Really neat story found on Bruce Schneier's security-related blog (syndicated on LJ as 
bruce_schneier):
bruce_schneier):Counterfeiters Pass Off 5s As 100sSchneier adds the following commentary:
PALM HARBOR - Twice on Saturday, customers at the Music Exchange handed the cashier $100 bills, store owner Jason Bandy said. One was to purchase a DVD of the movie "Sin City." The other was to buy a CD of the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
The cashier dutifully ran a special pen across the bills to ensure they weren't counterfeit, and both bills passed the test, Bandy said.
Trouble was, as Bandy learned later, they were $5 bills, not $100 bills....
The notes were all $5 bills that had been bleached and altered to look like $100 bills, sheriff's investigators said. They passed muster with the pen because it determines only whether the paper used to manufacture the currency is legitimate, Bandy said.
Read the full story....
As a security measure, the merchants use a chemical pen that determines if the bills are counterfeit. But that's not exactly what the pen does. The pen only verifies that the paper is legitimate. The criminals successfully exploited this security hole.It's just another example of how criminals will adapt to security measures. I think the counterfeiters were pretty clever -- I wonder how many times people have successfully passed off bills like this in the past.
Read Schneier's commentary and other responses to the story....
Profile
drmellow- Greg Cohoon
- Knitting Daddy
Comments
Whenever someone doesn't like an alleged security measure, one of the arguments is that it will provide a "false sense of security". I wonder whether the checkout clerks would have looked at the bills more carefully if they didn't have their Magic Pens.
I hope not, 'cause then I would be, too. I think their solution was pretty clever. I really wonder how they managed the whole transformation, after bleaching the fives.
When I worked in a video store, checking for counterfeits was never more than just rubbing the magic pen over the bill. There was no real focus on watching out for counterfeits. Plus, my guess is that the folks taking money in these situations typically won't care about trying to catch counterfeits -- these are not high-paying jobs we're talking about here.
(Interesting stuff you can learn from PBS.)
Every now and then I catch a tv show or an article that deals with the paper currency in some fashion or other. It always fascinates me.