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Banknotes Go Electronic To Outwit Counterfeiters
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.'"
For anonymous transactions. This puts that concept at risk.
You'd be amazed the places you can swipe a credit card
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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.
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.