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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.
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...
I could just as well call my wallet a "spy wallet", as it can hold mico-SD cards too.
That analogy doesn't work unless you're suggesting that you wouldn't use your wallet as a wallet. In this case, the coin is not really a coin. It's a fake, intended to deceive. On the other hand, I do agree with you that it seems like a slashvertisement.
if they look like real money, is it even legal?
or do the hollow coins come from the mint?
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
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
It wouldn't be that difficult to get the weight right, would it? I mean most coins are a copper core with a nickle covering. So if you could create a heavier core, it would compensate for the mass of the removed area. Actually, now that I look at it, lead would be the only non-expensive metal that's heavier than copper by volume, but it's not THAT much heavier (I'm not sure if it's enough to compensate for such a large void)... Sure, they could use something more exotic like Platinum or Tungston (or even Uranium or Plutonium, but if you use them in a coin, I think you have bigger problems than detecting a hidden microSD card), but how much would that thing cost then? http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_metals.htm
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
It might disguise the contents but I tell you from experience that if you drop it on a table with other change, *something* will not sound right. I'm a magician and I have lots of coins just like this one and their "talking" is a real problem.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
No, but the coin will sound *completely* different when dropped on a table or with other coins. As a magician I have been painfully aware of this for about 30 years.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
you can successfully hide a MicroSD card behind a Stamp on a letter (big stamp, big letter) and have it arrive intact. I did this as a bet to a friend. I sent it to him in florida from michigan.
I did modify the SD card. I sanded off the extended lip to make it all the same thickness, and I embossed the envelope where the st card was to go to give it a bit more room. it was undetectable by casual inspection, but if you flexed it in the stamp location you could feel it.
Spy's used to send microfilm cutouts under stamps all the time. I still have a MINOX camera that I paid a dear amount for back in the 90's when I was into collecting real spy trinkets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes, but if you got the weight correct, you’d have to worry about spending it accidentally...
(Actually you’re going to have to worry about that anyway, because cashiers don’t weigh the currency either. Only vending machines do that.)
For countries outside the US, you cannot spend a US coin. For those in the US, get the equivalent modification for a foreign coin.
"Oh that coin, it was left over from my last overseas trip. Nothing to see here."