
The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist - asicboy
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/ff_counterfeiter/all/
======
jablan
Does anyone else have difficulties reading articles written this way -
structured as Hollywood movies, with artificially built-up suspense and all? I
feel patronized all the time, trying to get to the "meat" of the article, just
finding "next page" link instead.

~~~
yock
No. Long-form journalism is about keeping the reader engaged in a story they
didn't know they wanted to hear. You wouldn't write fiction with a strict
focus on the sequence of events, why should this be any different? While
you're feeling patronized I find that I enjoy the engagement. Frankly, your
way sounds boring.

~~~
jessriedel
I'm glad to know that at least someone enjoys this style, because I am with
jablan; I hate it. To me, it suggests that the author doesn't expect me to
find the _content_ interesting, and that instead this content has to be
packaged with (predictable) human-interest intrigue just to get me to read it.

To me, it's very analogous to trying to teach students math with colorful,
picture-laden textbooks: it might be necessary for students who will never
learn much math in order to just get them to pass the grade, but insofar as it
works such students are _not_ getting deep appreciation for the concepts.

~~~
yock
But, this isn't math! It's a story, with characters and a plot. The intrigue
is baked-in because it makes for an enjoyable read. Sure, the details are
interesting, but there's nothing wrong with telling an interesting story with
interesting details _in an interesting way._ "First this happened and then
this happened and then this happened..." is not how you tell a story,
regardless of whether or not the story happens to be factual.

~~~
jessriedel
If I want an artistic short story in magazine form, I'll read the New Yorker.
But this is Wired, and the material facts of this story are the only
interesting part.

I guess it's possible that a gifted author could wrap these fact with a human-
interest element in a way that is worthwhile while still communicating an
essential idea ("The Last Question" by Asimov comes to mind). But, by
experience, this just isn't within the abilities of most magazine writers. And
it doesn't need to be, because the material facts are plenty interesting on
their own.

Edit: I can't reply to vacri, so I'll follow up to his comment here. Vacri:
human interest pieces have been around for decades. Furthermore, the newspaper
format of most journalism (one sentence paragraphs, most important facts at
the top regardless of sensible narrative order, negligible artistic
flourishes) were set a century ago. I'm pretty young (26), but I've read
newspapers from before the internet and they did plenty of bad human-interest
stories. I'm pretty skeptical that the internet had much of an impact in this
respect. Maybe you have a more specific source, or I misunderstand your claim?

Edit 2, reply to fiatpandas: I think the distinction between an AP-style
newspaper article and a human-interest short story is a false dichotomy.
Instead, there is a middle option of a fact-focused piece designed to clearly
communicate the essential ideas without relying on artistic/narrative devices
to keep the reader's attention. (See my reply to jablan
<http://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=4203567>) Wired can choose whatever style
it wants, (and I certainly have no doubt they've done this plenty in the past)
but my claim is that the human-interest style is almost always poorly
executed. If the facts are interesting enough, then it's unnecessary, and if
they aren't, then it's a waste.

~~~
sophacles
_the material facts of this story are the only interesting part._

The facts are simple:

1\. some guy made good counterfeit money

2\. he got caught through a series of mistakes

a. sloppy waste disposal

b. over trusting

This is the same pattern as for most crimes. Seriously, minus the murder bit,
it's a law and order episode. What I want to know, is not the predictable
sequence of events, but who would do this, why would they do this, tell me the
thought process that leads to these actions.

~~~
jessriedel
> This is the same pattern as for most crimes. Seriously, minus the murder
> bit, it's a law and order episode.

I guess that's why the original Law & Order is one of the few TV shows I like.

> What I want to know, is not the predictable sequence of events, but who
> would do this, why would they do this, tell me the thought process that
> leads to these actions.

I also want to know all this, so I think you may have misunderstood my
position. (This applies to your other comment where you call me disingenuous
for no good reason.) What I _don't_ want is stuff like "Tourists milled about
the platz in front of the cathedral, Germany’s most visited landmark, craning
their necks to snap pictures of the impossibly intricate spires jutting toward
the heavens.", nor do I want teaser paragraphs endings to keep me hooked on
the article as if I would stop reading it without them.

~~~
sophacles
Perhaps you have a perfect geographical understanding of the world, but I
would have no idea what this alternative sentence would mean (which i
constructed by my best understanding of what you claim to want):

A meeting was arranged in near the Cathedral in Cologne.

To me, that leaves a ton of questions:

How busy is this place? What are the odds a meeting would seem out of place?
What is the tenor of the crowd? Who would be paying attention to a meeting and
noticing?

Further, I would be curious, but not frustratingly so, about what the setting
in general looked like. I'm a visual person, I like when an author helps me,
visualize what I'm reading, it makes my comprehension easier.

I maintain that you are being disingenuous, because you are refusing to accept
that others may find this stuff useful, because you don't and therefore
suggest all things be done to your preference. Like I said, don't read
something from a source known to do this. Find the AP feed instead, because
some of us actually get better understanding from articles written like this.

------
kennywinker
Good at making counterfeits, bad at making counterfeiting work.

Saw a trashy Discovery channel doc on counterfeiters. They printed using laser
printers, and had a good process for aging the money. That was all that was
needed... people just don't look that closely at money most of the time. They
got away with it for years, even though they were pretty foolish (spent their
own fakes, used the same spot every time to print money, etc.)

I can't tell if all that means there are probably smart people getting away
with it constantly because they don't slip up in these dumb ways?

~~~
throwaway_lop2
Totally. A friend in I tried this (not in the US) using bills approximately
$20 in value. We had a mediocre Epson printer and just did the approach of
scan+print. We'd then handle the bills and throw them with dirt. Nothing
fancy; just two kids playing around to get some extra beer money and also just
to see if we could pull it off.

Out of the 10 times we tried using the fakes, we only were noticed once. It's
very, very easy to do if you aren't trying to make a living at it.

I would imagine these days, it's even easier to pull off, _because_ of the
high-tech protections. If you can replicate a single high-profile piece (like
a hologram or something), then folks will probably just assume it's good. Most
people don't know the tens of different protections, and anything flashy and
difficult looking would work. They don't know the details - hell, I'd bet a
bill with a holographic mark could be counterfeited using one of the holograms
Microsoft uses on their products.

~~~
dr42
This sounds very fishy. Imaging and scaning software, along with printer
drivers have built in currency detectors to prevent this.

~~~
apendleton
Given that the poster said "not in the US," this seems plausible to me. The
detectors probably detect dollars and Euro, and maybe a few other high-profile
currencies like yen, UK pounds, etc. But do you really think Epson would
bother including fingerprints for Lithuanian litas or whatever?

~~~
xsmasher
FYI, the notes only need to include the EURion constellation; the software
doesn't need a database of currencies.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation>

Still the litas seems to be unprotected, as you said.

~~~
parimm
So in theory one could make a document un scanable by putting the EURion
constellation in it?

------
Jun8
Never ever do this, esp in the US, even as a joke. I know of cases in my
college where students counterfeited $20 bills as a drunk joke: what they
found out is that irrespective of the amount federal agents and the goddam CIA
got involved and they got persecuted to the maximum degree. My prof was called
as an expert witness in the case.

~~~
btilly
I read an article about it a long time ago. The minimum penalties are
draconian. An example from the 80s was a kid who had been making photocopies
of $1 bills and feeding them into a change machine for free candy. The minimum
penalty at the time was something like $100,000. Today they are higher. You
don't want to mess with them.

Governments take money seriously. For example everyone knows that Isaac Newton
was a great scientist. Few know that he became Master of the Mint, and was
responsible for enforcing the traditional penalty for undermining the currency
- execution by drawing and quartering. (By all accounts he was very zealous in
this task.)

~~~
dr42
Few know?

That's part of every grammar school boys education. Or was, in my day. Newton
sending a couple of dozen men off to Tyburn to be hanged, drawn and quartered
was quite memorable.

~~~
btilly
I live in the United States and grew up in Canada. It certainly is not in the
curriculum here, and has been a surprise to everyone I've mentioned it to
around here.

If you grew up somewhere else, it may be common knowledge there.

~~~
dr42
That's because world history in America is much the same as the world series -
fully encompassing of the whole world, with countries as far afield as....
Canada :)

I should have mentioned I grew up and went to school in England, and learning
the ins and outs of luminaries like Sir Issac Newton was part of history
class.

To be fair, we only touched on American history, and obviously seen from the
other side of the coin. We kicked out the religious pilgrims so we could get
back to partying and starting the industrial revolution.

~~~
btilly
Actually the USA is more insular than that. Almost nobody here knows even
basic historical facts about its neighbors such as, "The only reason that
Canada exists is to not be part of the USA."

~~~
oh_sigh
Provide references if you want to make huge claims like that.

~~~
btilly
Go to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Confederation#Influenc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Confederation#Influences_leading_to_Confederation)
and look at the #1 external cause. That doesn't say much about the history,
but does confirm that fear of US invasion was important to Canada's formation.
Sure, a lot more internal reasons are given, but that external one was by far
the most important and drove the timeline.

Here is more background on that. The official policy of the USA was that it
was their manifest destiny to expand/conquer/control a variously defined part
of the world that always included Canada. In the 1840s the USA launched a
fairly unprovoked war on Mexico and annexed half the country. Coming out of
that war, the USA negotiated a treaty where they took a large chunk of British
territory in the great plains. Then the USA fought the bloodiest war in
history to that point. (The US Civil War.) Coming out of that war the USA was
hostile to Canada with the Secretary of Defense making comments indicating
that Canada was next. And the Fenian raids (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_raids> for more) were being launched from
US territory against Canadian targets.

2 years and a week after the ending of the Civil War, the act of Confederation
created Canada as a single country. 3 years and 11 months after that, Canada
had achieved approximately its current borders. (The USA did manage to take
the Alaskan panhandle from BS, Newfoundland didn't join Confederation until
after WW 2, but the country was recognizable.) And the #1 goal of the new
country was to build a railroad across its southern border so that troops
could be moved to meet any possible US invasion.

For more historical background, the original separation of Quebec into Upper
Canada and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) was to accommodate refugees
from the newly created USA who wished to remain British subjects. In the USA
they are called "traitors". In Canada they are still called "loyalists".

And to this day Canada has no real national identity other than, "We're not
Americans."

So there. Thank you for proving how little Americans know about Canada, and
hopefully you learned something. If you have any follow-up questions I would
suggest doing a Google search and reading appropriate Wikipedia articles
first.

~~~
oh_sigh
:sigh:

I was talking about the claim "Almost nobody here[the US] knows even basic
historical facts about its neighbors".

~~~
btilly
Then go and ask Americans basic questions like the one above. Or see how many
Canadian provinces they can name. Or Mexican states.

------
StevenRayOrr
TL;DR version: an after-the-fact account of how a man counterfeited millions
all in the pursuit of "art". It makes for a romantic story, if nothing else --
although it certainly is not as sexy as the Leonardo DiCaprio/Tom Hanks _Catch
Me If You Can_ version.

~~~
GFischer
The book by Frank Abagnale is a pageturner too. I've always liked reading
those "social hacking" books, like Catch Me If You Can, or Kevin Mitnick's
story The Art of Deception.

------
jbarham
Considering that the central banks have conjured trillions of dollars and
euros out of thin air, this story this seems sadly quaint...

~~~
kennywinker
Penultimate counterfeiter doesn't sound as good.

------
rdl
I am amazed that paper banknotes have remained even vaguely counterfeit-
resistant for so long. It seems like a very difficult problem, given modern
technology; the capital costs of an intaglio press and great plates are high,
but some kind of CNC milling should be able to produce equivalents at some
point.

The NK superbills are still as far as I know the best quality.

~~~
samstave
Crazy to think about NK as one of the most backward vile 3rd world despots,
but so capable in certain areas.

I would think that EVERY tech innovation/resource/capability is really a proxy
service of China, Russia, Iran, etc...

There is no way they would have the tools to do what hey do on a range of
fronts if they were not used as a proxy by these other nations.

------
kqr2
I would also recommend the book _The Art of Making Money : The Story Of A
Master Counterfeiter_ by Jason Kerstan.

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1052267...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105226799)

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Making-Money-
Counterfeiter/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Making-Money-
Counterfeiter/dp/B00403NGA4/)

------
johnohara
Back in 1993, an interesting documentary titled "Money Man" was made about
currency artist J.S.G. Boggs. I don't know if it's still available.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104909/>

Here is a short YouTube clip from the film:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtKSqzpj0Q>

Searching images for "jsg boggs art" returns some of his work.

------
btipling
Title is misleading. It's a great story however.

------
vacri
In Australia, we've had polymer notes for 20 years, and counterfeiting is a
thing of the past, to the point where I was puzzled as to why someone in the
US was marking my $50 note during a purchase while visiting. Paper notes feel
nice, but polymer lasts longer and are effectively counterfeit-proof.

Prior to this, we had a woeful $100 note, which was black and white with a bit
of subtle colour. Pretty, but a dumb idea for currency. It was not unknown for
folks to photocopy one, scrunch it up, and wander into a convenience store in
the early hours when the staffer was tired...

~~~
jstclair
US currency isn't printed on paper.

~~~
MartinCron
That's not entirely correct. The paper that US Currency is printed on is a
linen-cotton blend, but it's still considered a "paper", even though it
doesn't come from trees.

There was a fascinating article about this on Planet Money a few weeks back,
including an interview with the head of Crane's, the company that provides the
source paper to the US Mint.

------
BlackNapoleon
This sounds like a path to getting hired by the FBI/CIA after you serve your
jail time.

We need to be employing these sorts of lifehackers.

------
its_so_on
If you read this article and have a halfway decent model of the world in your
head, you will realize that police entrapment was the proximate cause of this
real, talented artist low on his money becoming a counterfeiter: i.e. they
made him do it, and he wouldn't have done it without them, and a judge
released him early on probation for this reason (from the article).

But the damage was done. Still without any money, this genuine artist (who had
"refused to do two Warhol copies, including forged signatures", always signing
his own name instead on homage pieces) now had a criminal skill that had no
other applications.

The fact is most people here have had a time in their life when they had
unhoned skills (e.g. software/hardware hacking) that, if they only landed the
right internship, would become very valuable. When the police are the
proximate cause to creating this "lucky" internship (lucky in that the guy had
0 experience with it, or even interest for that matter) to create skills that
have only a criminal market [1], something is very wrong.

It would be great if Freakonomics covered entrapment some time, as it's very
insidious - on the surface it seeems that if you do it you "would have done it
anyway", but this example shows pretty obviously that this isn't true in any
form whatsoever.

 _[1] EDIT: or not even a criminal market, as the case may be:

"The problem was, Kuhl and his partners couldn’t make a deal with anyone. It
wasn’t for lack of trying—a sale brokered by a criminal-minded former cop fell
through, and another transaction with a supposed buyer in Majorca fizzled.
That was when Becker and his colleagues decided to help things along by
providing an attractive buyer themselves."_

~~~
mmcconnell1618
I disagree. In the article Kuhl had a legitimate buyer who backed out. The
bills where printed and Kuhl needed a buyer. The police decided to become the
buyer but the counterfeit bills had already been created and the artist would
have found a buyer eventually.

~~~
its_so_on
The reason I added that EDIT is because I actually hadn't read that far down
yet - I was just referring to his first counterfeiting gig when I first posted
the comment: inline search the article for "Kuhl’s counterfeiting career had
begun a decade earlier" and read from there.

Of course you have no basis for your claim that he would have eventually found
a buyer. This is a "manufactured criminal" and the police certainly got fed up
with waiting for an actual market for his work to materialize. Entrapment is
so insidious because when you turn a good guy, maybe there's no market for
"good guy's evil works" anyway. (Who knows why, maybe he looks like an
informant/plant/mole because he's a real artist and normal, genuine, good guy,
who only got into 1 single crime - and no corresponding culture or
connections, no other crimes, nothing - through an entrapment operation.)

Please read the article more carefully and you'll see exactly what I mean.

~~~
tptacek
Nerd brain recoiling in attempt to square first sentence of this comment with
last one.

~~~
its_so_on
Reading carefully affords one the privilege of reading less.

~~~
tptacek
Doubleplusgood. We have always been at war with Reddit.

