U.S. Offers $50 Download 470
chill writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Government is offering low-quality images of its new $50 bill for artists, students and others who discover that their computers, scanners or printers won't allow them to view or copy pictures of the new currency, due to mostly-secret anti-counterfeiting measures built-in. This anti-copying technology has been discussed on Slashdot before. Now to go and test my new Epson scanner and printer to see if they're affected!"
Security Measures... (Score:5, Funny)
There is, of course, a problem with this. The guy I bulk order my Tin Foil Hats [zapatopi.net] from won't accept them. Maybe this guy [ebay.com] will take them.
Here's how they detect the currency... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's more info. [nonfamous.com]
Re:Here's how they detect the currency... (Score:3, Interesting)
In some ways, it's similar to a trick I pulled when someone at work started putting their initials on Semiconductor data books. He 'claimed' the manuals that vendors had delivered and wanted nobody else to remove them from his area. He did this by marking the book edge with his initials.
So I quietly put his initials on every databook and manual I could find anywhere in the company. They a
Re:Security Measures... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you know anything? You have to make your own tinfoil hat. The commercial tinfoil hat makers have been suborned to make theirs defective. Commercial models act as antennas for, rather than deflectors of, the CIA's mind control beams. Trust no one!
Re:Security Measures... (Score:5, Funny)
The key is tin (Score:3, Funny)
It isn't a coincidence, my friend. Alcoa is under Their control too...
Re:Security Measures... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/files/Glossy
http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/files/Glossy
http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/files/Bill_g
Re:Security Measures... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Security Measures... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Security Measures... (Score:3, Interesting)
They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I think it's great that we are creating bills that we believe will curb counterfeiting shouldn't we also be working to make them look good? The new colors and everything are nice but definitely overused. It makes the bills look crowded and tacky. Reminds me of a hairdresser with too much makeup. The little yellow 20s and what appear to be 50s on the back of the new color bills are horrid. I looks like I dropped the bills in honey and couldn't clean it all off.
If I'm gonna pay $50 for a piece of paper it should at least be clean
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Informative)
The pattern of the "0"s is something you'll see on Euros, Pounds and many other currencies. This allows software to easily recognize one pattern, at almost any angle, and not have to have separate code for each country's currency.
"It's simpler than you might think. All compliant notes bear a pattern of five tiny circles. On the Euro, the circles appear in a constellation of stars; on the British £20 note, they're disguised as musical notation. On the new $US20 note, the pattern is hidden in the zeros of a repeated background pattern of the number 20. Imaging software or devices detect the pattern and won't play ball."
Check it out at http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1412.sm
-Charles
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Informative)
Here's some more info [cam.ac.uk] about it.
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's the case -- and even if the specific detail of the 5 dots is in error -- I don't see this thwarting counterfitters much. Yes, casual copiers or someone who wants to have a $$$ design for a wallpaper or brochure will be puzzled.
One idea that comes immediately to mind is to copy overlapping sections of a bill and piece the parts together. This could be found by trial and error, so it's no big deal!
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats just it. Lately the Government has had more problems with the casual Xerox copyier counterfitters and the HP Scanner/Printer counterfitters than professional ones. They will always have problems with professional counterfitters. But they are few and far between. If anyone that owns a scanner can produce a realistic looking bill, that is a big problem. There are a lot of people out there who will not see the potential ramifications of their actions, and think that it is a fun test. "Can I make somebody take a fake $20?"
These causal counterfitters are the hardest ones to catch. Especially the "smart" ones who only do it once or twice. If you keep it up, you will get caught. The Feds are our protection against professional counterfitters, more than the nature of the bill.
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Interesting)
The guys across the hall from me in college did this. Realized that the optical scanners in vending machines in those days (they'd just started taking dollars) only scanned in black and white and were doing pattern recognition. They copied a bunch of bills and used them all over campus. Morons, though - they used MOST of them in the machines in our OWN dorm.
These causal counterfitters are the hardest ones to catch. Especially the "smart" ones who only do it once or twice. If you keep it up, you will get caught. The Feds are our protection against professional counterfitters, more than the nature of the bill.
Yep - the Secret Service enjoys finding counterfeiters... just ask my
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always thought (note to Secret Service: as thought experiment only, never acted on) that you could keep up small-time counterfeiting for years without a lot of problems.
Where people seem to get in trouble is when they get greedy and want a lot of money fast.
Instead, you'd think you could generate a small amount of cash (say, $200 a week) via change machines and probably spend another $200 or so in other coin/bill operated machines and as direct cash in various high-traffic cash situations (parking garages, bars, food stands, etc) where the volume of transactions eliminates any verification options.
You'd never want to use denominations over $10 (although some isolated change machines or co-ops might take $20s), especially for cash transactions, and probably never more than a single bill at a time.
It basically serves as "walking around" money -- $200-$400 per week in cash that won't show up as assets to the IRS or arouse any suspicion. In a large city with more change machines, you might be able to generate more cash, although to be safe you'd want to minimize your visits to the same change machines.
Anyway, this always occured to me as the "safe" way to counterfeit. The level of money generated stays below everyone's radar screen, the denominations are small enough and involve enough machines that they might not even be found to be counterfeit until they were so far removed from the transaction as to be impossible to trace without a level of effort that wouldn't pay off.
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting theory, give it a try and let us know how it worked out when you're released from custody. The problem with this think
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:4, Informative)
do a contact copy - place the blank hologram on top of one you want to copy, and fire a laser at it
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Interesting)
A quick explanation why this works:
The laser goes though the "blank hologram" (which is a piece of glass with some chemicals on it), then hits the hologram behind. The light from the hologram behind bounces back. Now you have the original incomming light, and the reflected light. The two interfere, and make an interference pattern. The chemicals capture this interference pattern. now when you shine light through it, the light interferes
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Insightful)
(its got holograms.)
protect my own documents (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:protect my own documents (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Eurion) (Score:4, Insightful)
On the US notes it looks like an afterthought, stamped-on in a rush.
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics 150... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They won't copy it b/c it's ugly... (Score:4, Funny)
Dead people usually ARE quiet specimens. If they aren't, it's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong.
Damn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Damn (Score:5, Funny)
See, and I thought that it meant that the government was gonna CHARGE me $50 for downloads. If it was pr0n, I would be screwed for life.
Re:Damn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Damn (Score:3, Funny)
images (Score:5, Informative)
$50 front [moneyfactory.com]
$50 back [moneyfactory.com]
$20 front [moneyfactory.com]
Re:images (Score:4, Funny)
Re:images (Score:2)
Lay off.
"SPECIMEN" text can easily be removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't the government acidentally make this mistake with CIA documents that had people's names blacked out with a separate top layer, that was easily removed?
Re:"SPECIMEN" text can easily be removed (Score:4, Informative)
Click on the menu item "Advanced" -> "Export All Images..." -> save in some location.
Done sans the red 'Specimen' text.
Re:"SPECIMEN" text can easily be removed (Score:3, Informative)
gimp 50b-000.ppm
Re:"SPECIMEN" text can easily be removed (Score:3, Informative)
Examples from the front of the 50:
Grants Forehead, notice the circles, that is from a scanner mis-interpreg the lines on hte bill. There are more example sof this on his cheaks, the red and blue areas and his overcoat. They weren't stupid when they made the PDFs.
Re:Linux is my friend (Score:5, Interesting)
All joking aside, they're not looking to "stop" all copying with this measure at this time. They're looking at it statistically: if 50% of the population is too stupid to change their default screensaver, that same 50% won't be aware that there's an alternative to commercial photo editing software. That means they are probably hoping for a 50% reduction in 'casual' counterfeiting.
It's also been theorized that recognition of the so-called "Eurion" constellation will be built into a new generation of scanners. So, if you own one of these scanners, you won't have the opportunity to download the raw image anyway -- you'll be stopped by the firmware in the scanner. Xerox was also testing printer technology that would refuse to emit a printout that contained the Eurion constellation.
It actually makes a lot of sense from the governments' point of view. If you're Joe Sixpack and decide to "print your own lunch money" and get busted for it, you get to spend up to 20 years in a Federal prison for counterfeiting. That's the exact same sentence they'd hand out to a Mafioso who may have set up an intaglio printing press and was printing hundreds of thousands per week.
If someone is so stupid as to try printing counterfeit money, then maybe a simple, stupid technological speed-bump is all it will take to keep him out of prison. And from their point of view, that's worth it.
Re:Linux is my friend (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest problem I have with those messages are the people that would heed their warnings are those that would have done the right thing anyway.
Here's a better idea. How about a "Surg
Re:Linux is my friend (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:images (Score:3, Informative)
How many? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How many? (Score:5, Funny)
Almost as many as the number of stupid 7-11 etc clerks that will except the copies.
Re:How many? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How many? (Score:2, Informative)
Surely you meant to say "accept [reference.com]"? If they "except [reference.com]" such fake bills, then that's exactly what we want to see happen!
Not to nitpick or anything, I just found your typo rather amusing.
Open sourcing the $50? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Open sourcing the $50? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but the forked version will be incompatible with most peoples systems.
No. Yes. (Score:3, Informative)
Saltspring Dollars [gulfislands.com]
LETS [u-net.com]
An overview of alternative currencies [transaction.net]
Counterfiting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Counterfiting (Score:2)
Just to compare (Score:5, Informative)
the site has some info on the new security features on this bill- there are also new 100$ bills, the only thing missing is new $50 bills.
Re:Just to compare (Score:2)
Ugly bills buy beer (Score:3, Funny)
The harder it is to counterfeit, the better. I don't care what it looks like as long as I can purchase a proper case of beer before the game on Sunday.
$50 download? (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)
-Brazilian kidnappers.
Are all printers affected? (Score:2)
Taking RFID to a new level? (Score:5, Funny)
Laugh. It's funny.
Re:Taking RFID to a new level? (Score:2)
Re:Taking RFID to a new level? (Score:2)
Free Cache Link [freecache.org]
Direct Link [electrongate.com]
Re:Taking RFID to a new level? (Score:2)
50s (Score:3, Funny)
moneyfactory.com?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:moneyfactory.com?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like a Challenge to me (Score:5, Insightful)
The Article really makes me want find a way around this technology. I don't want to produce fake money, but more to the point of computer road-blocks are just not cool.
Some ideas that don't leave me with a less-usable computer:
Why not have a bar-code on every dollar bill that can validate each bill. If a serial comes up in the same place more than once, then it is fake and disabled. This would be a global database, but not unrealistic.
Why not continue the push for less paper money. Paper is nice, but it is expensive due to the short length of usage. Usually, the coined money is easily worth its value so producing a fake penny/quarter is not very worth while.
Stop using money altogether. Credit cards!
It just bothers me that the government is solving problems by disabling technology instead of leveraging it.
Re:Sounds like a Challenge to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Cash is anonymous, credit and every other type you've mention are not.
Re:Sounds like a Challenge to me (Score:2)
Re:Sounds like a Challenge to me (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that would be very unrealistic. Here's just a few reasons why:
1. If two bills have the same serial number, one of them (the non-counterfeit) is still legal tender.
2. You'd basically have to require every location that accepts cash transactions, from your bank to the hotdog cart on the corner, to be jacked into a secure financial network. Where's the infrastructu
Coins v. Bills v. Cards (Score:3, Interesting)
coins - compact, very durable. Harder to fake in some ways, easier in others (slugs in vending machines). A quarter weighs 5.7 grams, a dime 2.3 grams (everything below that is pretty much useless these days, and really we should be using 20 and 50 cen
Where did CNN come up with this idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
They've got images up, as MankyD has pointed out, [slashdot.org] but the whole point seems to be educating people on how to recognize the bills, and how to find the anti-counterfeit gadgets. How did CNN come up with this spin?
--
Free gmail invites [slashdot.org]
Eliminates Most Complaints About Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
I did a project in high school a while back on counterfeiting, and anti-counterfeiting techniques. One of the experts in a Nova video said that as computer printers get better, the concern won't be the large scale counterfeiters, since they're easier to track down due to the large volume and equipment needed. It would be people on their home computers scanning money and reprinting it. This was 10-12 years ago, when inexpensive printers didn't have the capability to print that well yet. Not sure if that prediction came true (don't have the SS/Treasury numbers onhand), but it's an interesting historical account.
Almost as secure as Canadian money (Score:5, Funny)
What are they going to do next? Put kids playing baseball on the five dollar bill???
-Derek
Screw the scanner... (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw that, I want to test my new microwave oven to see if Grant's eyes explode [prisonplanet.com]!
New excuse (Score:2, Funny)
Photoshop CS does prevent opening! (Score:5, Interesting)
"This application does not support the unauthorized processing of banknote images
For more information, select the information button below for Internet-Based information for restrictions on copying or distributing banknote images or go to www.rulesforuse.org"
However, Apple's image preview software opens it fine, as does it's PDF viewer (same software, called "Preview")
Very disturbing to play with and see how your use of your computer has been taken over by government secret methods that large corporations have agreed to.
Very 1984... you don't know your software has been compromised until it's already too late.
"SPECIMEN" text can easily be removed (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't the government acidentally make this mistake with CIA documents that had people's names blacked out with a separate top layer, that was easily removed?
Anti-counterfit measures (Score:5, Insightful)
There are countless graphics packages out there, that can be used instead of the major players.
There are indefinate supplies of older scanners that are not protected, not to mention digital cameras.
I am pretty sure that the major players who counterfit, will just get cracked versions of software or use alternatives, meaning all this is doing is bloating legitimate users software for no real reason.
The software is provided free, which means it would be relatively easy for a skilled but crooked developer to disable the checks, specially as you would know what you are looking for!
Is it also pushing the price of hardware up, if they have to include extra memory to hold this software, or is it in the scanner software - computer side?
I really dont see this stopping anyone other than a total amatuer from scanning banknotes (and may even cause more problems, as if an amateur cant do a bad copy themselves they may look into more professional means of forging. I would rather they did a bad home copy, tried to use it and got caught - meaning one less idiot on the streets forging money).
Perhaps they would have been better off keeping the whole thing secret, so no one knows about it, and then have the software log all scans of banknotes into a central database, so the police could keep an eye on who is scanning notes. If forgeries appear in the area, they would know who was to blame......
ken
http://www.lsblogs.com/ [lsblogs.com] Submit your blog for free, find blogs and blog resources at ls blogs
waste of fake money. (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole "you can't scan this bill" program seems like a complete waste of taxpayer money and puts an unnecessary burden on software makers. Why didn't they take that money and invest it in making the bills themselves more secure like many European and Asian bills?
These latest revisions are a step but it's still pretty easy to print up counterfits and pull a fast one on some unsuspecting shop owner.
open sesame (Score:4, Funny)
It's the Eurion. (Score:3, Informative)
And it's proeminently visible in the $50 back [moneyfactory.com] picture of the new US bills.
Reminds me of a story... (Score:5, Funny)
There you have it... All this anti-counterfeiting technology is working.
p.s. To my knowledge, this story is true.
simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
The big problem not directly addressed however...
No matter how often they change the appearance of the currency: if an older (and easier to copy) version is still being accepted, then why bother counterfeiting the new ones? I mean, everyone still accepts the pre-1996 $20 bills worldwide.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Interesting)
So what about the old bills? (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't going to make that much difference as long as vendors keep accepting the old bills that can be copied. Sure, the banks will be instructed to turn in the old ones to be shredded and replaced with the new ones, so in the long term any old bills may be treated with suspicion, but how long will that take?
ms paint works (Score:3, Interesting)
hubris (Score:4, Funny)
Doesn't that just make you want to try?
Re:Hey, what about the Zlotych? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Re:moneyfactory.com? (Score:5, Funny)
Because .com is what web sites are. I mean, you've never heard of http://something.org have you? Sheesh. Web sites are in .com. *rolls eyes*
Re:moneyfactory.com? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old printers (Score:2)