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North Korea's High-Tech Counterfeit $100 Bills
ESRB writes "North Korea is apparently able to produce high-quality counterfeits of U.S. dollars — specifically $100 and $50 bills. It's suspected that they possess similar printing technologies as the U.S. and buy ink from the same Swedish firm. 'Since the superdollars were first detected about a decade ago, the regime has been pocketing an estimated $15 to $25 million a year from them. (Other estimates are much higher — up to several hundred million dollars' worth.)' The article also advocates a move to all-digital payment/transfers by pointing out both forms are only representations of value and noting it would cripple criminal operations such as drug cartels, human traffickers, and so forth."
It's the only way to prevent counterfeit money.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
advocates a move to all-digital payment/transfers by pointing out both forms are only representations of value
Sure, we should plug the paper hole, but who here believes that wire transfers are never faked?
We all know US Dollars are effectively worthless anyway. :)
"The article also advocates a move to all-digital payment/transfers by pointing out both forms are only representations of value and noting it would cripple criminal operations such as drug cartels, human traffickers, and so forth."
I would rather live in a world where I can carry cash and buy things without some asshole profiteer figuring out how many companies they can sell me out to behind my back.
The 2009 attempt to raise funds by devaluing its already pathetic currency revealed not only the country's fiscal desperation, but also the abuse Dear Leader was willing to inflict on his people. The won was devalued by 100 percent, which meant 1,000 won suddenly had the purchasing power of 10 won.
It appears they got the 100 to 1 ratio correct but I don't see how this is a "devaluation by 100 percent." Such ambiguous language would normally lead me to believe that a devaluation by 100 percent means everything is completely worthless (with zero percent value left). Wouldn't the correct devaluation percentage be 99 percent? I guess I would have preferred the fraction or ratio comparison instead if that is indeed how listing devaluation by percentage works in economics. Perhaps they could use better phrasing like "reduced purchasing power of all your money to one hundredth of its original worth overnight." Furthermore, how would you not riot over your government doing something like that to you?
My work here is dung.
If we make US all digital, they'll just switch to the Euro.
Using the Freedom of Speech while I still have it.
The ink is made by a Swiss, not a Swedish company. What the hell is it with Americans that they confuse these all the time.
Umm... how many Western countries do you think are in trade deficit with North Korea, or even trade with North Korea at all?
The real reason to go all digital for money is because it makes it much easier for the government to control what you can and cannot buy. It also makes it easier for the government to control who can and cannot go into business.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Don't cropy that froppy.
Electronic payment records are already being recorded and data-mined by corporations for fun and profit. If every payment is electronic, every payment is traceable and every thing you ever pay for will be recorded, compiled and cross referenced. I really don't trust corporations or even my government that much.
Just like copying movies and music: NK haven't stolen anything. The US still has all the dollars it ever has. It isn't like stealing a car where that deprives the original owner of the car. It's more like *duplicating* the car while the original owner still has it.
So it's OK, according to Slashdot.
Why does cash still exist in widespread usage? It clears at par.
If someone wants to pay you $10, and they give you cash or a check, you get $10. If they want to pay with anything else, be it Paypal, Square, some other mechanism, etc, the payment processor changes some ridiculous fee that will range from $.10 to $.50 or who knows what higher.
"Clearing at par" is why cash and checks still exist, and until electronic transactions are not only convenient and easy, but ALSO clear at par, there will still be a huge role for cash and checks.
Test your net with Netalyzr
...then get back to me on what a good idea all-electronic currency is. At least the state can't just make your Benjamins disappear when you become an unperson.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
American currency is stuck in the 19th century. All around the world, countries with currencies that Americans scoff at as "worthless" have invested time and money in redesigning their currency to 21st century levels that make it harder to counterfeit. But, whenever anyone in power even breathes a word of redesigning US currency, the populace flies into a rage, foaming at the mouth about anyone daring to pervert their sacred greenbacks. All efforts to bring the bills up to date have resulted in hideous, half-assed results.
I've actually heard stories first hand from a currency expert, who used to print banknotes in Europe, who was invited by the US to offer ideas on bringing the currency up to date, and the officials there rejecting each and every idea he put forward because they were "too different".
It's kind of sad. Everyone wants to counterfeit your money, and they're good at it, but you're too sentimentally attached to its archaic design that you're completely unwilling to change it.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The law of unintended consequences would strike, and there would be an under-the-table economy using the currency of another country, the latter only too willing to expand its economy on foreign soil. All the cash that anyone would be spending would go to that other country only to be converted into dollars. I'm sure there are some people already making bets on that happening, a bets they'd handsomely profit on. Nothing of substance would change: there would still be illegal immigration into the U.S., only that some extra part of it would be diverted from the local economy to the foreign soil. That is in addition to whatever immigrants, legal or not, are already sending back home (not that it's a bad thing, I merely acknowledge status quo).
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
We don't have to abandon paper money just because it is not possible to keep forgeries from being manufactured. The government just needs a private key and digitally sign each paper bill it produces (similar to the current serial numbers but with PKI powers) and then when you accept paper money for payment you will need a computer to read and verify the digital signature is valid. This would solve the problem (with the added expense of verifying bills) but the government won't propose such a simple solution because they would rather force people off paper currency to track them better.
We better move you all to traceable, trackable, revokable electronic money.
You thought your privacy hit the fan before? Wait til your every pfennig is nothing but a shifting index in the Federal Reserve database.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
We get the ink for our money from another country?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There's an excellent Planet Money podcast on North Korea's illegal economy.
In the podcast they explain how North Korea is able to sell their fake currency, as well as the other shady things their government does to make money. It's worth a listen if you're interested in the North Korean regime.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
What kind of technology goes into printing bills? Just curious, for the sake of philosophy.
All rites reversed 2010
I've long argued that the main thing propping up the artificially way too high US Dollar is its preferencing by extralegal entities since the normalisation of white collar "work" drove most of the American economy out of inherently tradeable production into devices which must be propped up by legal fictions to acquire monetary value.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Your score is currently '2, Troll'. I didn't know that was possible.
In a more normal time, when the Fed and others weren't openly wishing for the reduction of the dollar's value, this would be considered an act of war.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The local Ambassador of North Korea in my country told journalists in 2010 that by 2012, the North Korea economy will be booming and that it will surpass the economy of the US, or something like this. I guess they are simply trying in the best way they can. ;]
Ezekiel 23:20
The U.S. doesn't make anything, so why not counterfeit those countries that make all the goods.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Furthermore, how would you not riot over your government doing something like that to you?
Man, you really don't know anything about NK, do you?
Anyone trying would be shot. There's no press. Very little outside observation, almost none allowed in or out.
On top of that many of the people are very literally brainwashed to adore the countries leadership and accept blindly anything they say or do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sort of like bitcoins. instead of serial numbers each note would contain a multi-hundred digit unique RSA code. The bill would be its physical token. US Treasury websites could validate the bill. The same site could invalidate a fake or copied certificate. Or privacy people could avoid validation at all.
Current $100 bill are not entirely private. Its trivial to read and record the current serial numbers. And some banks may be doing that for large bills to look for crime payouts.
Much of bitcoins problems, if you believe the Wired articles, are not due to the certificates, but the minter's disks being compromised and the coin info erased or stolen.
Of course, this is exactly what the U.S. Government itself does: Print new money that doesn't actually represent any extant wealth and then "pocket" the full face value of the new currency. But then once these new bills makes their way into the market, the rest of us get to suffer inflation as a result.
It would do no such thing. More and more people are switching to simple barter mechanisms, precious metals as an intermediate, things like Bitcoin, and "alternative" currencies (example). If the government ever eliminates cash, this will only make such things thrive.
But the fact that North Korea is making a few million a year off of counterfeiting serves as a wonderful pretext for forcing everyone into privacy-less currency, doesn't it?
Liberty in your lifetime
No, see he's resolving the symbolic link (puppet) to China. :P
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It's stealing from everyone who holds dollars, and I suspect you know that.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Exactly, that's why I can walk into any convenience store and purchase a beer for the paltry price of five Sir Mix-a-Lot .mp3 singles, or five green Baby-Got-Backs.
Nice troll, but obvious 4/10
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
"The won was devalued by 100 percent, which meant 1,000 won suddenly had the purchasing power of 10 won."
This was the first thing in the article that I saw or read.
Cute, except currency represents an IOU - an obligation on the part of somebody to do something. That's what it is. And what a song is not.
Wow, if they keep this up for 1000 years, it might inflate the dollar by 0.1%.
The article also advocates a move to all-digital payment/transfers ... it would cripple criminal operations such as drug cartels, human traffickers, and so forth.
Yeah, and other dubious operations like speaking freely or engaging in outside-social-norm behavior.
Proposal to rename North Korea to Cagliostro. All in favour?
...compared to the Fed's quantitative easing. Why upset ourselves over this!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
They used to counterfeit, then they took a dollar in the printer.
I mean, while we're at it with the shitty memes.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Uh, wrong, wrong and wrong?
North Korea has an estimated $20 billion debt. That's debt, as in money _they_ owe to other people, mainly Russia. And that's after Russia forgave them for about another $8 billion. I don't think anybody owes North Korea any money, and even if they do it is far exceeded by the amount they owe everyone else.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
1x -1 Troll combined with 2x +1 Underrated will result in a 2, Troll.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Clearly, dropping everything we currently think of as money and switching to the gold standard would solve this, right?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And now we have it. The pretext is N.Korea counterfeiting Federal Reserve Bank notes. Now we have a pretext to getting rid of paper currency and letting the US Federal reserve control all of the US money on the planet... that is the monetary unit of trade the whole planet uses for oil and a variety of other important things. And, as a bonus, of we wanted to go back into N.Korea, we can do that too!
Just like copying movies and music: NK haven't stolen anything. The US still has all the dollars it ever has. It isn't like stealing a car where that deprives the original owner of the car. It's more like *duplicating* the car while the original owner still has it.
Brilliant! Best Slashdot post of the year.
(I may have to change my sig.)
The Federal Reserve doesn't produce bills so that seems rather unlikely.
Mod parent up. You'd probably see everybody and their uncle carrying Euros around in the US if this happened...
North Korea's exports the most to China and imports the most from China and Algeria, according to the CIA World Factbook.
In Canada we ditched $1000 bills years ago, since the authorities figured the only people who would need that much cash are up to no good. The biggest cash purchase I've ever made (about $1500) was with a wad of $100 bills.
...laura
It's exactly the same. The problem with counterfeiting money is it devalues the currency. The problem with illegally copying commercial media is that it devalues that commercial media.
Bottle caps, man. Bottle caps are where it's at. If it's good enough for the Vault Dweller, it's good enough for us.
Perhaps not another country's fiat notes, but more likely gold, silver, or some other physical good with high value density.
How could you expect otherwise then? How do you know what you're saying is true?
I said "very little". Not "none".
There are a few documentaries by people let inside to film in NK, and lots of interviews with the few NK citizens who managed to escape to South Korea.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Money has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It's only ink on paper.
which is a legal tender for all goods and service.
Because the government says its legal tender. Why do you accept the power the government has to say what currency is, but you don't accept the power the government has to say what's copyright. You can't have logical consistency and say that the government have the power of one and not the other.
Kim, don't copy that dollar! You wouldn't steal a movie, would you?
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Which means that money itself has to be artificially scarce.
And books, DVDs, music has to be scarce otherwise the author can't sell it.
The OP has it right. There is no difference.
Only to the same extent that forging a movie DVD steals from everyone else who owns that DVD.
... it's an IOU slip saying that the US government will continue to guarantee its value for public or private debt...
Guarantee its value? How exactly does that work? If my dollar is worth half as much as it was a few years ago, who do I talk to about getting the guaranteed compensation for the difference? "Federal Reserve Notes" are just like Monopoly Money, there is absolutely no backing or guarantee of value whatsoever. The only things that give them perceived value are that you need them if you're going to pay taxes, and that no commonly accepted alternative is available.
The "Federal" "Reserve" "Bank" does exactly the same thing, with exactly the same results. What's the difference?
Ohreali? So why does it say, right across the top of the face of a one Dollar bill, "FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE"?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Just like copying movies and music: NK haven't stolen anything. The US still has all the dollars it ever has. It isn't like stealing a car where that deprives the original owner of the car. It's more like *duplicating* the car while the original owner still has it.
.... and then selling the duplicate cars to try to put the car manufacturer out of business.
If you're going to do the analogy, at least make it complete.
So it's OK, according to Slashdot.
If you'll look back at some of the discussions about copyright on Slashdot I think you'll find that a lot of people do find this form of copyright infringement wrong, even if they have a different view of "non-profit" copyright infringement.
Just my two cents, which you are free to duplicate.
Oh, my bad, they're actually produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing - on behalf of the Federal Reserve and at cost to the FR of around 4c per note (regardless of denomination), but the FR are the only body authorised to *issue* them.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The author's dismissal of the privacy problems with going from cash to all-digital transactions, especially as flippantly as he does in his final paragraph, really lumps him in with the "if you've don't nothing wrong, you've nothing to hide" types. Yet another talking media head perfectly willing to trade everyone's basic privacy rights for a bit of perceived safety. In his mind, he's already won the debate, and it's only kooks and vested interests holding out. But don't listen to me, I'm obviously a cash-hoarding militia member, an anonymity-obsessed ACLU'er, the U.S. Treasury, Russian mob, Laundromat owner, or a person who has hidden a purchase from my spouse or income from the government.
...I had to look that up, so it's I hope understandable why I made the original assertion. Anyone else would have.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Within 10 or 20 years, expect $100 and $50 bills to come with expiration dates, after which time they would not be legal tender except for deposit at domestic banks or designated foreign banks.
Also expect them to come with geographic designations, outside of which they would not be considered legal tender except for deposit at designated banks.
Personally, I'm surprised that Congress hasn't come out and said that all $100 bills made before modern anti-counterfeiting measures will become "no longer legal tender, except for deposit at a domestic bank or designated non-domestic banks" starting in the near future.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
My card gives 1% back. As long as I have the discipline to pay it off at the end of the month I'm getting 1% return. Of course the merchant is paying the freight for this big time. The grocery store charges me the same regardless though. In a grocery store, I pay with credit. Gas stations are a different story here. They have a lower price for cash, which I suspect reflects the merchant's transaction costs.
The best deal? Paying for something with cash and receiving 4 pre 1982 pennies in change. Not that long ago the copper in them was worth $0.03. Of course this is statisticly unlikely to happen, and Gresham's law makes the odds lower every day. Also, this deal doesn't scale.
Before the mint got wise and made it illegal, one of the big banks actually purchased truck loads of pennies and sent them to be melted. I think it might have been Goldman Sachs.
If you really believe the dollar is going to donuts, penny and nickel arbitrage is still available. You just can't melt them legally--yet. I heard there's a guy in Texas with a cheap warehouse full of nickels.
The mint is "studying the issue" of making steel coins which the Canadians have been doing for years. Yay for the US government moving at the speed of the US government...
I get it.. so you're saying that the more people that prefer a specific type of music, the move value that music and the medium it is printed on will hold? I can probably trade off my high value albums for some decent goods, but not everywhere will accept the trade as a form of payment. I hear the price of Japanese music is a bit too high lately, so a lot of people are choosing to switch to Chinese music which is under-appreciated but still has many backers from America.
Now replace the word music with currency and albums with bills.
The article recommends killing off high-denomination bills.
We did that already, and the $100 is the new $10,000, at least in the underground economy.
If we kill off the $100 and $50, the $20 will be the new $100.
All killing off $100's and $50's means is making cash-based businesses buy bigger safes and bigger briefcases. I guess that's good if you are selling safes and briefcases.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Money's purpose is to act as a token for things that are naturally scarce.
It's going to sound like I disagree with you, whereas I don't. Much. Money's purpose is to separate the act of buying from the act of selling.
Which means that money itself has to be artificially scarce.
There's no reason why it has to be artificially scarce. It could be actually scarce--like when we were on the gold standard.
your possession of a copy doesn't interfere with my possession of a copy one bit.
It interferes with its resale valve.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
The "Federal" "Reserve" "Bank" is controlled by the people, and the the theory goes that they can ease shortages in money supply by printing new, thus helping the economy overall, at the expense of inflation.
If mhajicek prints money in his basement, it may or may not help the economy overall - but chances are that mhajicek is doing it for his own benefit and not for the benefit of society... any aid to the overall economy would be by accident.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Only to the same extent that forging a movie DVD steals from everyone else who owns that DVD.
No, the only person hurt when you duplicate a DVD is the person legally allowed to sell the DVD - and even then, it is only because they are granted that right by the government. We have "first sale" in the US, so you are probably right to the extent that the used market will see some price depression as well.
However, if someone started printing out millions of fake DVDs, it would not destroy people's faith in the DVDs and bring the economy to a screeching halt.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Citations needed.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If I want 1 month of housing, 1 month of food, 1 month of transportation, 1 month of other expenses, and an additional amount representing 2 weeks of spending when I'm 80 years old, that's not what my employer pays me.
He pays me something called "currency."
To make this useful, I have to:
* Pay rent and some other bills with something other than cash. This means buying a cashiers check or money order, or have a bank account (more fees) and pay for blank checks.
* Pay for envelopes and stamps for those bills that I pay by mail.
* Pay a sometimes-non-zero "convenience" fee for those bills that I pay online because the convenience fee is cheaper than a stamp.
* etc., etc
Oh, and that's not even counting the un-expected change in effective value in the part of my salary going towards my retirement between now and the time I use it.
So much for "clearing at par."
By the way, many employers use direct deposit because it is CHEAPER overall than either printing and processing checks OR paying an armored-courier service to deliver a boatload of cash to the office every payday.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Right, you are "stealing" (to use your word) from one person or corporation, as opposed to: (a) stealing from everyone who holds dollars by deflating the currency and (b) destroying the confidence that people have in their currency, which if severe enough would lead to economic calamity.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The argument of this article smells all wrong to me. It was just a month ago that I speculated someone whether paper currency would be banned in our lifetime, and now here's an article arguing for that. Note the following about TFA:
(1) The article spends several paragraphs finger-wagging at North Korea and what dastardly bastards they are. (Although, "That sounds like a lot of money, but compared to the $1 trillion in cash circulating in the great ocean of commerce, a few hundred million is chump change... probably won't bring about a crisis of faith in our paper money anytime soon. ").
(2) Then near the bottom the article switches to a call to get rid of all paper currency, with a nice jab at "liberty" voters (as some call them), lumping the ACLU in between crazed militias and the Russian mob ("If killing all cash strikes you as a little too radical... At the risk of infuriating cash-hoarding militia members, anonymity-obsessed ACLU'ers, the U.S. Treasury, Russian mob, Laundromat owners, and just about every person who has ever hid a purchase from a spouse or income from the government, I would say this to Kim Jong-un and his posse of counterfeiters: Bring it.")
(3) Ultimately, the headline about North Korea is really just a tiny degree away from "terrorist" fearmongering -- and at the end, it casts off even that garb and goes all-out terrorist/ drug-dealer/ child molester on us ("Who would be most inconvenienced if Washington were to outlaw $100 and $50 bills tomorrow? Cartel bosses in Juarez, Mexico jump to mind. So do human traffickers in China and Africa, aspiring terrorists in Afghanistan, wildlife poachers, arms dealers, tax evaders, and everyday crooks..."). So long as it potentially, minimally inconveniences some "bad guys" then of course it's worth it, even if "killing all cash" (the actual argument) means the end of privacy and convenience for all of us.
Barf. I cull FUD and bullshit. Digital surveillance of every monetary transaction by the government -- that's real end-game here.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
* It will allow authentication.
* It won't make the spying/tracking currency use any easier than it already is.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Bullshit.
Look at places where this has actually happend. Zimbabwe for instance. They use some other kind of normal paper currency.
A dollar might get you 3 eggs and a gold ring would get you the same. Convertible currency is worth more under those conditions than gold or silver.
All important papers that aren't "mere representations" of something else should be self-authenticating.
Be it currency over a certain value, non-registered (bearer) securities over a certain value, licenses and permits which are routinely used to indicate permission without being authenticated in real time (e.g. hunting permits in areas where the game warden is outside of radio contact with HQ), etc., some papers need to be self-proving.
Registered securities, professional credentials, etc. need not be self-authenticating except as a backup if the issuing authority isn't available to authenticate them when needed OR if the issuing authority cannot be trusted to maintain accurate records (or worse, if they have an incentive to doctor them).
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There have been +5, Troll comments on multiple occasions. I find +5 First Posts more interesting.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
I don't think its a North Korean operation. More like local mob. But if law enforcement lets it run and catches the bogus bills further along in the local economy, it makes the counterfeit problem look bad. It also screws over lots of innocent people along the bills' distribution paths as their cash gets confiscated and they are out the money.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, I think it would be another currency and not precious metals. I can easily see '1', '5', '10', etc. on a bill but I cannot easily determine the purity of gold in a nugget or the value of a diamond. Save your gold for the apocalypse.
Their action can be considered an act of war. This gives us the right to board their ships anywhere in the ocean or even sink them. They should think about that.
The superdollar story has been kicking around for 16 years now, making it closer to two decades than one.
Are you serious or a troll?
Screw 'em. Let's just counterfeit our own money and get it all back.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
The article also advocates a move to all-digital payment/transfers by pointing out both forms are only representations of value and noting it would cripple criminal operations such as drug cartels, human traffickers, and so forth.
Bullshit. Money laundering became a crime in the US over 25 years ago as an anti-drug strategy. Clearly it didn't work, since drugs are cheaper today than they were back then, but every time you make a cash transaction over a few thousand dollars (can be as little as $2000, depending on the transaction type) a notice goes off to the government. From what I can see the net effect is if the feds want you they can bust you for spitting on the sidewalk then force you to plea bargain by threatening a 300 years sentence on financial crimes.
And it's hard to imagine what Washington couldn't know about you if every single transaction you made landed in some government database. Not that it will make any difference to the criminals - drug traffickers and pimps (and their customers) will start using euros, yen, pesos, or drugs as mediums of exchange. Or gold, or bearer bonds. Whatever.
North Korea (officially the DPRK) has inherited a lot of older Soviet anti-aircraft equipment. One major reason for the success of the U.N. forces during the Korean War (1950-1953) against the Korea was the air superiority they were able to attain. As tensions still exist on the Korean Peninsula and Korea is so heavily militarised, their air-defence network is amongst the strongest of a non-superpower. A large part of it consists of a number of older, fixed systems like SA-2, SA-3, and SA-5, but DPRK is also in possession of many mobile systems that have proven deadly in the past.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aircraft_warfare
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Only someone ignorant of how the currency system works in the US.
Which of course is fine, most people don't care, but they're also smart enough to maybe find out before they start commenting on it.
I don't see how it devalues the media. If everyone on Earth has free use of a particular song, that song is likely worth more given that it's so well known. It would be useful in movies as a background song in the same way that Turn Turn Turn is used because everyone knows it and knows what they're supposed to feel when it is played. It can be played by bar bands. It can be used in mix tapes. The original singers could perform the song and sell more concert tickets. The economy would likely improve due to increased usage of the song.
If everyone on earth has an extra dollar, each of those dollars has less purchasing power than before. The economy would get worse as a result.
In short, a copyright term of 2 years for songs would probably result in a much larger positive economic impact, while allowing the copying of money after any period of time would always cause a negative economic impact.
Cow Cube
I know that bad guys can't access servers that big companies and governments have secured against trojans and viruses so I have nothing to worry about when all my money is digital. Certainly the North Korean's hackers will leave us alone if it is digital.
Gold and silver coins are hard to counterfeit, hard to make fake gold, only takes about 20 Gold Eagles to buy a new car, not that much to lug around. Checks, credit cards and coins would work fine, plus no real inflation (Government theft).
by limiting credit card use it is much easier for me to notice fraud
I have the best of both - my Amex card gives me %2 back on everything. Straight-up money, direct deposit whenever I have accumulated $50 or more due back to me. No "rewards" web-site or anything like that.
By auto-charging my cable bill, phone bill, cell bill, newspaper, and a few other things (that do not charge a CC fee), I run hundreds of dollars a month thru my card, and pay the balance each month. From my point of view I get paid 2% to use the card.
However, I prefer paying in cash for non-recurring things like every day shopping trips, restaurants, and the like.
At the end of the month, the credit card statement is clean and easy to check, and the cash budget takes care of itself. No money in the wallet? No impulse buys.
BTW - not EVERYONE accepts cash - try buying a beer on an airplane.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
No thanks, id rather the government not know everything i have bought and sold.
Loss of cash is another loss of personal freedom.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That link doesn't even mention the other currencies - the Euro has more cash circulating than the USD. And, they have 200 and 500 Euro notes in common use, that would be like ~$250 and ~$650 bills.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This is exactly why we're talking about "US dollars" rather than "US pounds" to begin with. Mercantilism kept British specie notoriously rare in British North America in order to ensure that manufactured goods could only be purchased from the mother country. Those seeking cold hard cash had to turn to "pieces of eight" from the nearby Spanish colonies, which were especially useful on the black market (e. g. buying Dutch-made goods). When the colonies rebelled, Spanish dollars were all they had to pay for things with, at least until they started minting their own (using the same size, shape, silver content, etc.)
The Spanish dollar itself was still legal tender in the US all the way through 1857.
Trepanning combined with soap and water? Man, that's hardcore...
When you have nothing else to do it gains appeal.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yay! The North Koreans are helping to stimulate the economy!
More money for everyone !
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
No transaction fees, but cash is constantly devalued by inflation. It's like a hidden ~4% annual fee. If you worked out the total amount the average person spends in cash per year, and the total number of transactions, then you could figure out the effective "transaction fee" of inflation.
I'd argue that cash still exists for the basic reason that no government has yet introduced an effective replacement. And without government backing, any new standard is unlikely to become nationally accepted. Transaction fees alone can not be the reason - even if debit card transactions were no fee (which they already appear to be to the purchaser) people would still use cash, because it requires no extra equipment, no cards, is accepted everywhere, and transactions are often faster (bars that trialled ecash cards found that the overall process was slower).
Thank you, one always learns something!
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
+5 insightful means that other people understood. Why didn't you?
I have several credit cards with no fees to use when I am traveling. In fact, using these credit cards almost always gives better exchange rate than anywhere else you could change your money (including the bank), so not only is it convenient, you actually save money.
There are many to choose from, I am surprised you know of the 3% fee and yet you did not do a simple search to see if there are fee-free cards - it is not like you have to be loyal to your CC if it is screwing you?
In general, the easiest ones to get are the ones from Capital One. All of their cards come with zero foreign exchange fee, and you will always be approved as long as you apply for the correct tier e.g. if you are a student/no-credit history don't try to apply to their intermediate or upper cards, the low tier still has no annual or exchange fees it just comes with lower limits and higher interest (if you care about the interest it means you don't pay the full balance, hence I suggest you avoid credit cards completely). Then there are better ones, e.g. I usually use a Citibank Thank You Premiere, but that one normally has an annual fee (unless you hit a promotion like I did).
And I think people who travel to Asia can also use Discover cards, which will not be accepted in most other parts of the world.
Be careful though, some countries have switched to the new credit cards with the chip that are not common in the US. So, research before travelling.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
For me, checks cost time. When I get a check it isn't useful to me. I have to go deposit it which takes time. Not a ton of time, but then my time isn't free. Time I spend doing that is time I could spend doing other things. Same with cash above trivial amounts too. If you give me a bit of cash, $20 or less then ok that I can spend directly. I'll keep it in my wallet and use it instead of a card. However if you give me say $500, well I don't want to keep that kind of cash on me. So it has to go get deposited too.
I'd much rather eat a small transaction fee and just have the money safely nestled in my bank account already. Doesn't cost me any time.
In fact this reason is why you see some companies that want to charge for bills paid by check, but not ACH. ACH actually costs them money, not much, but like $0.30 per transaction. However it costs them more in employee time to process a physical check. They'd rather just have it electrically transferred.
I was going to say these weren't really counterfeit anyway.... Just the missing $5 billion in PALLETS OF CASH lost in Iraq back in 2002/2003
But copyright infringement works too. Of course if you are passed counterfeit money for a good or service YOU provided, is it any less valuable than the electronic debt the govt used in the Bail outs? If money is all about "faith" then on the small scale counterfeit bills aren't really a problem.
He'd dead, Jim. (assuming the AC's name is Jim)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I realize you're being a smartass, but just the same why not ask the question--if we are dumb enough to expect pieces of paper to not be reproduceable, is what they are doing really wrong?
Just playing devil's advocate.
expandfairuse.org
What I mean by this.
The sovereign government of most nation creates some money for the people to use. This is cash; notes & coins.
They pay someone with the cash and the recipient takes the money to their bank to deposit it. When they do, the bank takes the cash and writes the amount in a book. Credit is created by your high street banks not the government.
When you transfer the credit from one bank to another the second bank expect notes and coins to be sent; they have to trust the first bank to do this, hence clearing. Course nobody actually moves physical money any more and they haven't done for a while but the principle is the same.
When you pay or spend credit, the credit is bank money. The bank's job is to make their credit appear to be dollars. Which is interesting because only ~5% of money is dollars, the other 95% was created by banks so it has a lot of covering to do.
Money doesn't grow on trees? No, it's magic'd out of nothing.
If North Korea have printed 20 million or even 200 million, it's completely insignificant. Private US corporations have quite legally created ~9,000 million.
Deleted
Or, as MC Frontalot would say, First World Problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3w1_E1V46M
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
You're saying that the Most Powerful Country in the World can't stop one of the most backwater little burgs out there from screwing with our money? Can't even stop a company from selling them the right ink? Why can't we just have some cruise missile veer off course some night and take it out? And if they complain, ask them what was actually destroyed? Or sneak in SEAL Team 6 with a few bricks of C-4. That's just an ongoing insult to us otherwise.
Of course, Iran has been doing it too for awhile now and we don't stop them either.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
VISA et al offer a good service I agree and it's not sucking cash from the economy.
But there are many places that do indeed refuse to accept it. In the UK small businesses get round it by saying the machine is broken.
You need a bit of regular volume to justify the merchant bank fee and then the card equipment but then also on each transaction. Sell a $1 item and i think you're losing cash.
Plus there's the need for connectivity of course. How hot's your router running?
I wonder if gold could ever be workable when it needs an xray or very accurate specific gravity test to test it properly.
A blog I run for the wealth
A lot of the comments say that we shouldn't get rid of cash; Where's George? (http://www.wheresgeorge.com) is a game based on US paper currency (with some equivalents for some other currencies). Playing the game is an incentive for me to use cash when possible
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
No, the only person hurt when you duplicate a DVD is the person legally allowed to sell the DVD
No, the legal buyer is hurt too. Not as badly, but he is hurt. Let's take it to the extreme. Say that there were only 2 official copies of the DVD. I buy one of them for $20. Consider two scenarios.
1) There is no piracy. I feel pretty good about owning the DVD. I feel I got my $20 worth. My friends come round because they want to watch my DVD. I (try to) impress girls with my DVD collection. (Hey we were all young once and tried it.) I can feel superior to my work colleagues because I know what happens in the big movie, and they don't. And when I no longer want the DVD, the first sale doctrine means that I can sell it to someone else. And because few people have it, I can sell if for a decent price. Say $15. So the good experience of ownership has cost me $5.
2) There is rampant piracy. That person that bought the other official DVD has copied it for his friends, and they've copied it for theirs, until everyone has a copy. 2 people legally, everyone else illegally. I feel less good about owning the DVD - everyone else has it too. I don't feel I got my $20 worth because everyone else got it for free. My friends don't bother coming round to watch it because they have their own copies. There's no point trying to impress girls with a DVD that everyone else has too. I can't show off my superior experience of movies to my work colleagues because they've all seen the movie too. And I can't sell if on, because everyone else already has it. SO my bad experience of ownership has cost me $20.
See, as a legal owner of a copy of the DVD, I have been harmed by people making illegal copies. Yes, it's a gross exaggeration, but what's true of the exaggeration is also true of the reality, just to a proportionally lesser extent.
It's the same process as inflation through increasing the money supply. Scarcity increases value, ubiquity decreases value.
However, if someone started printing out millions of fake DVDs, it would not destroy people's faith in the DVDs and bring the economy to a screeching halt.
No, but it would bring the movie industry to a complete halt. Meaning movies would no longer be made. Same problem, just on a different scale.
I don't see how it devalues the media. If everyone on Earth has free use of a particular song, that song is likely worth more given that it's so well known.
If everyone has free use of it they don't need to buy it. You don't get any more extreme devaluing than that.
It would be useful in movies as a background song in the same way that Turn Turn Turn is used because everyone knows it and knows what they're supposed to feel when it is played. It can be played by bar bands. It can be used in mix tapes. The original singers could perform the song and sell more concert tickets.
These are all possible alternative revenue streams. But the first 3 also require that people respect copyright. Are you perhaps saying it's OK for you to break copyright law by copying the song. But filmmakers, bar bands, and mix tape makers have to obey that same law?
You'r very argument admits that the value of the song comes from the ability of the copyright holder to restrict rights for other people to reproduce it.
Oooh.. Nice explanation.
The result of doing this for 80 years or so? Massive over consumption and over valuation of goods causing rippling global economic crisis... like the one we see now.
It would be more helpful to point out that our debt-based currency allows wealth to be concentrated in our financiers' bank accounts (the Federal Reserve is mostly owned by "Wall Street"), instead of more broadly among people who work for a living.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It really doesn't matter how many counterfeit $50s & $100s that the DPRK can print or dump onto the international marketplace. Not one bit, even if the DPRK counterfeited $1 Billion USD instead of only $200 Million USD. Compare that to the $2+ Trillion USD that the USA Federal Reserve has created out of thin air, and without even bothering to print them up. This was the amount of "digital dollars" that have been passed along to international corporations, foreign banks, and foreign central banks since September 2008. And this doesn't even count the new Fed Reserve QE3 initiative begun recently.
I'm waiting for the Federal Reserve to come out with a couple of new lines of USA PetroDollars, as toilet paper and wall paper. Forecast: Continued deflation / stagflation, with an overnight chance of hyper-inflation. I saw somewhere on YT a $1 Trillion Zimbabwean currency note. We aren't there yet, but that specter is in our future as well. Bitcom looks like a stable method of commerce in comparison.
They did that in response to the many, many trillions of dollars of "digital dollars" that disappeared in the crash. And even after "printing" all that money, the USD was practically deflationary for about 6 months. Don't you remember how the price of EVERYTHING dropped in 2009? That's deflation, and you can't get that when unneeded dollars are being printed.
No, it means 5 people agreed.
Understanding is the usual precursor to agreeing.
Fuck the govt, i mean seriously, and their hot daughters that are over 18 so that you can pollute their gene pool.
The govt should not forget that the GFC'08 was helped by all the illegal billions of $$$$ the drug cartels deposited into the banks.
Hey Mr Govt, legalize drugs, you already legalized murder for govt employees like FBI+CIA.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
similar printing technologies as the U.S. and buy ink from the same Swedish firm.
Get the cooperation of the company that supplies the US... a very low-tech attach
The fix is not digital currency, it's a move towards exclusive sourcing of materials used to print the bills, and the requirement of multiple different materials. And digital technology can be used to enhance security of currency without losing the benefits of paper money.
By that I mean: whatever firm supplies the ink should not be allowed to deal with anyone else. [for example]
Beyond that, what should happen is the unique serial number printed on every bill should have a secret key associated with it, with a public key that is made public knowledge; part of some database available to the general public.
And a representation of a digital signature using that key should be printed on every bill. Every every batch of X bills is printed, that private key should be destroyed irrevokably.
Then they should make an iPhone App that lets you use your phone's camera to "scan" any bill, and validate that the digital signature printed on it, against the serial number and the public key for that lot of bills.
The app would then submit the serial number (anonymously) to increment some counter, along with a loose GPS fix; allowing for blacklisting a certain serial number as 'suspect' to occur.
North Korea wanted to make real money, they should simply set up a small 'economic zone'. A tax haven location, where extradition never applies and gold can buy you anything, absolutely anything, nothing to sick or depraved. They'll have the rich and greedy flocking in and readily generate billions every year ( the same rich and greedy will also seek to protect it).
North Korea ain't communist or socialist, it's an insane asylum with the insane in charge.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Are we supposed to believe that the Norks are printing enough bogus dollars to amount to even a thousandth of a percent of what the Fed conjures out of thin air every day?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just like copying movies and music: NK haven't stolen anything. The US still has all the dollars it ever has. It isn't like stealing a car where that deprives the original owner of the car. It's more like *duplicating* the car while the original owner still has it.
So it's OK, according to Slashdot.
Hmm, this is funny, but there is truth in the joke. International law may ban counterfeiting of another country's currency, but if you don't allow yourself to be bound by international law, you can not be guilty of breaking it. National sovereignty in its essence means one country need not be held to legal standards established elsewhere, at the risk of being ostricized and effectively banished from the international community, of course.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
The USA and North Korea don't trade for a variety of very good reasons stretching back decades, so that debt is not to the USA.
North Korea hates China as well and blames the Chinese government for an attempted coup some years ago. However China will trade with anyone and North Korea appears to hate China less than the rest of the world.
It's a basket case. I know some people that lived in China just near the border who possibly had relatives in the place that they hadn't been able to get in touch with for decades. Their opinion was the best way to deal with the place was to wait until the wind was blowing the right way before nuking it.
I rather preferred Tim O'Reilly's take on this, on NPR this week.
He prefers it when O'Reilly publications are copy-leifted. It's free marketing and distribution. The majority of customers he has, became customers by acquiring such copies.
Equally I once enjoyed Kai Lee's statement on a copy of Bryce 3D in '95 or so: look, if you're pirating my program and not making any money off of it, fine-- learn it. If you find yourself using my product to make money, and it makes you money, then please, pay us for some of our products so we can continue to help you make money. (Paraphrased).
Counterfiet currency is entirely a different thing, of course.
Personally, I owe them (doctor evil laugh) $1 million USD for the $10 million in superDollars I bought from them. Since they can't tell the difference, I plan to pay them back in superDollars if they ever call in the debt.
-- miniMe
Because it's not true.
A DVDs value isn't really related to the number of pirate copies out there - mainly because it's not recognised as a currency. I can't go to a restaurant and pay for my meal with DVDs, I can't buy a car with a case full of DVDs.
Currency's a bit different. Yeah, sure, so in theory a bunch of fake banknotes doesn't make much difference. In practise, however, it's not that simple because any fiat currency (practically ever major currency in the world today) only has value as long as people believe it has value. Hence why we hear talk of "consumer confidence".
If there's a small amount of poor-quality fake money on the market, no big deal. I buy a UV light and a forgery detecting pen (both of which are cheap enough), train my staff how to tell the difference between a real and a fake note and hope for the best. If there's an enormous amount of extremely high quality fake money on the market that may not be detected by my staff but will be detected when I take it to the bank, I have a problem. How do I solve it?
Well, the easiest answer is for me to adopt a "no cash for anything over a relatively low value, no high-denomination currency" policy. This doesn't work for all businesses, of course, but it works for enough and if we all make the same decision, sooner or later the general public is going to think "Hang on a minute. I've got all this paper money in my pocket and half the businesses here won't take it! What the hell is going on? I'm not sure I trust this currency....".
Absolutely right. There's nothing wrong with printing copies of money. The government has no copyright on the design.
Now, as soon as you SELL THEM, or otherwise FRAUDULENTLY try to pass them off as legitimate, you have broken other laws unrelated to the copying of the bills.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The Manhattan project cost ~$28 billion USD in today's market. How much money do you think it would take to build a nuclear program using the finest French trained nuclear scientists North Korea could produce, combined with fifty years of advances in material and technology science? Does $10 billion sound about right to you? Because that's about the same number of years (10) that we've been really giving NK a hard time about their nuclear program. They say money doesn't grow on trees, but North Korea's been pretty good about growing their own free nuclear program using that money (French universities don't take NK dollars).
moox. for a new generation.
A DVDs value isn't really related to the number of pirate copies out there - mainly because it's not recognised as a currency.
Tell that to a second hand music and DVD store. The value definitely reflects rarity or ubiquity.
So we outlaw 50 and 100 dollar bills to 'fight counterfeiters' and they just print 20 dollar bills. It's not going to get rid of the problem. We just need to ban North Korea from purchasing anything, anywhere in the world. Honestly, I am more worried about North Koreans being re-patriated from China and sent to forced labor camps until death. That has a much higher priority in my life.
Privately owned by who?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Sounds like NK found an innovative way to circumvent
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nixon_Shock
Casteism
Yes, it's a gross exaggeration, but what's true of the exaggeration is also true of the reality, just to a proportionally lesser extent.
True it may be, but it would be hard to describe the loss to the buyer as "hurt" unless you also think that:
- Jumping up and down flattens the surface of the earth and pushes it out of its orbit
- Breathing heavily depletes the world's supply of oxygen
- Solar power calculators cool the earth
You could also argue that piracy combats ridiculously high DVD prices and may have saved the buyer from spending an extra $10 that would have been charged in the zero-piracy world. Competition, even competition with free, is good for the buyer.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are you sure? Merely producing copies of money is illegal in the UK, unless you clearly mark it as fake by writing something like "SPECIMEN" on it. I'd be amazed if it wasn't also the case in the US.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Same problem, just on a different scale.
LOL, well yeah. The end of big-budget Hollywood movies vs. the crash of the world's economy. It's like the difference between a schoolyard fight between two 8-year-olds and a thermonuclear world war :)
One of my favorite movies cost under $40,000 to make, so while I'm sure Hollywood suffers some from piracy, it's good to know that someone would be making movies even if it didn't really pay very well. Hollywood, all combined, makes less revenue in an entire year than the profit Apple earned last quarter. Economically, they just aren't that big of a deal.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I didn't say it was legal, I said it wasn't "wrong" until you use it to defraud someone.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I agree with you that a nicely labeled fiat note is convenient, but once US fiat notes prove valueless why would I accept another country's fiat notes in trade for a good or service? I'd be more likely to accept materials that I can use, like copper, steel, aluminum etc. I guess it would be barter rather than currency.
I use the quotes because it's not federal, has nothing to do with reserve, and is not a bank.
Do a little research; you'll learn more and be more likely to believe it than if one of us tells you.
Are you talking about the member banks, because I'm not. They don't print money.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask North Korea the US owes them 75 trillion dollars in "compensation" for "war damages". Link.
The end of big-budget Hollywood movies vs. the crash of the world's economy.
No, only the USA's economy. But the difference in scale doesn't make a difference to the principle.
One of my favorite movies cost under $40,000 to make
What was it?
Yes you can, the world is not black and white in the way you are claiming. I'm perfectly capable of accepting the government's authority over currency, but reject their authority over copyright. There's nothing wrong with this, all things must be assessed on their merits and virtues.
And if I come to the opposite conclusion? My action to counterfeit US currency is no worse than your action to pirate MP3s?
We have a plastic hundred dollar bill that has braile, has transparency, has holigraphics, and is certainly more difficult if not impossible to reproduce illegally. The paper currency in Canada will be fully replaced by the new technology. The new plastic currency can be washed, is very durable, outlasting the paper currency by 2 to 3 times. Soon the 20's, 10's and 5's will be in circulation. I found them great.
have not tried them out in the 20 to 30 below zero temperatures, but I am sure this bill will remain flexible at that cold cold environment.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
No, only the USA's economy. But the difference in scale doesn't make a difference to the principle.
I don't think the couple of billion that Hollywood brings in would have an impact anywhere except in southern california. They really don't have that much revenue.
What was it?
Not that it's relevant, but it was "in the company of men".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Not that it's relevant, but it was "in the company of men".
Thanks, I'm always looking for tips for things to torrent. ;-)
LOL, saw that one in the theater! How quaint!
It launched Neil LaBute and Aaron Eckhart's career. You have to be a special kind of person to enjoy such a sadistic movie :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
20b ? I don't think so. The North Korea time says its around 800b$ Check this out:North Korea Time
nvm... got mixed up headlines. the 800b$ is not from other countries.. lol