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Hollow Spy Coins
Bruce Schneier's blog links to a few sources for hollow spy coins, one being BoingBoing's Bazaar — where a nickel that can hold a microSD card costs $27. Another is Slashdot's sister company ThinkGeek, where you can get hollow quarters and half-dollars in the low 20s. As if corporate and government security geeks didn't have enough to worry about.
This is just a slashvertisement for hollowed-out coins. I would really consider them "spy coins" as the title is selling them to us. A "spy coin" should actively do some spying, really. I could just as well call my wallet a "spy wallet", as it can hold mico-SD cards too.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Now I have to start running everyone who enters and leaves through a giant EM field?
Sigh... the shareholders aren't going to like the cost of those generators and the shielding...
More than that, how do I sufficiently shield the porn they bring in with them? If that gets damaged there'll be hell to pay.
Wouldn't this look bizarre under an x-ray, given change is usually zapped by itself in a little bowl? I'm not sure I risk a full cavity search trying to fly internationally with one of these...
hey kdawson, if you're going to try to slip in an ad for your sister company in a "news story", at least mark it up as an advertisement.
This is just wrong. kdawson should be fired for such a breach of ethics.
Is your wallet expected to be impervious to x-rays like a coin is?
if they look like real money, is it even legal?
or do the hollow coins come from the mint?
... with the federal deficit exploding, the fed is doing a fine job of hollowing out ALL you money, not just the change in your pocket.
Just another way for the mint to save money!
I call bullshit. There's no way you're from a culture that doesn't use any kind of coins at all. They're a little more rare, but they still outnumber electronics in the vending arena. Or does your world not have Coke machines, either? Maybe your bills print in $1.25 increments? Or maybe the machine keeps the change? Do you live and work in a crappy hotel?
penny for your thoughts?
your turn, post your own bad puns
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Give me 20 quid and I will install a SPY FOLDER on your computer, whether it's Windows, Mac or Linux.
You too can store things INSIDE your very own SPY FOLDER. Features include
Store things inside.
Keep things separate from other things that are not inside your SPY FOLDER.
All this and more!
Again, all yours for just 20 quid. Call 555-HAPPYDUDE now.
the Defense Department might think these coins are for espionage, just like the foreign Canadian quarters from 2007:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003697628_spycoins08.html
I was a amateur magician when I was ten or twelve, and I'll be 58 next month. You could get those coins at any magic shop way back then, or through the mail from catalogs; I owned a couple of them. Also, any machinist can and could make them easily.
Free Martian Whores!
I just inserted a microSD card into my penis' pee hole. Does that make my penis just a wallet, or is it a "spy wallet"?
ThinkGeek is pretty neat. I've bought a lot of stuff from them (not much lately though).
I keep The Rabbit of Caerbannog plush toy in my magician's hat.
A coin is a small, flat, typically round piece of metal that serves as a token of monetary value. As such they can be exchanged for goods or services.
Originally coins were made of metal that had value in it self, corresponding to the value of the coin. Which is to say, the coin was not a token of value, but an actual valuable object. Today however, the actual value of the coin in terms of material and manufacturing is typically a lot less than the value the coin represents.
Micro-SD? I can fit a whole usb flash drive in my spy-rectum!
You can walk right through security (airport, border, corporate) with a microSD card in your pocket and nobody blinks an eye. Trying to "smuggle" a MicroSD card through is more likely to result in you getting caught and treated badly (even if it isn't even illegal). If the data on the MicroSD card is what you're trying to hide, a better spy device would be a trick card... say, which was internally partitioned into two cards with some very obscure way (SW or HW) of switching between them. Put innocuous data on one side, stick it in your camera, phone, music player, whatever. Even if the goons search the card, that's all they find. Short the right contacts or send the right command, and get access to the "evil" data.
If you've got to hide the micro SD card in a coin, you've also got the problem of where to hide the card reader.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I'm sorry but all that makes it small.
I am Mayan, we use rocks, chocolate, and virgins for money
I'm still torn: Is this a cheap shot at advertising or is Bruce really so deep in the doo that he has to peddle crap now?
People, microSD cards are what their name suggests: Insanely TINY. They also don't really check on metal scanners that scan your body unless they're set to a level where the hemoglobin in your blood might set them off. Remember that tooth gap where your wisdom tooth used to be? Perfect place to put it while you go through whatever scanners your company might have in place.
So please...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
why do you guys pick on mike?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Picture this: a guy is busy with the little opening ring on a handful of change and NONE of them open. Say bye-bye to your data on that sd card. :D
Hollow Nickel, Hidden Agent
What’s a nickel worth?
No, it’s not a riddle. It’s a case straight from the pages of FBI history.
It all started in June 1953, when a Brooklyn newspaper boy picked up a nickel he’d just dropped. Almost like magic, the coin split in half. And inside was a tiny photograph, showing a series of numbers too small to read.
Even if the boy kept up with the front page news on the papers he delivered, he probably never would have guessed that this extraordinary coin was the product of one of the most vital national security issues of the day: the growing Cold War between the world’s two nuclear powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The coin ultimately made its way to the FBI, which opened a counterintelligence case, knowing the coin suggested there was an active spy in New York City. But who?
New York agents quickly began working to trace the hollow nickel. They talked to the ladies who passed the nickel on to the delivery boy, with no success. They talked to local novelty store owners, but none had seen anything like it. A lot of shoe leather was ruined, but no hot leads emerged.
Meanwhile, the coin itself underwent expert examination. FBI Lab scientists in Washington pored over it. They immediately realized the photograph contained a coded message, but they couldn’t crack it. The coin did yield clues, however. The type-print, Lab experts concluded, must have come from a foreign typewriter. Metallurgy showed that the back half was from a coin minted during World War II. Ultimately, the coin was filed away, but not forgotten.
The key break came four years later, when a Russian spy named Reino Hayhanen defected to the United States. Hayhanen—really the American born Eugene Maki—shared all kinds of secrets on Soviet spies. He led FBI agents to one out-of-the-way hiding place, called a “dead drop,” where FBI agents found a hollowed-out bolt with a typewritten message inside. When asked about it, Hayhanen said the Soviets had given him all kinds of hollowed-out objects: pens, screws, batteries, even coins. He turned over one such coin, which instantly reminded agents of the Brooklyn nickel. The link was made.
From there, Hayhanen put investigators on the trail of his case officer, a Soviet spy named “Mark” who was operating without diplomatic cover and under several false identities.
After painstaking detective work, agents figured out that “Mark” was really William Fisher, aka Rudolf Abel, who was arrested on June 21, 1957. Though Abel refused to talk, his hotel room and office revealed an important prize: a treasure trove of modern espionage equipment.
Abel was eventually convicted of espionage and sentenced to a long jail term. In 1962, he was exchanged for American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the U.S.S.R. and held prisoner there.
In the end, a nickel was worth a great deal: the capture of a Soviet spy and the protection of a nation.
Link: http://www.fbi.gov/fbihistorybook.htm
Ken
Why should "corporate and government security geeks" be especially worried about 1950's technology ?
Considering how laptops have become fair game for involuntary search and seizure at US borders, I think putting your 'important stuff' on a microSD card inside a hollow coin is probably a good idea.
My blackberry has a microSD card in it. I have passed through many different customs / airport security examinations and nobody has ever examined the contents of the card. I don't see the point of paying for an even smaller microSD card carrier, when I already have a small microSD reader that I carry with me everywhere that nobody ever raises an eye towards.
And even if my phone is off, or the battery is dead, it still does just fine at carrying the card and looking extremely ordinary. You could also substitute most Motorola phones in the same role, and any number of other phones that I haven't paid attention to that also use microSD.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Today however, the actual value of the coin in terms of material and manufacturing is typically a lot less than the value the coin represents.
Or more!
At the end of the (Dutch) guilder era, 1 ct coins cost more that 1 ct to manufacture. Reason to cancel the 1ct coins.
(payable amounts.
Now we have the euro, again manufacturing (and handling) €0,01 and € 0.02 is considered too expensive.
All payable amounts are rounded to the nearest 0.05
For those who work in an electronics store (or it's distribution centers), this will be a loss prevention nightmare for your tiny chips (like MicroSD).
"Oh, just a wad of change? No problem sir! Go on ahead..."
On the other hand, if I accidentally put it through the Coke machine on the way out of Fry's, I think I'd have what's coming to me. ;-)
$ man woman *
-bash:
I think you'd be better off with a TrueCrypt file named DSC13423.jpg stored on an SDHC card loaded inside a point and shoot camera. Better if it is surrounded by other images with sequential numbers that make sense too.
What is the exchange rate USD to virgins?
I, for one, would probably waste far too much of my limited lifespan just opening and closing the hollow coin, sounds cooler than your average desk toy.
They seem virtually irrelevant as either a security threat or a tool of asymmetric covert operation, though. MicroSD cards are already small and durable(resistant to liquids, magnetic fields, a number of common solvents, surprising amounts of mechanical strain, etc.). Perhaps more importantly, they are already dirt-cheap and extremely common consumer electronics. Unlike, say, little bits of microfilm, which might not like being stored under your tongue or embedded in the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, and which are instantly suspicious on discovery(since virtually nobody used tiny pieces of microfilm in the course of ordinary activity. Libraries always used long spools or large cards of the stuff, and hardly anybody else used any at all), a microSD card, even a plainly visible one, arouses no particular suspicion. Virtually every mid-market cellphone comes with one, lots of PMPs use them for storage expansion, you can even get them at pharmacies.
Even in fascist Orwellistan, or some high-security facility, where it would be legal and accepted to inspect people for them, it would be an immensely tedious chore, because they are so common.
If you are running some sort of high-security operation, your computers would(unless you are a terminal incompetent) be configured without any means of transferring data to unapproved storage media(configuring the OS to, say, only load drivers for USB_HID devices with vendor ID matching whoever your vendor is, and load no driver and send an alert with the machine name, logged on user, and lsusb output to IT security is not commonly done; but it is hardly rocket surgery.) Trying to stop secrets from leaving by physically intercepting tiny chunks of flash memory at the door is just stupid.
where I lived the only reason I needed cash was to pay my tab at the office canteen. so once every two weeks I would go to the mall on the way to work, withdraw $20 and pay off the tab. Other than that I never needed cash. It was a huge huge shock when I arrived in the UK. The number of times I was caught needing actual solid cash was shocking and frustrating. I was so used to not ever needing it.
Well, apparently.
This may be walking a fine but legal line, since the coins are both real (not counterfeit) and still usable as currency (not defaced). But it's probably up for stimulated debate.
Hey kdawson, nice way to jack up profits. A little conflict of interest, eh?
Their popup javascript window does not work with android's webkit. It will not allow you to select a radio button.
What's with plausible deniability in that case? Like: "I got that as a change from the cafeteria (or other place), no idea whose it is." If a data on the stick is encrypted with TrueCrypt, does that give you a Double Plausible Deniability bonus?
I think fake batteries would be a much better choice than a coin for this purpose though.
Here's why:
1. Small batteries are just as ubiquitous as coinage.
2. You don't have to worry about which currency you carry when traveling.
3. You don't worry about accidentally mixing it with other coins and spending it.
4. You can carry it around in the battery compartment of some other device or cheap toy. (Which also means you can hand it off along with your "gift".)
5. A AA battery is actually just large enough to fit a standard USB plug inside, so it would be more readily usable while needing no special reader or connector. Other relatively small sizes such as C, D, and 9V batteries would work just as well.
Hollowed coins for messages older than heck. They didn't hit their heyday until people started using microfilm and photographic espionage with microdots and similar. But seriously, nothing new under the sun. Flash Cards have been concealable sized for a decade and change now, meh.
Those of us with the eyes to see have long known that coins are notorious for being psychotronic mind-control amplifiers. That's why I only use my own banknotes, drawn on the First Bank of Rogerborg. Also: Al Gore is completely right about global warming.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Depending on A/S/L up to $3.7 million according to Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480037,00.html
Whoosh...
Get your genres straight; we're talking about spies, not private dicks.
I've been away from cutting-edge technology for a while (poor graduate student), so I had to look up whether microSD cards are compatible enough to be useful here.
SD cards are a type of memory card that come in three basic sizes: SD cards, miniSD, and microSD. The microSD cards are indeed ridiculously tiny, and can fit in a hollow coin. Many computers today (particularly laptops) do come with integrated SD readers, but they can't fit the microSD cards without an adapter (microSD in a normal SD slot) or a USB reader.
So you can carry around a liveboot linux distribution in your "lucky half-dollar", full of awesome spy tools, but it won't work on most computers unless you're also carrying around a microSD reader. So you're a lot better off buying one of the tiny or pre-disguised USB drives (pen, cigarette lighter, etc.). ThinkGeek has plenty.
Yeah, I don't remember the last time I used real coins. I carry a grocery-store branded "quarter" in my car to unlock grocery carts. I use cash to buy coffee, since I buy from a micro-roaster who isn't big enough to bother with accepting plastic, but he prices things so that it's an even $10/lb, so I never have change from that. For just about everything else, I use a credit card (or debit). I pay for our parking meters via cell-phone, and I don't use vending machines (partially due to the fact that I never have change on me). To pay friends for things, I usually just round up or pay with a cheque.
The advantages are having a much lighter wallet. I'm not worried about losing a lot of cash if I ever get mugged, or more likely forget my wallet somewhere. My credit card gives me 1.5% cash back on every purchase I make, plus all the other benefits of using a credit card (warranty, contesting charges, insurance, etc..).
Gee, imagine using that hollow coin with your client project on it that you accidently use to buy your celebration soda from the local vending machine with.
Hollow coin is the sort of idea that appeals to the geek. But, the practicality just doesn't seem nearly as useful as we perhaps wish it were.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Hollow coins have been used for a very, very long time.
The only thing that makes this IT is that nerd sites are selling it and, omg, a microSD can fit inside one *WOW*
The only thing that makes this news is that its an advertisement, and news has to get revenue from somewhere amirite?
Yawn, lawn, clods, etc.
the book, not the musical. It's how Valjean escapes from Thenardier.
How much blow can I smuggle through an airport with a pocket full of these?
Now I no longer need to smuggle these chips in to and out of the assignments where I'm doing industrial espionage by hiding them in my, er, "nether regions"! (Those things have really sharp corners!)
In all seriousness, who believes this will have any impact whatsoever on the smuggling of data?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Fire the rocksucking Microsofters first. Talk about ethics and slashvertisements, we have every third article being some kind of slashvertisement for His Billness. Taco even invited His Billness to dinner. When you end up like that, you no longer have a tech site, just a fucking ad feed for Microsofters. kdawson is one of the last decent staff left there.
Is there a high-security facility that would both...
If not, you're still going to need to smuggle a reader in, at which point you may as well smuggle a keychain drive or a full-size SD card with a flip-out USB port.
Phones are a much better infiltration vector, especially if you can bring the USB "charging" cable with it, or if a careless/thoughtless addition of a Bluetooth keyboard or mouse inadvertently enabled Bluetooth file transfers.
Personal devices (phones, memory cards) with built in wifi are a potential leak vector as well, depending on the facility. Depending on window placement, nearby parked car with a laptop in the trunk hooked to an outboard antenna in the cars back window could receive data transfers from a phone or SD card within the perimeter. (Name the network after a nearby neighbor/business and who would question its presence?) The transmitting phone/card could then be scrubbed of contra-band data in case of inspection at egress.
Where have you been man?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
People are thinking of the wrong applications when they're dismissing these coins. Forget airports or building security where you're just one of many and are likely to only be subject to cursory inspection, think more in terms of something like where you have taken pictures at a protest and, if spotted, you are likely to be individually searched (including turning out your pockets) and have your devices erased.
Having a micro SD card not look like a micro SD card could be key in such a situation.
My puppy linux distro is on the SECOND partition of my microSD card so that when I need to give someone a file they don't f**k up the distro by accidentally deleting things.
XP and OSX don't even see the second partition, and if they did, they (at least generic XP) would have trouble mounting the ext2 fs.
Dunno about the newer windows.
Truecrypt, hidden part, yadda yadda, in the FIRST partition (more misdirection!)--but the only thing I really have "hidden" in there is my tax returns.
I prepare them in the evening when I'm working away from home, 'cause I'm damned sure not going to do paperwork when I could be hanging out with my wife!
If only I had some really cool spy sh|t, man--I've got a great place to hide it.
This is kind of cool, but what you need is a voice recorder, battery, _and_ a micro SD card inside a coin that can be read through bluetooth without opening it. It would have to be induction chargeable (or charge itself with kinetic energy).
Then, and only then, would it be worthy of Slashdot...
Onto the halfbakery ...
The trouble with these sorts of devices is that they scream "secret data here!". I'd be real curious how those nickels look on an airport X-ray machine.
If I wanted to sneak information around, I'd put it on hidden directory is an SD card full of tourist photos and I'd leave it sitting in my camera. Ideally, I'd want it in a file that would get deleted during the camera's "delete photo" operation. (Probably take some camera research to figure out the best device. Depending on the goal, it could be placed in the photodata directly.) With appropriate social engineering, one might even be able to get the bad guys to order you to delete it if things go pear shaped.
The cake is a pie
Citizens of any country with huge inflation very soon find their coins utterly useless.
It is easier to print zeros on paper.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If someone were to raid your desk or home, they'd probably take the change too. Oops
Is this legal? Are these made from real nickels? Wouldn't this count as defacing currency?
Considering how laptops have become fair game for involuntary search and seizure at US borders, I think putting your 'important stuff' on a microSD card inside a hollow coin is probably a good idea.
It's a brain-dead stupid idea.
The border guard has a gallows sense of humor.
If some mischance, your Johnson Smith spy tech toy is discovered, you had better be prepared for what comes next.
Did anyone else just think about getting a hollowed out penny, quarter, and half dollar and putting a dime inside the penny inside the quarter inside the half dollar?
I would have thought that magicians would use magic coins or trick coins....but not spy coins.