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Banknotes Go Electronic To Outwit Counterfeiters

Posted by samzenpus on from the electric-benjamins dept.

suraj.sun writes "Modern banknotes contain up to 50 anti-counterfeiting features, but adding electronic circuits programmed to confirm the note's authenticity is perhaps the ultimate deterrent, and would also help to simplify banknote tracking. From the article: 'A team of German and Japanese researchers created arrays of thin-film transistors (TFTs) by carefully depositing gold, aluminum oxide and organic molecules directly onto the notes through a patterned mask, building up the TFTs layer by layer. The result is an undamaged banknote containing around 100 organic TFTs, each of which is less than 250 nanometres thick and can be operated with voltages of just 3V. Such small voltages could be transmitted wirelessly by an external reader, such as the kind that communicates with the RFID tags found on many products.'"

13 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. Go electronic! by alexandre_ganso · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do we still carry money anyway?

    1. RE: Go electronic! by Nkwe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do we still carry money anyway?

      For anonymous transactions. This puts that concept at risk.

    2. Re:Go electronic! by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do we still carry money anyway?

      Primarily so we can give it to who we want in the amounts we want, and we don't require Visa/Mastercard/Government/Paypal approving of the entity you are transacting with.

      Essentially it's actually an important piece of protecting our freedom.

    3. Re:Go electronic! by blair1q · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So...you want to carry a government document...to prove you're free.

      Got it.

    4. Re:Go electronic! by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "...Essentially it's actually an important piece of protecting our freedom..."

      Was. (if this idiocy is implemented)

      The article basically describes RFID tech capable of being built into money. These RFIDs can be read at any point-of-sale cash register. No? Give the government a year or so, as this is the real purpose of all of this--tracking every fucking dollar spent (not to mention the person doing the spending).

      As with any RFID system, use your microwave oven liberally. 5 seconds is usually enough. If enough people do this, the whole scheme falls apart as constant "counterfeits" will be a deterrent to doing business and people won't trust the RFID pass/fail determintation. Besides, what happens if your hundred-dollar bill RFID malfunctions (from, say, being crumpled up in a pocket while going through the washer?) and no longer communicates? Are you out a hundred bucks? Will the clerk waiting for you to pay for a full shopping cart of groceries care?

      It isn't a collar unless you let them put it on you.

    5. Re:Go electronic! by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's still a form of stored value that can be transacted between 2 parties without government interference (if the transfer is done physically). Can't say the same for Visa/Mastercard/Paypal/Bank of America.

    6. Re:Go electronic! by yurtinus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait what? Currency may have it's faults, but it's been a long time since it was feasible to barter for anything. Part of industrialization (and specialization) means that what you produce won't be valuable to everybody. I can't exactly trade some software coding work with the farmer up the highway for some eggs, but I can trade it for some money from a software company and then use that money to buy my eggs. There's no reason to look so far backwards when trying to be "free." It's unfortunate the steps governments have taken these days to get the impression that anything a government can do is automatically restricting to freedom - but realistically speaking, without a small government with a rule of law and protection of property, you *can't* be free. Try bartering anything when the guy with the bigger guns will simply take what he wants. I'll be the first to stand up and say the government has far overstepped its bounds, but claiming there's more freedom in using a Mastercard than a nationally recognized legal tender is asinine.

      Cash transactions are not to avoid reporting income. It's to buy what I want from who I want without anybody snooping into the details, government or otherwise.

      --
      +1 Disagree
    7. Re:Go electronic! by real+gumby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes. Your quip is clever and funny, but to be serious for a second it is important to realise that government a priori does not automatically mean "nonfree" however much the popular rhetoric says so. For example the existance of maintained public roads increases your freedom of movement. A putatively impartial judiciary that enforces contract increases your freedom of commerce. A public agency that hunts down murderers increases your freedom unless you're a murderer etc etc.

      OK OK, that being said we can start to argue about the dividing line in enabling and restrictive freedoms, Leviathan, 8000 years of political philosophy, abuse of power etc. But the point remains: people form and participate in/with governments because they feel they will be more free with them than without them. And people are fallible....quite fallible.

      (and for the record this cash tracking is a horrible idea)

    8. Re:Go electronic! by Tanktalus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because then it'd be called a politician.

    9. Re:Go electronic! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Insightful

      End-time prophecies say that we'll eventually end up with a one-world cashless financial system where the government can approve or deny any transaction in real-time.

      Not without a lot of baseless guesswork, they don't.

  2. "Ultimate" Deterrent? by timeOday · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's hard for me to imagine any security measure economical enough to implement in $20 bills could not be replicated by a really well-funded forger, such as a foreign intelligence agency. If there is any "ultimate" deterrent, it would involve tracking the movement of funds from one individual to another, i.e. marginalizing the use of cash, or making it equivalent to electronic banking, so Big Brother can keep an eye on it.

  3. What's the point? by Skidborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All that money won't be worth the paper it's printed on in a few years anyway.

    --
    Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
  4. Why not just use Polymer notes? by metrix007 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They were developed by the Aussie government in the 80's, and they are basically impossible to counterfeit. They are also waterproof, near indestructible etc.
    Poorer countries such as Nicaragua, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Kuwait use them, so why have other countries not caught up?

    This isn't just the US, but the EU and UK as well. Why stick to paper when much more advanced tech has been around for over 20 years and is being used by third world countries?

    --
    If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.