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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.
"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.
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.
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.
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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?
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."
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
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
Your solution does not address replay attacks. Unless anybody accepting a bill checks that into a central database there is no way to know that the same bill hasn't been printed a million times with the same copy of the original signature that remains valid.
If I send you a signed email, you can make a million copies of it, and they're all still signed.
... 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. ...
Nice thought, but it won't work. You just need a bill, and you can copy the serial number, signature and all.
What might work is the following: Manufacture each bill with a random "fingerprint", and and sign that. This fingerprint would need to be something that is impossible to create in given configuration (it must be random, and there cannot be any alternative non-random way to make it.) It should also be easy to verify. I do not know of anything that meets these criteria, but there may be something.
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.