
New US $100 bill to debut Tuesday - daegloe
http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/07/news/economy/new-hundred-dollar-bill/index.html
======
skue
It absolutely makes sense for the Treasury to generate new bills with
technology/features that stays ahead of counterfeiters.

But changing bills every several years can also produce unintended
consequences. If new bills are constantly arriving while multiple generations
of older bills remain in circulation, it's hard to know what exactly what we
should be looking for with each bill.

For counterfeiters, the best time to start generating old bills is probably
right after the introduction of new ones. I'd like to think the government
took this into account…

~~~
capecodcarl
I've always wondered what incentive counterfeiters even have for trying to
copy these new bills. I have several $100 bills from around 20 years ago that
I keep in a safe as an emergency reserve and they're still legal tender as far
as I know. Why wouldn't counterfeiters just continue to counterfeit the older
bills?

~~~
alexeisadeski3
I think that the anti counterfeiters are planning decades ahead with each
revision.

Even the older Benjis are still very hard to counterfeit - all of these new
changes are targeted almost exclusively at North Korea's advanced
counterfeiting program.

So decades ahead.

~~~
Wingman4l7
Are you referring to the Superdollar?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar)

~~~
alexeisadeski3
Yep! :)

The North Korean (supposed) counterfeiting operation is pretty fascinating all
around.

------
fsckin
Maybe in 20 more years we can switch to polymer banknotes with unique sizes
for each denomination.

~~~
minikites
We can't even get rid of the penny and the nickel, people would lose their
mind if money changed size.

~~~
cclogg
We got rid of the penny in Canada. Seemed pretty painless lol. Everything is
rounded to 5 cents now.

Also, I think we're a lot more guilty of changing our money's 'look' lol. USD
looks quite old in comparison.

~~~
MartinCron
I visited Canada a few weeks ago and was extremely impressed by both the lack
of pennies and the polymer notes. Keep up the good work, neighbors!

~~~
alexeisadeski3
The polymer bills can melt in the dryer, or so I've been told.

The hundreds smell like maple syrup - and that's not a joke.

~~~
sjtrny
Rubbish. They don't melt in a clothes dryer. They're designed to withstand
temps of well over 100 degrees Celsius (Ps why do Americans not air dry their
clothes?). I've never heard of anything going wrong with the notes here in
Australia. You can also get them wet without any issue, a far more common
occurrence. The Maple Syrup thing is a joke.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
It's not a joke. It's a controversy.

Haven't met a single person yet who doesn't smell maple on a fresh stack of
hundreds.

Speaking of rubbish, you do know that cloth notes aren't damaged by water,
right?

The polymer bills are a cost saving measure, and they're inferior (in term of
resilience) to their cloth counterparts.

~~~
sjtrny
Polymer bank notes last two and a half times longer than cotton based ones
[http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2013/04/publications/press-
releas...](http://www.bankofcanada.ca/2013/04/publications/press-
releases/bank-canada-unveils-new-5-and-10-polymer-bank-notes/).

They may not be damaged by water but they do get wet which is a pain.

------
VLM
Critique it as a startup rollout:

1) We had the same bills from my grandpas age till mine, and suddenly over the
past 20 years we're up to revision 4.0 or so. Confusing the endusers to no
end. Although the API has remained constant what you get per bill has dropped
quite a bit over those 20 years. Maybe the new 4.0 version should get me more
groceries for my $100 rather than less each revision.

2) Same spokesman for each revision confuses upgraders. You got Franklin? Yeah
I'm using Franklin. No dude thats the old version of Franklin, has some
security bugs, you gotta upgrade before the economy gets powned. Can't they
put something contemporary on it, like the Miley Cyrus bill or the 'Bama Bill?
Or embed the year, like I got me an "2013 buck" because it has 2013 written in
big ole automotive style letters?

3) They're doing a great job at rollout of focusing on the new features, but
ignoring the old features. I need to know the API to verify the new bills are
legit. A smart counterfeiter would focus solely on the new features and just
print on toilet paper or something, half the public would probably buy it. A
REALLY smart counterfeiter would start producing a run on version 5.0 $20
bills and most of the public would assume its actually upstream's product,
seeing as upstream ships a new version about as often as Detroit ships a new
model car now.

4) I'm not kidding around here, why do they use sequential serial numbers when
a pub-key crypto signed serial number with a VERY private key would let us
look at a bill and verify its a genuine signed serial number? Maybe not prove
the bill is legit and uncopied, but at least you'd know its a copy of a good
signed bill. They could publish a list of destroyed currency and rotate
aggressively such that counterfeits would only circulate for awhile.. Unless
of course the destroyed currency was the counterfeit and the cancelled one in
your hand is the legit one... maybe thats why they don't do this.

5) As far as .coms go this startup needs a new art director. I'm not asking
for kittens but lose the eye in the pyramid and flowery decorations and
inkwells and eagles and try a QR code in one corner for vending machines (hey
when the 70s stagflation hits and you want to buy a condom for $100 from the
local vending machine, you'll be sorry...).

6) This seems to be the only branch that hasn't sold out naming rights. I
halfway expect to see "Larry Ellison Bucks" and "HP 20s" at some point in my
life. The "3com three dollar bill". As a startup they're leaving money on the
table by not selling naming rights. At the bankruptcy Oracle will probably
pick up the product for pennies on the dollar and freak out the GPL linux guys
who'll fork into a bitcoin implementation on mariadb.

7) I don't think they're getting the tech news buzz they need. They need to
send out fat stack of free samples to hacker news readers like me to create
buzz. They should send out so many free samples that I can freely share them
with friends.

8) Open source the code to generate? Why can't I print some at home to pay my
debts, just like .gov does? Information just wants to be free. Speaking of
which it needs a license I'm guessing not BSD or GPL not some CC:SA variety?

9) Is the new API compatible with existing players like "wheresgeorge.com"
(are they still around?)

~~~
Osmium
Regarding 4), as a thought experiment, I was wondering earlier how you'd
authenticate the "trillion dollar coin."

Hypothetically, it's possible to mint a one trillion dollar coin to get around
the debt ceiling crisis[1]. It's an absurd idea anyway, but what if that coin
was made and then lost. Someone says they've found it, but how do we know
they're not lying and have just made a forgery?

Assuming that all details of the coin (its exact elemental composition,
dimensions, etc.) are publicly known, I thought a possible solution would be
to take an electron microscope and image the grain structure[2] of the coin in
a specific region (e.g. the eye of the statue of liberty? if that were on the
coin). Then hash that grain structure (in a similar way to how one "hashes"
fingerprints), sign that hash with a very-private-key, and laser etch the
signature onto the coin. Since it's not possible to recreate exact grain
structures, it'd be impossible to forge your coin :)

Alternatively, you could probably introduce some specific radioactive isotope
to definitively age the coin, such the time since the coin was minted could be
definitively measured, and any attempt at forgery revealed, though I'm not
sure how to make that work in practice. There are probably other solutions
too, though I can't think of any off hand. There must be things people do
already to authenticate high-value "natural" objects such as gemstones? Like a
laser-etched serial number? I don't know...

An absurd scenario I know, but an interesting thought experiment.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_structure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_structure)

~~~
VLM
insert hypothetical hack proof perfect RFID cryptocard into a cavity of the
coin and solder it up except for a small hole for RF to pass thru? Unless
someone knew the secret private key they'd be unable to replicate it the
crypto code?

Hey crypto card, if you actually know the correct private key, you can hash
this HN article number "6511347" OH OK dude here is the signed hash
"342351315215154" OK let me test that... holy cow it worked.

The real hack would probably be a legal one to embed some kind of national
treasure into the coin to make it seized by .gov, so anyone that walks up with
one can have it taken away or is counterfeiting. My guess is a little spec of
moon dust in a glass capsule that can't be privately owned. Or a little piece
chipped off the Washington Monument.

~~~
Osmium
>insert hypothetical hack proof perfect RFID cryptocard into a cavity of the
coin and solder it up except for a small hole for RF to pass thru?

Then, hypothetically, why not have the "coin" be the cryptocard in the first
place? and forgo this whole lump of metal thing. Probably because it's not
robust in the long term. What happens when the RFID cryptocard, eventually,
fails?

I like the moon dust idea though :)

~~~
thaumasiotes
Hypothetically, it's because the authorizing statute specifies that the coin
must be platinum (or put another way, the statute only authorizes the minting
of "platinum coins").

~~~
VLM
I haven't done much hi-temp thermocouple work... anyone know how easy it is to
solder to platinum with "real" or lead-free solder? Electroplate a round
cryptocard PCB and solder it together? I know solder sticks very well to gold
after some unfortunate accidents (keep the solder away from the plated
contacts when assembling, etc) so this would work for a "gold" coin.

~~~
Osmium
You can solder _with_ platinum directly, in a manner of speaking (it won't be
100% platinum, and it also requires much higher temperatures than ordinary
solder).

------
dkuntz2
It looks like they threw everything they could think of onto the bill. It
looks terrible...

------
runamok
I thought this might be of interest to the HN crowd.

According to my girlfriend the color changing tech comes from JDSU, a local
bay area company. Here is some (fairly dry) info:

[http://blogs.jdsu.com/perspectives/archive/tags/Anti-
Counter...](http://blogs.jdsu.com/perspectives/archive/tags/Anti-
Counterfeiting%20Technology/default.aspx) [http://www.jdsu.com/en-
us/Authentication-Solutions/markets/b...](http://www.jdsu.com/en-
us/Authentication-Solutions/markets/banknotes/Pages/default.aspx)
[http://www.jdsu.com/en-us/advanced-optical-
technologies/Page...](http://www.jdsu.com/en-us/advanced-optical-
technologies/Pages/default.aspx)

------
teek
And maybe one day the we'll actually write the numbers on our coins so they
can be friendlier to visitors...

~~~
eropple
You mean like how the quarter says "QUARTER DOLLAR"? And how the nickel says
"FIVE CENTS"?

("ONE DIME" is kind of dumb, I'll give you that.)

~~~
tanzam75
Most nations put Arabic numerals on their coins.

------
just2n
How much money do counterfeiters cost us, anyway? Even if they have, to date,
inserted only $70,000,000 of counterfeit bills, the impact to inflation is
minimal, and really it only hurts a few individuals here and there who aren't
able to circulate the bills. But how can you measure this impact, and, if we
don't fight it, what would its projected potential impact be?

Then I'm curious about these questions:

1\. Is this the most cost efficient method to deal with it? It seems a bit
silly, to me, as this is a game of cat and mouse, and those tend to be very
expensive in the long run, if you want to win.

2\. Would it be worth investing in a digital solution such that a bill could
be copied, but only one copy of that bill can ever be recirculated, so you
could "back up" your money, digitally, then re-print it somewhere else, but
you could never spend it more than once, as a general solution to
counterfeiting?

3\. Would either of these actually save more money than just ignoring the
problem?

4\. 100% digital? Maybe not online as a requirement, but definitely tap your
card to transfer funds to someone? Why do we still have paper bills anyway,
with multiple demonstrated cryptographic protocols that could replace them
entirely?

~~~
gbhn
I don't understand why we still mint a $100. It's the prime counterfeiting
target, is mostly used overseas, and is too big for real commercial value. It
seems like just having the $20 be the largest bill would overcome all these
problems.

~~~
secabeen
$100s have plenty of commercial value. Any time you're exchanging physical
things of high value, cash is key. Cashiers checks, etc., can and are forged.
Also, gamblers regularly walk around with 10s of thousands of dollars on them.

~~~
mjn
That's one thing I like about Danish money; the 500 kr note (~$90) and 200 kr
note (~$35) are both common and regularly used. Makes it much more convenient
to use cash for things like groceries or restaurants without having to carry
around a thick wallet full of wads of $20s. Sure, many people use cards too,
but you don't have to if you prefer cash.

~~~
nickbarnwell
The greatly increased CoL in Denmark also somewhat necessitates the prevalence
of larger denominations.

~~~
mjn
I don't find much difference in CoL between the Bay Area and Copenhagen. If
anything it's slightly cheaper in Denmark (more expensive restaurants, but
cheaper rent). If you're comparing median U.S. CoL, sure, but even in high-CoL
areas like San Francisco and New York City, $100 bills seem rare, despite the
fact that >$100 tabs at NYC restaurants are not exactly rare. The difference
seems to be that Americans are wary of larger amounts of cash, so use a card
for anything nontrivial (or among older people, a personal check), while Danes
can go either way, depending on personal preference. I'd blame it on the
difference in mugging rates, probably.

------
Amadou
Obligatory stories of a Taco Bell employee refusing to accept a $2 bill and a
Best Buy employee having a guy arrested for paying with $2 bills. (plus more
currency anecdotes linked from the bottom of the article)

[http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp](http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp)

------
LandoCalrissian
I would have never have thought $100 bills would be more common than $20
bills.

~~~
ajb
They are not more common in general use. They're more common in suitcases full
of notes.

~~~
hclee
It can contain much more dollar value at same sized locker.

------
elnate
As someone who lives in a western nation outside the US, I never use non
electronic currency. Why do you still carry around so much easy to steal paper
money when a debit card is so much more secure?

------
ucha
Maybe a silly question... but what prevents counterfeiters from making false
copies of the old bill if the new bill is harder to counterfeit?

~~~
mcpherrinm
Presumably the old one will be taken out of circulation as they go through
banks, so in a few years anyone with a large quantity of "old" bills will be
heavily scrutinized for fakes. Canada's old bills had a pretty big forgery
problem, and nobody will accept old 50s/100s.

~~~
_delirium
This is particularly true outside the US. In much of Asia, banks (and anyone
else who might accept dollars) strongly prefer crisp, new US bills, and
heavily scrutinize or reject old bills.

------
viraj_shah
"The bills took more than a decade to develop.." I wonder if they had a
dedicated team to work on this for 10+ years.

Meanwhile Mars rovers can be built in less than 5 years. Hilarity.

Source:
[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57606401/new-$100-bil...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57606401/new-$100-bills-
to-start-circulating-tomorrow/)

~~~
lliiffee
I have to disagree. The potential downside for a flaw in the new bill could be
rather catastrophic damage to the economy. The downside of a failure with the
Mars rover is that the rover just doesn't work. Thus, it makes sense to be
dramatically more conservative in designing a new currency.

~~~
viraj_shah
Alright, I was quick to judge and there is no way of knowing how many people
worked on it or what technology is included. However, 10+ years is a heck of a
long time to work on the bill and I'm not sure taking more time on something
necessarily insures that it is the best. But I will concede on the grounds
that this is one of those situations that you can't just iterate on. It works
or it doesn't and the consequences of failure are incredibly high.

~~~
dagw
There are many definitions of "work on". Perhaps the first 5 years was just a
couple of people spending a couple of hours a week keeping up with the latest
state of the art since they knew that eventually they'd probably be replacing
some bill in the next decade or so.

------
adventured
I'm convinced that one of their goals is to discourage counterfeiting by
making our bills as ugly as possible. /s

------
mariusz79
If the US defaults in 10 days, there may be only few of these bills in
circulation. It may be a good investment :)

------
hawkharris
There's no denying that Franklin was a genius, but should our society honor a
slave owner by putting his face on currency?

That's a serious question. I think Franklin's legacy is clouded by some moral
ambiguity: his innovations were incredible, he fought for abolition and yet he
didn't walk the talk.

Is that a mistake we should overlook in remembering him?

~~~
thurn
We should be careful to avoid presentism, applying modern moral standards to
somebody who lived over 200 years ago. By the standards of his time, Franklin
was unquestionably a great man.

~~~
hawkharris
You can justify almost any instance of slavery or genocide by arguing that the
perpetrators acted according to the standards of their time and communities.

~~~
agwa
He's not justifying Franklin's slaveholding, he's justifying Franklin as a
person. It's silly to discount everything great Franklin did because he held a
position on slavery that was no worse than the prevalent opinion of the time.

Most of the "bad" people in history (e.g. Hitler, Pol Pot) acted worse than
the standards of their time. Nobody's justifying them or their actions with
this logic.

~~~
hawkharris
I agree that no one should discout Franklin's inventions and great ideas.
That's why I was careful to mention them in my comment.

But I take issue with forgetting about this one aspect of Franklin's character
because he was simply following the standards of his time.

The question is, standards for whom? Affluent white people? The standards
certainly weren't acceptable to black Americans.

I know that I may sound nit-picky, but I think it's important to apply our
current sense of morality to this period in American history. When we gloss
over the uncomfortable details, we gloss over some of the lessons.

------
moneyrich4
can i get a code for beta access plz?

~~~
VLM
Just download a torrent and use your own copies; I mean, what could possibly
go wrong with that plan?

