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RFID Tags in Euro Banknotes
Posted by
michael
on Fri May 23, 2003 10:40 AM
from the mugger's-delight dept.
from the mugger's-delight dept.
psychictv writes "CNET News.com is reporting that Euro notes could be embedded with RFID tags in the future. 'RFID (radio frequency identification) tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in...'" The EU has been considering this for a while. You'll never even know they're there.
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New mugging tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New mugging tool (Score:5, Interesting)
Daniel
Parent
Re:New mugging tool (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, if that worked, there would be nothing to stop anybody from giving someone 'deactivated' bills especially since not everyone walks around with an RFID reader, nor is it likely that everyone will have one anytime soon. Then you just bought something using money that's basically worthless, at least at places that have RFID readers.
Parent
Re:New mugging tool (Score:5, Informative)
In the EU you own the money which means it becomes your property.
Burning cash or defacing it it anyway is a violation of federal law in most countries.
Not in the EU. You can do whatever you want with it, if it makes you happy. Of course, if you destroy it you might have other problems than with the law.
Parent
Next step toward TIA (Score:4, Insightful)
and no doubt make an appropriate entry into your Total Information Awareness database file.
Or, to look at it from the other angle, if you are engaged in any "suspicious" behavior, what's to stop the TIA/Dept of Homeland Security system from deactivating your money?
I don't like this one bit. Nosir.
Parent
Re:New mugging tool (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, while we are at it, lets put it on scanners at our stores, and we can detect if employees are leaving with more money than they came to work with.
Parent
Re:New mugging tool (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't that the whole point of working? To go home with more money than you started with?
Parent
War-Mugging??? (Score:3, Interesting)
RFID tags that record? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you'd be hard pressed to find an RFID tag that could record transaction information inside a bill. You'd need an external device to do the recording.
Re:RFID tags that record? (Score:5, Informative)
They just missed a word.
Parent
Actually.. (Score:5, Informative)
You can get rfid tags with storage capability. Think you can get tags with about 4kb of storage right now.
Check the faq [aimglobal.org] at rfid.org
Parent
Nice. (Score:3, Funny)
Now people in the EU will know who to sue when they get testicular cancer from all the Euros in their front pockets.
Re:Nice. (Score:5, Insightful)
RFID chips are passive devices that respond when a reader transmits a certain RF code. The RFID chip uses the energy from the "ether" to respond. If anything, an RFID will absorb a small amount of radiation and convert it to heat, not the other way around.
You'll probably get cancer from having a cell phone strapped to your waist long before you get it from an RFID chip.
Parent
Re:Nice. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a good primer [aimglobal.org], if you can read a PDF.
In general, go to RFID.org for some good introductory stuff, and they have links to other resources.
RFID tags are cool, and they're definitely the future, though I understand why some people are worried, and we do have to deal with those issues. We got our dog from the humane society, and she was RFID'd with a chip that they can use to identify her if she ever gets lost. It's implanted under her skin, and it's only about the size of a grain of rice. There's no reason why it couldn't be implanted into human flesh.
Parent
Re:Nice. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Robberies (Score:5, Insightful)
Daniel
Hey! I'm mugging you! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey! I'm mugging you! (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
If you'll never know that they're there... (Score:5, Interesting)
Micrrowave your cash today!
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
"RFID tags also have the ability of recording information such as details of the transactions the paper note has been involved in.
Wonderful. Now how am I supposed to buy porn? Can't use credit card, it gets tracked. Can't use cash, it gets tracked. And with the price of porn these days, who's strong enough to haul around that much change?
You probably don't have to worry... (Score:5, Funny)
If you buy that much pr0n, I bet you have at least one arm strong enough to carry the change.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you buying something that you're ashamed to admit you buy?
I guess it's just me, but I have no problem going into an Adults Only Video and renting a porn in broad daylight, or buying a porno mag off the magazine rack at my local store. I also have no problem walking into a drug store to buy condoms, pregnancy tests, etc. If the clerk gives me a strange look, I just wink at her.
Don't get me wrong, I don't parade it around the store for all the little kids to see, but I'm certainly not ashamed to buy it.
Having travelled various parts of Europe, I also don't think most Europeans would be that worried about being "tracked" buying porn either. They're a lot more open with the idea of sexuality over there.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm missing something here. What's this "store" thing of which you speak, and while I'm at it, why does money have to change hands for something as ubiquitous as pr0n?
It just sounds like a more time-consuming and expensive way to solve a problem Al Gore solved 20 years ago by taking the initiative in inventing the Internet.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Great for thieves, too! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great for thieves, too! (Score:4, Interesting)
J.
Parent
uh, woah? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just wondering how easy it would be for something that tiny to get scratched/cut off? I'm not so worried about privacy implications (maybe I'm not paranoid enough), but I'm sure there'll be some posts of that line soon enough.
No, I haven't read the article.
One question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people don't take credit. (Score:5, Funny)
See the connection?
Parent
Re:One question... (Score:4, Interesting)
Control of ones wealth has been moved steadily out of the owners hands for years. Going from the gold standard to paper money was one step. A piece of paper showing your wealth, but in essence just a piece of paper... Now it's just numbers on a screen.. full EFT essentially cuts you off from financial anonymity.
I like EFT, but there should always be alternatives for those who are concerned with privacy issues.
Parent
Where's that bill been? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where's that bill been? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cool. (Score:4, Funny)
Record this transaction: (Score:5, Interesting)
Drug Lord: Hola, my French friend. I assume you've prepared the money as I specified?
Distributor: Indeed! Not only are these new notes, freshly received through my cover business, but they have been washed in muddy water, microwaved, and then dried in my daughter's basement.
Drug Lord: Ecellent! Here is the ten kilos of my finest cocaine. Good day to you!
Yeah, a real drug transaction isn't going to go nearly like this, but having the money check what kind of transactions its going through isn't going to work if there is *any* kind of money laundering going on and if *any* kind of competant disabling of RFID tags takes place.
Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, excuse me. What about the privacy factor in all this?
If the government / police are able to track illegal transactions then what is stopping them looking at my normal transactions? I don't want just anybody having access to the information about where I buy everything from my lunch to my porn.
This is cash we are talking about and they wanna watch it. Pfft.
Cheap web hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au]
Re:Privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
Data can only be written on the chip's ROM during production, and not after it is out "in the wild," according to Hitachi. - No personal tracking.
Parent
Re:Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
while i agree that tracking of cash might become more widespread, it's not really a new thing.
Parent
Re:Privacy (Score:5, Informative)
As a point of information, the laws of the European Union and its constituent states are in general vastly more protective of individual privacy than those of the United States and its constituent states.
The EU's privacy laws were considered so restrictive to trade by the United States that they actually came up at the World Trade Organisation talks. The outcome was the "Safe Haven" registration system for US companies wishing to store data on EU citizens.
There are some exceptions (notably the United Kingdom), but in general one's privacy is more protected considerably more by EU law than by US law.
Neither protection excuses you from the necessity to provide your own privacy, should you desire it, of course.
Parent
How well to RFID tags stand up to microwaving? (Score:3, Interesting)
This wont fly. If they dont have an anonomous way of spening the countries cash, they will use something else. Expect a huge groundswell of foregin cash and gold to get started. It is noones busisness what i spend my money on.
Kids, some of you are missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The Powers are going to eliminate the cash economy. Period. Nothing and no one escapes the net.
We are entering a prison like no other in history, for it will be the entire world.
Easy to disable? Philips RFID shows the problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, my question is, if RFIDs are to be embedded in money, will it still be accepted if the RFID is off or not working. Will you have to take it to a bank (hassle) and get the whole note replaced or REactivated?
I would think people that work in highly magnetic work conditions or that are subject to mild radiation (cell phone users, utility workers, possily computer users) might face this problem.
Re:Easy to disable? Philips RFID shows the problem (Score:4, Informative)
They really should use passive microwave resonance tags [inkode.com].
They're not affected by magnetic fields, are smaller, cheaper, more durable than silicon based RFID, flexible, can be 'printed' into currency, and are not reproducible, among other advantages.
Parent
Will this revive bartering? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if eliminating cash as a nontraceable currency will prompt the emergence of additional non-fiat currency preferred by the privacy-conscious.
I can hear it now: "That non-DRM PC will cost you $3000 credit, $2900 cash, $600 in gold, or 10 cartons of banned cigarettes."
Black Market (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the Euro, the international black market dealt mostly in American currency. Part of the reason for that is the fact that it behooves the US economy's controllers to have large amounts of it's currency base outside of the country. (Think about it. Print more money, buy 'things' with it, make sure monies paid leave country. Monies are not local to the economy, so inflation does not increase. Oversimplified, yes, but I'm making a general point here.)
The Euro was a threat to that black market monopoly. A strong Euro would be serious competition, and would likely drive at least some of the US's expatriated currency back within its own borders, wreaking havoc with the economy.
With the advent of tracking capabilities in the currency itself, the Euro is keeping itself out of the black market, which is good for the United States.
Europe had a chance to take a bite out of US hegemony. So much for that ^_^
Re:Black Market (Score:3, Interesting)
Not Cash Any More (Score:5, Insightful)
That would make US dollars a lot more popular in some important quarters, which the EU doesn't want. Therefore, I predict that the Euro will get these embedded tags only after the U.S. starts seeding them into its own currency. The desire to create a "cashless society" here, and eliminate untraceable commerce, has a long and sordid history.
The problem with embedding these things is that they're easily fused, so banks would also need to start refusing fused notes, and people would have to start carrying detectors because they might otherwise end up with undepositable paper. The alternative is that fused notes are still negotiable, but then they would all get fused in short order.
Anti-forgery? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like that'd be pretty effective...
Of course, they can't possibly make this a *required* feature of all bills. You have to be able to microwave the money and still use it, otherwise y'all Europeans will start screaming bloody murder.
The privacy invasion happens when you aren't paying attention: When you don't realize that your subway card placed you at the scene of the crime, or whatever. As they gain more and more surveillance techniques, eventually it'll be impossible to pay attention to all of them.
Time to institute money swaps (Score:4, Interesting)
You made an error (Score:5, Insightful)
You misspelled "personal privacy of any kind".
Parent
Re:Am I the only one ... (Score:4, Interesting)
All my Euros already have a serial on them, so if somebody wants to trace them from the ATM to the grocery, they could already do so. This paranoid mentality, which seems to be really popular around Slashdot is really bewildering to me.
Parent