Magnetic Strips in Paper Money
Hansel E. Lee Jr.
I don't know how many of you realize this but the government is currently
(or has in the past) (1990) placing magnetic strips in US paper money in
denominations of $10 and above.
The strip is located about 2 inches from the left edge vertical through
the bill. It can be seen when you hold it up to the light as a darker strip
through the bill. You can also read the denomination printed on the strip.
My main concern over this is a friend who went riverboat gambeling. He was
limited to taking $800 or less onto the boat. When asked he replied that
he only had $800. After the security checkers ran a wand type device over
him they replied that he had at least $2000 ( he had $2500 ). It is now
possible to use magnetic readers/wands to determine how much money youhave
on you.
My main concern is now can casinos check how much money you have as you walk
in? Can department or jewelry stoes place detectors in the entrance to see
how much cash patrons have on them?
Also, we are limited to taking no more than $10,000 in cash out of the country,
can the government now use detectors to see who is taking and how much they are
taking in cash out of teh country?
I don't like the idea of anyone else being able to determine how much money I
have on me!!! Can muggers now use magnetic sensing wands to determine how
much cash little old ladies have in their purses before they mug them?
The potential for privacy violations is extensive.
Does anyone else have any experiences or information on this?
Hansel E. Lee Jr., GS-07, USAF han...@freenet.fsu.edu
System Threat Analyst le...@post2.laafb.af.mil
Space & Missile Systems Center DSN Prefix (DSN) 833
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Gordon Mitchell
>I don't know how many of you realize this but the government is currently
>(or has in the past) (1990) placing magnetic strips in US paper money in
>denominations of $10 and above.
Hey, you are observant. I have spent a lot of $ since 1990 without seeing
the details (hold a >1990 $20 bill up to the light to see the stripe). I
don't think that it is magnetic, however. Magnetic stripes are generally
opaque; in this case only the letters are opaque. This would be pretty
hard to detect with a magnetometer that could indicate $2000 in a pocket.
Gordon Mitchell
Lance W. Bledsoe
Hansel E. Lee Jr. <han...@freenet.fsu.edu> wrote:
>
>I don't know how many of you realize this but the government is currently
>(or has in the past) (1990) placing magnetic strips in US paper money in
>denominations of $10 and above.
>
>The strip is located about 2 inches from the left edge vertical through
>the bill. It can be seen when you hold it up to the light as a darker strip
>through the bill. You can also read the denomination printed on the strip.
>
>My main concern over this is a friend who went riverboat gambeling. He was
>limited to taking $800 or less onto the boat. When asked he replied that
>he only had $800. After the security checkers ran a wand type device over
>him they replied that he had at least $2000 ( he had $2500 ). It is now
>possible to use magnetic readers/wands to determine how much money youhave
>on you.
All US Currency is still valid if more the 50% of a bill is intact.
I suggest that you get a paper cutter and start chopping off the
offending end!
Lance
--
"Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might
dodge sucessfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they
were bound to get you."
-- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Korac MacArthur
In a previous article, lep...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (leppik peter) says:
>And, yes, I checked one of my $20 bills (1990), and, sure enough, when I held
>it up to the light, there was a little strip in there that said, "TWENTY
>DOLLARS". Niftoid.
>
>It doesn't look like a magnetic strip, though....and I don't see how they
>could encode information on a strip like that such that you could read a
>whole wad of bills from several inches away, unless you just had a fixed
>magnet with some strength calibrated to the denomination (even then, the fields
>might cancel each other out from nearby bills). I could just see it, though...
>"All my credit cards have been erased! I kept them too close to my cash!"
>
One way they could do it is just by having the strip a conductor
only, and use standard metal detection equipment (maybe a little better)
to see the amount that the fields change around them, maybe one bill is
too small to detect, but a wad of 100 bills may be enough to deflect
fields and be measured.
If that is wrong, maybe they hit the subject with a radio
frequency at the same wavelength as the width of the strips (do tens and
twenties have different widths?) and all the little strips act like
radiating dipole antennas and return the signal which is read. This is
less likely, buy I suppose plausible.
Anyone know for sure?
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leppik peter
>I don't know how many of you realize this but the government is currently
>(or has in the past) (1990) placing magnetic strips in US paper money in
>denominations of $10 and above.
>The strip is located about 2 inches from the left edge vertical through
>the bill. It can be seen when you hold it up to the light as a darker strip
>through the bill. You can also read the denomination printed on the strip.
Cool! I heard that they were going to start doing that to prevent
counterfeiting, but I didn't know that they'd already started!
And, yes, I checked one of my $20 bills (1990), and, sure enough, when I held
it up to the light, there was a little strip in there that said, "TWENTY
DOLLARS". Niftoid.
It doesn't look like a magnetic strip, though....and I don't see how they
could encode information on a strip like that such that you could read a
whole wad of bills from several inches away, unless you just had a fixed
magnet with some strength calibrated to the denomination (even then, the fields
might cancel each other out from nearby bills). I could just see it, though...
"All my credit cards have been erased! I kept them too close to my cash!"
--
Peter Leppik-- p-l...@uiuc.edu
If people have a hard time understanding General Relativity, what makes us
think computers will do any better?
Mark Salter
>In article <2bshl9$j...@news.ysu.edu>,
>Hansel E. Lee Jr. <han...@freenet.fsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>I don't know how many of you realize this but the government is currently
>>(or has in the past) (1990) placing magnetic strips in US paper money in
>>denominations of $10 and above.
>>
>>The strip is located about 2 inches from the left edge vertical through
>>the bill. It can be seen when you hold it up to the light as a darker strip
>>through the bill. You can also read the denomination printed on the strip.
>>
>>My main concern over this is a friend who went riverboat gambeling. He was
>>limited to taking $800 or less onto the boat. When asked he replied that
>>he only had $800. After the security checkers ran a wand type device over
>>him they replied that he had at least $2000 ( he had $2500 ). It is now
>>possible to use magnetic readers/wands to determine how much money youhave
>>on you.
>
>All US Currency is still valid if more the 50% of a bill is intact.
>
>I suggest that you get a paper cutter and start chopping off the
>offending end!
>
>Lance
>
Actually, its quite easy to separate the plys of paper at the edge and
pull the strip out. It is transparent plastic and the writing appears
to be metallic and perhaps magnetic. I certainly think that you could
read the denomination by using an xray machine like those in airports.
--
Mark Salter
I speak only for myself.
leppik peter
>In article <2bshl9$j...@news.ysu.edu>,
>Hansel E. Lee Jr. <han...@freenet.fsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>My main concern over this is a friend who went riverboat gambeling. He was
>>limited to taking $800 or less onto the boat. When asked he replied that
>>he only had $800. After the security checkers ran a wand type device over
>>him they replied that he had at least $2000 ( he had $2500 ). It is now
>>possible to use magnetic readers/wands to determine how much money youhave
>>on you.
>All US Currency is still valid if more the 50% of a bill is intact.
>I suggest that you get a paper cutter and start chopping off the
>offending end!
A less draconian solution would be to just find a wad of pre-1990 bills.
There's still plenty in circulation, especially of higher denominations.
poivre
: Also, we are limited to taking no more than $10,000 in cash out of the country,
: can the government now use detectors to see who is taking and how much they are
: taking in cash out of teh country?
We are also limited to taking $5000 cash INTO the country. Anything over
the amount has to be reported to the government. Now Customs officers
can stand in the airport and determine how much cash people are bringing
in and if they are declaring it like they should.
Hmmm....
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David Lawrance
device out there that can actually read how much money is in our pockets,
little metal strip in our money or not, do we? This would actually involve
Treasury, Customs, and the Fed to work together. Why would they ever do
that? Isn't that probably strictly an anticounterfeiting measure?
I think there's other ways to sneak large sums of cash into and out of the
country other than walking through a Customs gate at the airport.
If we want to get paranoid about people tracking our money, how about
worrying about tracking credit card transactions or interbank money wires
or ATM information? How about registering what we buy at the grocery store
when it goes through the bar code scanner?
David Lesher
# I think there's other ways to sneak large sums of cash into and out of the
# country other than walking through a Customs gate at the airport.
Err,
When was the last time you walked through an Custom gate while
leaving the US? I've traveled internationally 30+ times. Not
once did I go through Customs on the way out.
Granted, the US is unique in this aspect. The only other country
I recall that didn't have exit-controls was Barbados.
But I have another question. I do not recall any regulation
about exporting cash. Importing, yes. Can someone cite the law,
please?
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Scott Wilde
>country other than walking through a Customs gate at the airport.
This may be true. On the other hand, on every international flight I've
been on, there have been a couple Customs agents in the "tunnel" to the plane.
They're usually talking to some of passengers, and in one case the agent was
counting a _very_ large wad of cash.
>If we want to get paranoid about people tracking our money, how about
>worrying about tracking credit card transactions or interbank money wires
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>or ATM information? How about registering what we buy at the grocery store
>when it goes through the bar code scanner?
This has already started. There is an article in the latest issue of Wired
about the current existing system. They have a database of all deposits
over $10k. Banks are required to report these, as well as any other
"suspicious" transactions. They gave an example of a drug dealer who was
being tracked down. He had made several $9500 deposits, which were duly
reported by the bank as being suspicious. This information is also integrated
with data about international wire transfers and the like. The Feds want to
extend the reporting to include ALL deposits. Because of the massive amount
of information involved, the idea is to use AI based programs to pick out suspicious cash flows.
David T. Truslow
1. Bearer intruments - these are IOU's that are promises to pay whomever
holds them. I believe our government phased U.S. bearer bonds out -
but believe other institutions still issue them.
2. Diamonds
3. Gold stocks - they don't change in value very much and can be deposited
with brokerage houses.
The advantage of these is that enormous sums can be conveyed in a very
small package.
I suspect there are many other approaches to laundering and transporting
funds from one place to another. Certainly, conducting business in the
Cayman's and other financial havens is an option.
PAX
D.
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