If you haven't been to your local copy shop lately, you simply must.
Technology has come so far over the last few years.
These days, a high-end copy machine can produce prints with as many as 9600 by 600 dots per
inch.
"Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are we CLEAR?!"
"Crystal."
With that sort of crystal clear quality and the ready availability of all manner of fancy
papers, you might ask yourself "Why don't I buy a ream of mint green stationery, shove
a couple of sawbucks in the Xerox, and break real bad printing off sweet duckets?"
"How much is this?"
"I have no earthly idea."
Amazingly enough, the government somehow recognized pretty early on that a machine capable of
making exact replicas of two dimensional surfaces might be a threat to the stability of a paper
currency.
That's why bills and notes around the world are outfitted with little-understood, remarkably
hush-hush watermarks and patterns designed to alert printers and digital image editors
to the potential presence of fat stacks of cash.
Exhibit A is the EURion constellation, a distinctive five point pattern incorporated into the face
of most modern currency.
It's pretty easy to spot in the tiny zeroes on the back of a twenty dollar bill and every
variation of the Euro, and can be found on cash from all over the world.
When software built into photocopiers senses this pattern, the machine will deliberately
trash the resulting copy, either by printing only a fraction of the image or by refusing
to print at all.
Additionally, most versions of programs like Adobe Photoshop will display an intimidating
warning message if they detect currency in an image file.
What makes this extra interesting is that, by design, we don't know all of the ways that
software can thwart your attempts to slam out a couple of sheets of scratch.
With new security measures being included all the time, it's unlikely that counterfeiters
will be able to catch up.
At least not the ones at Kinkos.
There are plenty of other ways that currencies around the world have been redesigned to curb
the desires of everyone's inner Rob Schneider, too.
"The Tomster, makin' copies, Mr. Tom."
The addition of a thin plastic strip to paper money has become common, as has the use of
holographic marking and abandoning paper money altogether in favor of polymer banknotes,
which have been used in Australia and New Zealand since the 80s and 90s.
But let's say that you won't let any of this deter you.
"That’s just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him."
You're a go getter, a dreamer, and in close proximity to the office photocopier.
You've managed, hypothetically, to bypass the cryptic software used to keep you from
hitting that "print" button and now you've got yourself a billfold four inches thick
with cash that, let's be honest, doesn't look particularly real, but to hell with it.
Maybe the valet at Fuddruckers won't notice.
Besides, what's the worst that could happen?
"Um, it's obviously a crime to pass counterfeit money."
So glad you asked.
In the good old U.S. of A., counterfeiting currency falls under U.S. Code title 18 section
471, which the folks at Cornell's Legal Information Institute will happily tell you states the
following:
"Whoever, with intent to defraud, falsely makes, forges, counterfeits, or alters any
obligation or other security of the United States, shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."
Up until the mid-90s, that fine was "no more than $5000," but the law was reworded in 1994.
Now, shoving a Benjamin in the Xerox machine can mean that you owe the American government
as much as $250,000.
Of course, that's a slap on the wrist compared to the punishment in China, which includes
a life sentence.
Still, it doesn't seem to matter how harsh the consequences, or even how advanced anti-counterfeiting
measures become.
Like Batman commissioner James Gordon predicted, there's always going to be escalation.
Per the BBC news, in December of 2019, a joint effort by Europol shut down a preposterously
advanced ring of counterfeiters in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg
and Spain, managing to retrieve over a million euros worth of fake bills.
The gang had a setup so advanced that they were capable of producing their own holographic
strips and chemical watermarks, selling through anonymous Tor routing networks, and were reported
to be "the darknet's second largest counterfeit currency producer."
Even with such a remarkable, Carmen Sandiego-worthy series of facilities, they still got caught.
The point here is, you're probably not going to do a lot better with a Best Buy rewards
membership card and an HP Inkjet, so honestly, you're a lot better off not trying.
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