whats bad about RFIDs in currency (Re: Where's the smart money?)

[Adam Back]

Isn't it already the case that all notes have serial numbers.  I
thought that with some currencies this is printed in magnetic ink with
letter shape designed for easy electronic reading (blobby numbers with
blobs in different places to make it easy for the reader to
distinguish each of the numbers).  Anyone know if current cash point
dispensers are reading those numbers?

So an electronic serial number (an RFID) is no less or more than a
more expensive, marginally harder to copy (if RFIDs are < 30c each I
can't see them being that hard to reproduce) electronic serial number.

The relatively anonymity of cash comes not from the notes being
indistinguishable (they already are not so), but from the fact that
they are exchanged, potentially many times, in a peer-to-peer fashion
without going via a bank account.  This would still be the case for
RFIDs.

When it would start to get scary would be if the financial tracking
special interest groups introduced online equipment for merchants to
verify validty of RFID bank notes as an anti-fraud measure (with the
real objective for the special interest not being the anti-fraud, but
the tracking).  There is a precedent for currency fraud detection at
merchant point of sale, though not an online one with UV lights,
special pens etc.  There is also a precedent with online fraud
detection with credit cards.

Here the RFID would be bad because it would I suspect make the
equipment to off-line or on-line audit and track notes much cheaper
and more robust.  The alternative of scanner reading the serial
numbers sounds clunky and low tech enough that it wouldn't fly, and
wouldn't be able to masquerade effectively as an anti-fraud measure
which is a tracking measure in disguise.

I think the latter (online anti-fraud detection of RFID) should be
strongly resisted to preserve payment privacy, and therefore the
former (RFIDs in currency) also should be resisted for the reasons
above that it moves us along a path towards online anti-fraud
equipment at merchant point of sale.

Adam

On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 07:05:24PM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=975746&CFID=301055&CFTOKEN=47471685

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