[Carriage Hill]

“... keeps your printer from printing anything that looks like U.S. paper currency.”

They can do that now? Wow.

[muawiyah]

That had to do with the printing density ~ although your typical laser printer could really lay down some pixels, the federales simply required them to limit the density ~ but smart guys know how to overcome that ~ which is why the federales began adding a coded metalic thread to money.

I have an old friend who is undoubtedly working on that stumbling block ~ he has his counterfeiting convictions to prove his interest.

[muawiyah]

Anyone interested in seeing the limits of gub'mnt control over technology probably ought to watch LOOPERS. It all takes place in the future, but not far into the future. Hugo Gernsberk probably ran the storyline first ~ but it was quite prescient.

The key item is nobody has money anymore. It's more like they have cast silver blocks/sheets that they carry around.

That tells you where criminal subversion of the credit card is going as well ~ nobody has a credit card!

The people 20 years from now (about when this is set) are growing sugar cane in Northern Illinois ~ recombinant DNA technology will give us sugar cane that grows around Hudson's Bay for that matter. In about 20 years.

[GizmosAndGadgets]

They can do that now? Wow.

At least since around 2007 (maybe earlier - can't remember...) I scanned a copy of a bill and put a picture of my daughter on it to print on her spending-money envelope (church youth trip) When I tried printing it, it would get to either the Federal Reserve or the Treasury Seal (depending on the photo orientation) before HP machine would quit and print some warning message like "See www.treasury.gov for more information". Even following the guidelines (over/under-sized, color changes, etc.), I still got the warning message until I got rid of the seals. I Googled it at the time to see what was going on, but there's no telling what else the Feds have told our electronic equipment to do since then....