looking foreign commemorative special edition coin. OTOH, you may expect the guy to keep it as a souvenir instead of using it in a vending machine. Anyway, swapping his watch, phone or pen seems the better solution, it is slighly harder to perform, but once it's done, the guy is bugged with something apparently harmless he wants to keep whith him anywhere he goes.
"The report did not indicate what kinds of coins were involved. A service spokeswoman said details of the incidents were classified."
So, basically, a weird looking coin led the government to believe there was an international threat, and the reason this belief remained intact for more than... say... 30 seconds, is that these idiots were too dumb to Google "remember souvenir" (the words on the coin), and yet they're given the ability to classify such nonsense, escalating a problem that could've been resolved by asking any Canadian to empty their pockets, into a threat to national security.
Are they really stupid enough to think that spies are going to make tracking devices in the form of big red X's, and then put those devices on coins that are unlikely to stay in their possession for more than a day?
The most hilarious part are the comments by one of the U.S. contractors, who sounds like he just got his Official Little Orphan Annie secret decoder pin in the mail:
"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."
given the current state of affairs in the US. When you live in a totalitarian state, you see enemies behind every bush (insert appropriate joke here). To the commenter who said it only takes being right once to make it all worth while I would say "You're deluded, my friend." One of your great statesmen once said that if you give up your freedom in exchange for security, you will end up with neither; this is being borne out as we speak. Americans are not "safe" from terror - they may be safe from terrorism, but as we can see from the daily news reports, Americans are a terrified people. Those contractors who freaked out about our memorial coins were obviously not feeling "safe", and felt it necessary to file a report about their suspicions. (Incidentally, what they assumed were "nanodevices" were likely the ink dots from the printing process; the Royal Canadian Mint isn't known for its quality when it comes to short-run commemorative coins.) This is just another incident that, along with the Boston Police department's War On Things That Blink, make me glad I have absolutely no reason to travel to the US. For your sakes, I hope you get a new administration with a brain in it next time round!
"Apparatus dignosco occultus, satis non supernus."
http://www.gcn.com/print/22_10/21970-1.html worried about a coin but they cant keep track of the laptops. i think they need to focus on some of the important things before looking with the naked eye for nano-spy gear
When you are a country who's law allows the kidnapping of foreign nationals, who's laws allow "rendition", who's laws allow Guantanamo to exist... a country who spies on everyone else, then you see yourself in others too. One tends to expect from others the sort of treatment you meet out. Conversely, the society for which the above is unthinkable tends not to see those threats everywhere else. This story isn't so much funny, as it is deeply... deeply sad.
P.S. whoever "they" are
Never attribute to malice (or paranoia) that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. There is no way the USA can stay on top for long, when even the "bright" people in the USA are brutally stupid.
But, it shows you how they think. It was suspicious to them because they are thinking along those lines. It gives you a hint at what they think is possible and how it might reasonably be used.
Or else, they're just a bunch of tin-foil spy wannabees.
Not because of being accused of spying but because of being accused of being stupid enough to implant "super secret spy technology that is intending to go completely unnoticed" in a non-standard object that stands out and draws attention instead of in a perfectly normal looking quarter.
I can't think of a better concealment method than hiding bugs on coins by painting a red poppy flower on them!
You know, aside from hiding a bomb with a mooninite LED sign...
No, not just wow. More like, wow, the terrorists really have won (i.e. they have provoked a particularly harsh and wide-ranging alteration of the world political system). People are afraid of the change in their pockets for fuck's sake. Government secret wiretaps? Who needs them. I'm willing to bet that this post will be stored on a great deal more servers than the ones hosted by Slashdot. The supposed idea is to collect everything and then sift through it for the "evil" parts...in practice they collect everything and look at what they choose to look at, all without the inconvenience of any sort of warrant or other legal requirement.
I think what happened is someone got one of these at a tavern, as change. They decided it would be funny to fill out a report on it. They just forgot to put "j/k" at the end of the report.