Headline: Church Secretary arrested for counterfeiting twenty dollar bills
July 30, 2007 3:53 pm Daily lifeNo kidding!
I am taking photos of things like money going down a drain, or being shredded, for my own stock database and for a (possible – I am hoping and cheering for) sermon series on debt. Why I believe this is SOOO important is a whole other blog. Anyway, my point here is that I have legitimate reasons for printing money: I want to take photos that I would never stage with real money.
Apparently I am really good at it, too good for the Federal Government’s comfort.
When I got my images of the front and back of a twenty dollar bill to my liking I decided to make them the right size- so I measured one dollar bill that was in my wallet. –That’s all that’s in my wallet, by the way. Then I went to my image editing program and typed in the dimensions I wanted.
My image goes black (yes, somehow big brother deleted the image) and I get a pop up that says something about illegal use of currency and an explorer window opens to a government web page about counterfeiting. I am in awe. I bow in utmost respect to the Fed. I have no idea how they did it.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
There’s no mystery here. The publisher of the image editing software cooperates with the Feds to recognize when images of currency are being manipulated. I have read about this - all the major ones have code that does this.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Aww, that’s no fun. I was basking in the glow of being so brilliant that the Fed was afraid of me…
July 31st, 2007 at 4:47 pm
But how does it know it’s an image of currency being manipulated and not a picture of, say, a Hershey’s candy bar with those dimensions?
August 6th, 2007 at 4:41 am
When I came back from the first Gulf War, I brought a collection of Middle-Eastern currency. The intricacies involved in their printing process are stunning; each bill has borders that match when rolled side to side, or end to end, on both sides. They have watermarks and reflective hologram images. At that time, our US currency was a lot easier to copy, but the advent of digital scanners and photo-quality printers forced the Fed to adjust with new anti-counterfeit measures.