RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode

[tyedyeto]

When You Try to Microwave Them

http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode.html
Adapted from a letter sent to Henry Makow Ph.D.

Want to share an event with you, that we experienced this evening.. Dave had over $1000 dollars in his back pocket (in his wallet). New twenties were the lion share of the bills in his wallet. We walked into a truck stop/travel plaza and they have those new electronic monitors that are supposed to say if you are stealing something. But through every monitor, Dave set it off. He did not have anything to purchase in his hands or pockets. After numerous times of setting off these monitors, a person approached Dave with a 'wand' to swipe why he was setting off the monitors.
<snip>
So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting?
<snip>



I checked out snopes and could find nothing about this, only about the plastic strip:

Claim: The plastic strip embedded in U.S. bank notes enable the Feds to tell how much money you have on you.

Status: False.


http://www.snopes.com/business/money/strip.asp

Old urban legend? True or false?

[Rainscents]

1. Wow, this is fucking scary!!!

Rfid in our money??? HOLY SHIT!!! :wow: :wow: :wow:

[Toucano]

11. Don't be so gullible.

There is no RFID tag in currency.

This has been debunked before.

If you put an egg in the microwave, it will explode. Does this mean there's an RFID tag in the egg?

[tyedyeto]

14. Where was it debunked?

I checked out snopes before I posted and found nothing.

[Toucano]

28. You don't need snopes for this one.

It doesn't pass the smell test.

If it were true, every single person who enters a store with a $20 bill in their pocket would set off the detector. More than likely, an anti-theft tag was probably left in one of the folds of his wallet. It's a different technology that uses magnetism. That's why you can't put your credit card near the deactivation device at the register.

It would be entirely too costly to add this to currency. It's cheaper and easier to track money with SERIAL NUMBERS.

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/005663.html
I took your advice Tim and tried this out with a variety of bills, both denomination and national origin, and then repeated the test.

2x$20 bills - burned in the middle after 25sec (I'll take them to the bank tomorrow and tell them they were burned by my vandal children - replacement costs=$0)

2x$5 bills (US) - burned in middle after 30sec

2x$1 bills (US) - burned in middle after 20sec

2x$1 (Canada) - burned in middle after 25sec

2x20rieis (Brazil) - burned in middle after 35sec

2x50peso (Mexico) - burned in middle after 30sec

2x100peso (Arg) - burned in middle after 30sec

2x25cent (quarter US) just for fun - cool arcs between the two coins.

[Occulus]

33. The cost of a RFID tag is about $.05.

That's from an article dated 2004, found here:

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/796/1/53/

According to Wikipedia, a company named SmartCode started selling them for that price on May 1 of this year. They are the first ever to sell tage that cheaply.

Is that too expensive to add to currency?

As for placing them in people...

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009-5793685.html

And apparently a link to a zdnet discussion that opens with another link to a picture. I want that to stay there, so here's the thread:

http://news.zdnet.com/5208-1009-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=11938&messageID=237680&start=10

It's the very topic of the thread, and the link to the picture is under the thread title.

That said, I don't think this is yet being done, but I don't see how it couldn't be done.

[Toucano]

35. That's very expensive since the cost of printing a note is 5.7 cents.

"During Fiscal Year 2005, it cost approximately 5.7 cents per note to produce 8.6 billion U.S. paper currency notes."

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/document.cfm/18/106

So putting RFID chips in notes would almost double production costs. $430,000,000 to add RFID chips. That's a significant cost to produce a bill that typically lasts 25 months. There would have to be some compelling benefit to such an expenditure, which there simply isn't since bills can already be tracked with their serial numbers.

The question wasn't whether it could be done but that it is being done. It clearly isn't being done.

The story is such BS anyway. For what possible reason would they chose to microwave 50 twenty dollar bills? Why couldn't the test be conducted with one or two bills? If it's the chip that's "exploding", it will explode in one bill. It's simply piss poor science.

[ramblin_dave]

2. This should be easy to test

Put a bill in a microwave and see what happens.

I just looked at a 1999 series 20 in my wallet and the right hand (Jackson's left) eye is pretty much gone already. Hmmm

[tyedyeto]

3. Right now, I don't have 20 to spare

:cry:

[Occulus]

21. no, not those

I think the poster may be speaking of the new 'Monopoly Money' $20. It very well could have a RFID tag in it (not that it does; I don't know for sure myself). I don't have one right now, so I can't check.

[Duer 157099]

4. I've been tempted to test this myself

but have never been willing to possibly sacrifice $20 to do it

anyone here more willing that I?

[Rainscents]

5. I have brand new $20.00... should I test one?

I got $400.00 worth 20.00 right now. How long should I leave it in microwave? how many seconds?

[tyedyeto]

7. I have no idea...

the article didn't say how long they microwaved them.

If you're willing to try, may the powers of the universe be with you.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. DU Mythbusters!!

I like it. :)

as long as it's only a small bit that burns away, you can turn in 51% or more of a bill to the bank, and they will replace it.

[tyedyeto]

12. Would that be a 'reality show'?

Damn, I've always hated those shows, but if DU's involved ........ guess I could watch it.

[MuseRider]

6. Hmmmm how long?

I can't find how long they did this. Anyone know how long you can microwave a bill without it doing this just because?

[tyedyeto]

9. The article didn't say how long

I was wondering if this was true since snopes (the 'urband legend king) had nothing about this.

[MuseRider]

10. I started with

15 seconds then tried 30. I will try more but I am in the middle of Capote so I am going to wait. I will let you know.

[Rainscents]

13. OK... Be right back!!!

[MuseRider]

27. Capote is over

nothing happened. Minute and a half. Microwave may not be strong enough or the bills are OK. I chose to believe that the bill I used was OK so it is now back in my purse.

I wonder if vendors will accept 20's with the eyes poked out?

[Occulus]

24. It should be almost immediate if it's there

Metal and microwaves do not play nicely together.

Want to have some fun? Take an old, scratched, useless CD or two and pop one in the ol' nuker. cook for about 3-4 seconds and... watch the show.

It looks better with the lights off.

Voila! Instant coaster conversation piece!

:D

[Craig3410]

31. Won't it leave some residue or other harmfuls in the microwave, though?

I dunno about you, but I like my food nontoxic. :)

[Toucano]

15. What happens to a tinfoil hat when you put it in the microwave? n/t

[tyedyeto]

16. Depends on the microwave

With some it can destroy the machine but in others, nothing will happen.

Again, where's your debunking source?

[tocqueville]

17. read the article

Note: This article has been linked all over the Internet. We want to make it clear that $20 bills will only 'pop' or 'explode' in certain microwaves. We've had E mails saying they do, they don't, 'you're all kooks' etc etc.

What is confirmed is the public policy to embed US and European money with high tech tracking devices as part of the hulking surveillance society.

[RoyGBiv]

18. Question:

What's the link between a burning $20 bill and RFID tags? IOW, how does the bill burning in a certain way indicate that RFID is present?

Taking time to debunk something that has no evidence to support it is, well, wasting time.

OnEdit:

Meant to say this originally.

I had the same problem with setting off alarms with my wallet, although it took me quite awhile to figure out it was my wallet. It was embarrassing, especially since I'd set the things off when entering a store if the anti-theft detectors covered a door that was both an entrance and an exit. Employees would come over, check me, and let me go. Got me in a good habit of always keeping receipts, I can tell you.

Anyway, I went into a small bookstore I frequent, and the owner had just installed an anti-theft scanner at his front door. I set it off. Knowing me as a regular, he just laughed, then asked me to take out my wallet. I did so. I handed it to him, and he ran the wallet through the scanner, and sure enough, it went off repeatedly. He handed it back and told me to open it up and check all the nooks and crannies, which I did, and guess what I found. Buried deep in one of the crevices of one of the slots for credit cards and whatnot was a small sliver of material that just happened to be the anti-theft tag that had been placed in the wallet by the store where I bought it.

The owner told me the same thing had happened to him the day he installed the device.

[Duer 157099]

19. I think it means metallic substances are present

if it burns the bill

assuming rfid-ish objects have some sort of metallic components

[RoyGBiv]

25. Right ...

And the ink used to make money has metallic particles in it.

So, again, where's the link to the RFID?

[salvorhardin]

22. Exploding money?

Now that's what I call inflation.

[tocqueville]

30. a little Google search

shows that there were plans 2003 to put rfid tags in some higher Euro notes. BUt nothing new since then, because the technology of embedding the chip into paper and protecting it from the rough use notes have isn't ready yet...

[Rainscents]

20. OK, here it is...

I tried three brand new $20.00 bills (just got out cash machines few days ago.

I tried all three for 1:45 seconds and nothing happened! No holes and no burn mark! However, my microwave is only 1000 watt. Maybe not strong enough.

Man, I was expecting fire work! What a disappointment!!!:(

[tyedyeto]

23. Glad to hear your bills are safe and sound

I wasn't trying to get people to test this, just wondering if anyone had heard about it.

[Rainscents]

26. I understand... It got me curious to try!

I don't trust our government... who knows, what they won't do to track us.

[Toucano]

29. 1000 Watts is more than sufficient

to fry a computer chip.

It didn't happen because it isn't there.

[Occulus]

32. Were they "brand new" as in, simply fresh and crisp, or were they

"brand new", as in the series 2004 monopoly money?

I personally don't think it's there; I just pulled out one of those bills- a $5- and felt around for any embedded thickness other than the strip and couldn't feel anything.

There really isn't anything precluding it, though. These chips are small and very cheap, and a swipe of a wand could possibly tell a device how many pings are ponging, so to speak.

If I can imagine that, you know someone else has, too.

[Rainscents]

34. Yes, it was brand new toy bill i got out of cash machine.

;) No Rfid...

[soothsayer]

36. I used to pull those magnetic strips out of the new bills for fun

You can do it with tweezers, but it's hard to get every bill. BTW the counterfeiters are already able to put those microstrips in.

[BlackVelvet04]

37. From Snopes.......

The ongoing effort to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiters has led to the inclusion of a number of security features in U.S. currency. One countermeasure in particular has come to be the focus of a widely-believed bit lore: the embedded inscribed security thread.

According to scuttlebutt, the purpose of the thread isn't really to make it more difficult for the ill-intentioned to introduce Hidden moneyworthless currency into circulation by fooling its recipients into thinking it genuine, but instead to allow the government to know exactly how much money anyone is carrying at any particular moment.

< snip >

The rumor is bunk.

< snip >

Nothing about the composition of these strips renders them detectable by scanner or satellite. In 2004, the false belief attaching to this security feature was enhanced by the claim of these bands containing RFID tags. As technology advanced, so did the rumor, leading many to microwave their $20 bills into ashen submission by falling for the canard that nuking their currency would disable these transmitters.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/strip.asp