Follow the Money: Tiny Transistors Track Cash

I found this article last night and have been thinking of the long term policy implications and possible ways that this technology could be used/abused.

Banks have long considered placing silicon transistors on currency for security purposes, but the technology was too chunky and intensive for paper bills. Now, tiny low-power organic transistors developed by German scientists could make it possible to really follow the money.

"Up to this day, no country has a bank note that contains active electronic features," said Hagen Klauk, head of the Max Planck Institute of Solid State Research's organic electronics research group. "We've taken the very first baby step, and that is to demonstrate that it is possible in principle to put organic transistors on the surface of a bank note."

Link: news.discovery.com...

Does this seem frightening to anyone else? I don't want to sound paranoid, but if money could eventually be tracked in this fashion, this could lead to huge privacy issues.

it would take a long time to implement that... but could be done if it were phased in, and the technology does in fact exist. that really would be electronic money.
imagine that, every note tracked.. registered to you when you receive them, logged when you spend them..

yeah mate... sounds scary to me.

It seems like that or a cashless society is something they are pushing for. However, being an electronic tech, I would think it would be very easy to destroy an organic electronic circuit. Just a matter of breaking a few bonds which washing or soaking in a chemical would do. I have heard of the OLEDs, or Organic LED's, but I haven't had the chance to check them out personally. My radar detector has an OLED display on it. I would think they would be easy to break, but you can bet if it does come out people will find a way. Not to mention the nightmare of the logistics tracking all the bills and then compiling the database to be useful. If bills change hands outside of an electronic transaction the data link would be broken and would render any results questionable. Personally, I see them doing away with cash all together. That way, robbery, drug dealing, etc would be that much harder to carry out (the govs reasoning to push it on us). Then people will be stealing cards, and they will want to implant the RFID to end all the crime...and you know that will cause some riots...

It's already pretty electronic with the magnetic strip in it. Our city borrowed a unit from the FBI that could tell how much money was in passing cars and used it to find reasons top pull people over. It's used between Detroit and Chicago on the expressway and they take hundreds of thousands every year and just let the people go. Money built into the cost of the drug business

reply to post by mikellmikell


I would assume this would be different then having a scanner because the dollars could be located without a scanner. I agree with one of the above posters that this could be easily destroyed or disabled.

I don't think they should be able to put transistors in the money because technically we own it when we have it. If i want to for whatever reason hide money in a box buried in my backyard (pirates buried their valuables(usually stolen but whatever)) these transistors would totally defeat the purpose.
If you destroyed the transistors then next thing you know they tell you your money doesnt technically exist as part of the supply.

This is one more straw on the camel's back, pushing us toward the gold standard. As far as I know, states still have the right, under US Constitution, Article I, Section 10, to make gold and silver legal tender, but that can be interpreted as merely allowing them accept gold or silver, not make payments in gold or silver. The most likely place for gold to take hold is the black market. If a large enough segment of society takes part in the black-market gold exchange, then it will be easier to find legit businesses that do so, as well. (For larger payments, diamonds would be more convenient.) Until grocery stores start accepting gold and silver, the rest of us are stuck with traceable Federal Reserve toilet tissue.

Once the new technology takes hold, defeating it will be a federal crime under the heading of defacing currency. Laundering your cash, literally in the washing machine, will probably make it unacceptable at the grocery store. To redeam it in unwashed currency, you'll have to fill out a mountain of paperwork at a Federal Reserve Bank. If charged with defacing, it will be an "affirmative defense" that you put it in the wash by accident. In case you never heard of "affirmative defense", that is legalese for "guilty until proven innocent".