I can't imagine that scanning one side of a one dollar bill would be aiding counterfeiters... they'd need the other side, for one thing, and I can't imagine they'd bother with one-dollar bills, anyway..

The point is that reproduction technology has become so good, and cheap, that the old bills were no longer difficult to reproduce.There is a parrallel in that the audio recording industry no longer commands a monopoly over the once-expensive means to make and distribute audio recordings, now that audio recording software is all but free, and you can distribute recordings on the Internet at very low cost.

But back to currency, which you can't distribute over the Internet (money is a different story): the new bills have a number of features, including very subtle color washes, and tiny, gold denominations woven into the paper, that are supposed to trump inexpensive scanners and printers. Two fields where the tech 'arms races' have reached a pivot point...
Comments [ ] 5:33:37 PM    

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