Spending my formative years in Las Vegas as a youth I was really impressed how good the dealers were at catching fake bills. Lots of people seemed to assume that because of the rapid pace of the gambling such things would get missed. I was playing poker at Circus Circus and one of the players put down a $100 bill and said, "chips please" and the dealer looked up and said "Well once we get a real $100 I'd be happy to." The argument was short, the player looked affronted and the dealer said simply, "You can insist and we'll detain you for the police, or you can take your fake money elsewhere." Very surreal. It is entirely possible the person was a "known" bad bill passer or something but it really impressed me.<p>Of course Steve Wozniak having $2 bills made into pads so that he could peel them off the pad and pay with them always cracked me up. That was the case where the cashiers always assumed they were fake, but in fact they were legal bills. Very hilarious.
Perhaps it's common knowledge, but it may be worth noting that (at least in the US) a merchant who accepts a counterfeit $100 bill, later notices that it is counterfeit, and does the "right thing" by reporting it simply eats the loss. The Secret Service thanks you, confiscates the bill, and leaves a receipt, but you lose the item you sold and the change you gave.<p>By contrast, a merchant who accepts a $100 counterfeit bill, does not notice it is counterfeit, and uses it to purchase something else keeps the profit and loses nothing. As a result, it is not in the self-interest of the merchant to look closely at any bills that have already been accepted.<p>If the goal is to catch counterfeiters, it would seem like there would be a better way to align the self-interest of the person who innocently accepts the counterfeit bill and the goals of the law enforcement agency.
It always amazes me that counterfeiters still target $100 bills. While that might be more efficient, it's a lot riskier. $50s and $100s are quite rare compared to the ubiquitous $20 (thanks to ATMs). Most places of business will look oddly at anyone paying with a $100, <i>especially</i> for something as small as a latte; a $20 would rarely get a second glance.
There is no need to wear Frankengloves you can just coat your finger tips with transparent, second skin brand type liquid adhesive bandages so you get the same protection without having creepy looking rubber hands when trying to defraud a coffee shop with monopoly money.<p>I also liked the US attorney quote "the internet is a dangerous place because it's an open forum.."
> At the time, Clock claimed to Ars that he was a Colombian man living in Peru—but he seemed to be able to speak near-flawless English.<p>The quote immediately following this statement feels very much like ESL to me. No contractions, word order different from a casual native speaker's ("sometimes will" as opposed to "will sometimes").
Does anyone know what the requirements are, and how one would go about making or buying intentionally counterfeit money?<p>Money that one has no intention of trying to pass off, for stage, filmmaking or live-roleplaying, or similar.<p>I seem to remember that there are established ways that prop depts mark fake notes as fake so they can be clear they aren't intended to be spent, but does anyone know what the exact legal requirements are?<p>Is it as simple as just having single-sided notes and not showing the back?
I wonder if we'll hit "post-cash" and see all this disappear in our lifetimes: <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/cashless_society/2012/02/david_wolman_s_the_end_of_money_reviewed_.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/business/cashless_society/2012...</a>
Some information about the counterfeit bills can be found in a article by Brian Krebs that appeared last year.
Related Hacker News Thread:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203885" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8203885</a>
Note: even though the Internet & Tor were central to the crime, ordinary police work, including an ordinary warrant, solved it.<p>No fancy spying or warrantless wiretapping needed. (At least the way they describe it).