Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 06:13AM

You're usin the wrong software, and uh, no .... please don't ask ...

woberto Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 07:59AM

As a printer I can tell you that it is instant gaol-time for making any kind of reproduction of a bank note in Australia, the UK and USA. Makes me wonder how they do it in the movies... I'm sure they use real money because they wouldn't break the law, would they?

Mint Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 10:21AM

cant you just save it and print it with something else? like paintbrush? or any image viewer?

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 04:36PM

As a banker, I know that the best tool for detecting fake bills is... the human fingers. Between the top-secret rag paper and the Intaglio printing process, US bills have a very distinctive feel to them that your casual counterfeiter can't duplicate. You hear it over, and over, "It just didn't feel right." There are verifier pens, blacklights, and what-not, to find out if one is really fake, but it's the feel that usually sets off the mental alarms in the first place.

When I was a kid, you could run dollar bills through a copier and they would be good enough to fool the change machine down at the car wash. Back then, and 8-year-old kid with $10 in stolen quarters in his pocket was practically Al Capone. Allegedly, of course. I never did anything like that. Ahem.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 08:14PM

As anyone in the printing business can relate, it's been quite easy for many years to duplicate the image on currency. The whole deal seen in movies about "getting the plates" and all is totally bogus or at least has been now for a good many years. Anyone with a camera, a way to develop the image and burn a plate, and then slap it on a press and run it, which any Quick Copy joint could do in no time, could easily dyplicate the image of the $$.

Like FA mentioned though, the subtrate (paper/cloth material money is printed on) and also the qualities specific to the ink used to print currency are the hard parts to duplicate. Since the US currency finally stepped up to the plate and started using water marked stock in the process, this also added another layer of protection to the currency that made it harder still to replicate.

No matter what though, if humans can create it, somehow or some way, other humans can also duplicate it

woberto Report This Comment
Date: February 13, 2009 10:24PM

There was a famous case over here in Oz 30-40 years ago.
US Dollars are the easiest to forge and some guy had millions printed in his garage.
However he had not numbered them yet.
The numbering box & wheels are a specific size and font, so when he ordered the gear, the feds delivered it.
Game over.
Only US banknotes use that specific number and the companies don't even make it but are trained to refer inquiries to the cops.
Minimum 25 years in Australia. He should be out now though.

Onyma Report This Comment
Date: February 14, 2009 01:00AM

The reason that the US is moving to coloured money now is that they caught some group buying stacks of American 1's... bleaching the ink off them, then printing 100's since they all used the same paper and same colour ink.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: February 14, 2009 03:21AM

^^^^^^^ That scenario has been played out numerous times ^^^^^^^^^ It IS the easiest way to get the right kinda paper

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: February 14, 2009 06:23PM

The following are just my opinions, and I can't prove any of it, but...

I think "they" (US Treasury and Bureau of Engraving and Printing) have to know that, no matter what they do to the bills, a sufficiently motivated, equipped, and funded counterfeiter will eventually be able to duplicate the bills. However, by making it as difficult as possible, they raise the cost enough to make it uneconomical to do it in small quantities, and the more bills that someone makes, the easier it becomes to track them to their source and shut them down. Infiltrating a suitcase full of fake $100's into the cashflow stream is one thing, but moving three semi-loads of them is an entirely different matter.

I also believe that many countries around the world, probably including the US, manufacture counterfeit currencies of foreign countries as a form of economic warfare. A flood of counterfeit currency on the market diminishes the public's faith in the real currency, lowering its value, since the whole concept of modern paper currency is founded on nothing more than faith and trust in the first place. I'm almost positive that I've read the Bureau of Engraving and Printing already manufactures foreign currencies under contract anyway, so it would seem to be a fairly trivial step to crank out a few extras for later use, should the need for them ever arise.

As I said in the beginning, I can't prove any of this, so I might be completely full of shit. Wouldn't be the first time.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: February 14, 2009 11:54PM

Ca$h is a thing of the past, 15 years and it will be gone for good.
Personally I don't want that to happen but it's not up to me, or anyone outside of the banks.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: February 15, 2009 12:05AM

Cash is already a thing of the past for a lot of people these days - they don't have any.

fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: February 15, 2009 05:04AM

you'll have a chip in your arm, resistance is futile.

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: February 15, 2009 07:54AM

When they force us all to get chipped, I'm going to tell everyone that mine is in my ass-cheek, and then they'll have to run it through the scanner at Safeway over and over and over. Then I say, "Oh, sorry, it's right here in my arm, just like yours!" Then they have to use those sanitizer wipes on the whole place. Because I'm a dick.

fossil_digger Report This Comment
Date: February 15, 2009 11:33PM

"HAZMAT TO SELF CHECKOUT NUMBER 18!!"

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: February 16, 2009 12:31AM

Hell, by then all the food will be chipped, too, so you won't even have to check out. Just put your shit in the cart and let the scanners at the door ring it all up as you go out, and they scan your chip at the same time and debit your bank account. The food will be so expensive, you won't be able to buy very much of it at one time, anyway. You won't know until you get home that your bananas cost you $22. They know you won't come back to get it corrected, because it will cost you more to do it than what the difference will be.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: February 16, 2009 06:30AM

They already do that at supermarkets, it just hasn't gone mainstream yet, too pricey on the packaging.
Besides, humans will never be chipped, there is no point, our bodies already provide enough unique markers to be scanned.
Frequent flyers with KLM have had retina scanning at check-in for almost ten years now.
There are other biometric measures, it won't be long.