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Anti Counterfeit Money

 National Network Money Database
  (+4, -9)(+4, -9)
(+4, -9) 		  [vote for,
against]

Counterfeit money cost the US 2.5 billion $ last year alone. We could have a national database that tracks the location of all the money notes via a special bar code on the money note. From huge corporations to small shops, the owners could type in this code and know if it is real or a fake. There are a lot of flaws in this but with also a lot of answers that would take to much room to write about.
—thepowerofone, Apr 25 2006

I myself am tracking some bills http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
[normzone, Apr 25 2006]

America's Counterfeit 'Supernotes' http://www.watching...gemeine000009.shtml
[nuclear hobo, Apr 26 2007]

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       Annotation: (noun) The act or process of furnishing critical commentary or explanatory notes/ A critical or explanatory note; a commentary   

       When there are cases of enterprising counterfeiters using home printers to create forgeries which have later been accepted, then any improvement is a good one.
—hidden truths, Apr 25 2006
   

       Welcome, Thepowerofone, to the Halfbakery.   

       Annotation is how everyone comments on your idea. I, for example, am going to ask how you prevent anyone from duplicating your bar code. How does typing in a bar code differ from typing in the serial number that's already on the bill? How does your idea differ from "Where's George?"?   

       You have the germ of an idea. It might be possible to track all bills--it might even be legal. It might be possible to notice that a bill is in two places at once, and that a particular area is a focus of duplicate bills.   

       But you didn't write your posting that way. As written, you'd usually get a negative vote from me. But it's your first try. Lurk a while, then post a better version of this idea. This place is fun to hang out and just read.
—baconbrain, Apr 25 2006
   

       It's a completely impractical idea, and because of that I'm going to vote for it. Welcome to the bakery, and don't think for a minute that I'd support this in practice :-)   

       I wonder what would happen if all money was counterfeit...would fashion dictate value?   

       [It might be possible to track all bills]. [baconbrain], we are already tracking many bills. I myself have some that I track [see link].
—normzone, Apr 25 2006
   

       Um, hi, this is a scary idea. Cash is one of the last ways of making an untraceable transaction. Do you *really* want Georgie or Rummi or Condi knowing every time you buy a vibrator?   

       Thanks, but no thanks.   

       But, I hear you ask, what about the 2.5 billion?   

       Money-saving tip: Let's stop bombing foreign countries instead. 2.5 billion is pennies compared to what we spent in Iraq.
—cowcumber, Apr 26 2006
   

       Normzone, thanks for the link. I referred to Where's George? in my annotation, but didn't supply a link.
—baconbrain, Apr 26 2006
   

       There are two obvious ways to detect a fake bill using serial numbers:   

       1. If the bill's serial number is invalid, the bill must be fake. If the central bank uses serial numbers which do not have a predictable sequence, and the serial numbers are long enough (think Windows serial numbers), the counterfeiters cannot create a valid serial number which is not a duplicate. If they copy a valid serial number, they will be detected by (2) below.   

       2. If the same bill is scanned in two locations within an unreasonably short period of time (e.g. in New York and then in Los Angeles 10 minutes later), at least one of the bills must be a duplicate, and therefore fake. It is probable that they are both fake.   

       As long as the bill tracking data is properly anonymized (so that it can't be associated with a particular bank account or store), there is no risk of it being used by the IRS or the FBI.
—andrewm, Apr 24 2007
   

       This is like the Smart Money idea (see above in the same category), written a year previously. Only not as good.
—theleopard, Apr 24 2007
   

       Dammit [theleopard]. I mis-read that annotation and then went searching the halfbakery for a 'Smart Monkey' idea.
—hidden truths, Apr 24 2007
   

       //searching the halfbakery for a 'Smart Monkey' idea//   

       You mean there isn't one yet?
—theleopard, Apr 26 2007
   

       If a bill is counterfeit, there is a good chance it was produced by the CIA and blamed on North Korea.
—nuclear hobo, Apr 26 2007
   

       Cash tracking in this way is how almost all transactions are done - that's what credit cards, electronic fund transfer etc are all about: you move the identity of the money, not the money itself.   

       A bill-barcoding scheme is just an alternative and parallel way to implement this: the bill become irrelevant, and the barcode simply becomes a mechanism of implementing the transfer of the identity of the money.   

       Everything converges. And I'm quite happy for your president to know if I buy a vibrator, btw.
—MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 26 2007
   

       If this was done, every time anyone gave any money to anyone else, the transaction would have to transmitted to the database, or the govornment would end up thinking there's counterfeiting, or counterfeit bills would just be thought to have been given to the spender without the transaction being recorded.
—apocalyps956, Apr 26 2007
   


 

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