http://www.dailytoreador.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/20/43572162a0fb2Ran across this while surfing Google News this morning and thought it was kinda funny. I remember hearing about this years ago, not long after I started work at Xerox.
The only real problem I have with this is the article says, "The emergence of color laser printers allowed counterfeiters to create authentic-looking reproductions of American bills in bulk, which merited some sort of counter-measure on the part of the government..."
Here's the thing! My uncle was an enginner at Xerox for quite a few decades and I remember talking to him about this. He said that when he was working on one of Xeroxs' first color copier projects, the government was very specfic in saying that the quality of the copies could not be so good that you could copy money. And that still stands to this day. Yes, ink and toner technology has come along way since then and you can make some very good copies of such items, but the CCD's ablitity to translate the greens and blues used in money are still very limited.
As for color laser printers, well.... that's all a color copier is today. Or any copier for that matter. It's a printer with a scanner attached. And yes, they are still limited in the reproduction of money and other such items. Even though the government has taken further steps to stop counterfeiters.
So, I think the counterfeite money excuse is just an added excuse to the list. Then again, it's not like the encrypted code contians your life history or anything. It's merely date, time and machine serial number. Given our current world enviroment, it's more a welcome link of security (although weak in nature).
