EuroBillTracker

Dakkus wrote: Actually the new 20$ note has an RFID chip in it
Slashdot referred to an article about this a while ago.
The same microwave oven testing works also for that note.

Nice ! I think this is a great step forward, in terms of security measures. They might not have really great usage / or tracking methods right now ... but couple of years ahead, when people are using these RFID'ed notes everywhere, it'll be easy to impliment tools that'll stop counterfieting altogether. Just scan the note in some kind of a note-reader, and see if its real/counterfited. (ofcourse, old notes wont work this way , but atleast new notes wont be faked).

As it is the notes have lots of security features, this one adds icing on the cake (and might break your oven )


- Keeron.

Okay this may likely be a hoax but is sure intersting ....

just few days back only I read about Euro bills having these RFIDs (this thread), and few mins back saw this post on whereisgeorge.com (The US bill tracking site) .... Some guy posted an article on the new 20$ bills having RFIDs in them. He too used similar microwave technique and concluded that that was true

New link:
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/290204r ... plode.html

The postings on this topic (whereisgeorge site):
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/pf_common/f ... c=pf_main7

See 1000$ worth of 20$ bills 'microwaved'


Probably a hoax, going by the discussion on that forum. I myself dont have the latest bills to verify... but wish it were true

- Keeron[/url]

keeron wrote:Nice ! I think this is a great step forward, in terms of security measures.

Security isn't all, and it has been greatly overrated recently.
Far too often liberty and/or privacy are the price you are requested to pay for it.

I went to the HSBC bank downstairs at work earlier today, and bought a full set of euro notes (5-500 euros). I requested the tellers give me a set of nice looking-crisp bills. I went home, stuck each note in the microwave one by one, nothing happened, I stuck the 500 euro note in for about 60 seconds, nothing happened, I wrapped it in foil, nothing happened, I did the same for every single note, nothing happened. The 5, 10 euro notes were of a "U" prefix, the 20 was "L", the 50 was "Z", the 100 was "M", the 200 was "Y", and the 500 was an "X" prefix.

I did my little test with 6 x 5€ notes, 3 x wrinkled and 3 x new looking pieces.

I stuck each note separately in MW, and microwaved them about 5 secs. 4 notes didn't care of it, but 2 of them started to make noise & flames immediately.

In both of those notes that burned spot came to right-down corner, where is blue text "EURO" on hologram. Both was L-notes.

A microwave oven uses frequencies in the Ghz range. 1 GHz means a wavelength of 30 cm, 10 GHz corresponds to 3 cm wavelength. This is close to the dimensions of the notes. Maybe this causes some strange effects on the metal parts of the notes.

A colleague told me that you also get funny sparkling effects when you microwave a CD. Don't try this with your microwave at home - it might damage your equipment.

Donald wrote:Don't try this with your microwave at home - it might damage your equipment.

Do you have to try this with a microwave of someone else ??

Seems the only logical thing. If it goes wrong, you'll still have a working microwave.

bhoeyb wrote:Do you have to try this with a microwave of someone else ??

It's your decision. I just want to avoid that you blame me for a damaged microwave. If you use the device of somebody else, you are a bad boy and it is your fault - not mine. Shame on your criminal mind!

I think that there are different constructions of microwave ovens, and each type may produce different results. The damage may be caused when you couple too much energy into your specimen. The risk is higher if you test a bundle with dozens of notes and it is lower if you only test one single note at a time.

There was quite interesting article about RFID in one Finnish computer magazine. RFIDs are used in even animals, like pigs, to identify single animal from large group of them. Also they are used to travelling by different kind of tickets and passcards. They are used in shops to controll how many items there is sold and how many of them are in. They are used also in factorys, where RFIDs are used for controlling assembly-lines which feeds different packaging machines.

There are many different shapes, so when some of us microwaved some notes and burned circle holes to notes, there could be round-shaped RFIDs in notes.

It's sad thing that article is quite long and language is Finnish... also, i can't even give a link to article because i dont have subscription code for logging in (i read that article in work, and somebody else have registered this subscription code).

I microwaved three notes.
The first one sparkled and burned a hole to the note to the shown place in a bit over 5 seconds.
Nothing happened to the second one.
The third one burned, but from a vertcally wrong place. It took quite long to burn, however, so it might've been a non-RFID note anyway.

I microwaved this one. It's from ATM.

It started sparkling straight away and burned a hole precisely over the metal strip.

I changed the luminocity of my monitor to maximum and photographed the note against it so you can see the metal strip. One of the pics is taken against light bulb:
http://koti.welho.com/mpoutane/ebt/microwave/

Bring out the tin foil hats!1

Maybe we should find a more 'civilised' way to destroy RFID's.

Do you know any? Strong electromagnetic field? Hitting by a hammer against a hard surface?

Aaron wrote:Maybe we should find a more 'civilised' way to destroy RFID's.

Do you know any? Strong electromagnetic field? Hitting by a hammer against a hard surface?

I don't know about electromagnetic field, but hammer sounds gooooood.

Schaza wrote:

Aaron wrote:Maybe we should find a more 'civilised' way to destroy RFID's.

Do you know any? Strong electromagnetic field? Hitting by a hammer against a hard surface?

I don't know about electromagnetic field, but hammer sounds gooooood.

An electromagnetic field is a microwave!