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The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

wired.com

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Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#41

Post by Harkins »

fiatpandas wrote: post #38
Jun8 wrote: post #28

Never ever do this, esp in the US, even as a joke. I know of cases in my college where students counterfeited $20 bills as a drunk joke: what they found out is that irrespective of the amount federal agents and the goddam CIA got involved and they got persecuted to the maximum degree. My prof was called as an expert witness in the case.

CIA? What exactly did they do?

The previous comment is probably misremembering; the U.S. Secret Service is responsible for investigating counterfeiting, which seems pretty odd if you're only familiar with them as personal security for presidents.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#43

Post by johnohara »

Back in 1993, an interesting documentary titled "Money Man" was made about currency artist J.S.G. Boggs. I don't know if it's still available.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104909/

Here is a short YouTube clip from the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtKSqzpj0Q

Searching images for "jsg boggs art" returns some of his work.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#44

Post by dr42 »

btilly wrote: post #37
Jun8 wrote: post #28

Never ever do this, esp in the US, even as a joke. I know of cases in my college where students counterfeited $20 bills as a drunk joke: what they found out is that irrespective of the amount federal agents and the goddam CIA got involved and they got persecuted to the maximum degree. My prof was called as an expert witness in the case.

I read an article about it a long time ago. The minimum penalties are draconian. An example from the 80s was a kid who had been making photocopies of $1 bills and feeding them into a change machine for free candy. The minimum penalty at the time was something like $100,000. Today they are higher. You don't want to mess with them. Governments take money seriously. For example everyone knows that Isaac Newton was a gre…

Few know?

That's part of every grammar school boys education. Or was, in my day. Newton sending a couple of dozen men off to Tyburn to be hanged, drawn and quartered was quite memorable.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#45

Post by dr42 »

throwaway_lop2 wrote: post #26
kennywinker wrote: post #13

Good at making counterfeits, bad at making counterfeiting work. Saw a trashy Discovery channel doc on counterfeiters. They printed using laser printers, and had a good process for aging the money. That was all that was needed... people just don't look that closely at money most of the time. They got away with it for years, even though they were pretty foolish (spent their own fakes, used the same spot every time to p…

Totally. A friend in I tried this (not in the US) using bills approximately $20 in value. We had a mediocre Epson printer and just did the approach of scan+print. We'd then handle the bills and throw them with dirt. Nothing fancy; just two kids playing around to get some extra beer money and also just to see if we could pull it off. Out of the 10 times we tried using the fakes, we only were noticed once. It's very, v…

This sounds very fishy. Imaging and scaning software, along with printer drivers have built in currency detectors to prevent this.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#46

Post by fiatpandas »

jessriedel wrote: post #27
yock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, this isn't math! It's a story, with characters and a plot. The intrigue is baked-in because it makes for an enjoyable read. Sure, the details are interesting, but there's nothing wrong with telling an interesting story with interesting details in an interesting way. "First this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." is not how you tell a story, regardless of whether or not the story happens t…

If I want an artistic short story in magazine form, I'll read the New Yorker. But this is Wired, and the material facts of this story are the only interesting part. I guess it's possible that a gifted author could wrap these fact with a human-interest element in a way that is worthwhile while still communicating an essential idea ("The Last Question" by Asimov comes to mind). But, by experience, this just isn't withi…

>But this is Wired

You make it seem like these long-form narrative articles are a totally foreign concept to Wired, like this is a one-off piece that somehow slipped past the Wired editors who want brief pieces for the internet generation. Not true at all.

This article is nothing compared to a piece Neal Stephenson wrote about a trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable. It's hilariously long and pretty epic. I guess in your case I wouldn't recommend it, though.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

I don't know, man. I'm all for AP-length news stories about current events (I don't want to read artistic prose about every little news event), but sometimes it's fun and interesting to transcend the typical format. I'm one year younger than you, by the way, just so you don't think this is a generational issue.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#47

Post by jstclair »

vacri wrote: post #33

In Australia, we've had polymer notes for 20 years, and counterfeiting is a thing of the past, to the point where I was puzzled as to why someone in the US was marking my $50 note during a purchase while visiting. Paper notes feel nice, but polymer lasts longer and are effectively counterfeit-proof. Prior to this, we had a woeful $100 note, which was black and white with a bit of subtle colour. Pretty, but a dumb ide…

US currency isn't printed on paper.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#48

Post by jessriedel »

jablan wrote: post #36
yock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, this isn't math! It's a story, with characters and a plot. The intrigue is baked-in because it makes for an enjoyable read. Sure, the details are interesting, but there's nothing wrong with telling an interesting story with interesting details in an interesting way. "First this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." is not how you tell a story, regardless of whether or not the story happens t…

I think the problem here is the motivation for reading. I enjoy reading fiction, love watching movies etc. But I clicked the link to the Wired article to learn something new . If I get entertained too, it's just a bonus, but it's entirely optional. Journalism even has a term for what I ask for, they call it "inverted pyramid"[1]. All the petty details intended to spice-up a story are welcome, but they should be place…

The concept of an inverted pyramid isn't quite what you're looking for here, is it? The inverted pyramid is the idea that a newspaper article leads with the most important facts first, followed by lesser and lesser details, so that one will always have read the most important facts for a given amount of reading no matter how long that amount of reading is.

But that's not really the problem with the Wired article. It's not in a newspaper, so it's legitimate to write it assuming the reader will read the whole thing. It's perfectly fine for the author to tell the story in chronological order (or whatever order is appropriate for communicating the important ideas).

Instead, I think the problem you and I have with it are the unnecessary artistic flourishes and the non-standard chronology designed to "pull" the reader into the article. Does anyone know what this aspect is called?

Edit: On second thought, maybe I'm just projecting. Do you really think that this article would have been better as a reverse pyramid?

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#49

Post by greedo »

btilly wrote: post #37
Jun8 wrote: post #28

Never ever do this, esp in the US, even as a joke. I know of cases in my college where students counterfeited $20 bills as a drunk joke: what they found out is that irrespective of the amount federal agents and the goddam CIA got involved and they got persecuted to the maximum degree. My prof was called as an expert witness in the case.

I read an article about it a long time ago. The minimum penalties are draconian. An example from the 80s was a kid who had been making photocopies of $1 bills and feeding them into a change machine for free candy. The minimum penalty at the time was something like $100,000. Today they are higher. You don't want to mess with them. Governments take money seriously. For example everyone knows that Isaac Newton was a gre…

And you become very zealous when the penalty for not protecting the currency is your own painful death.

Re: The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook — He’s an Artist

#50

Post by btilly »

dr42 wrote: post #44
btilly wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an article about it a long time ago. The minimum penalties are draconian. An example from the 80s was a kid who had been making photocopies of $1 bills and feeding them into a change machine for free candy. The minimum penalty at the time was something like $100,000. Today they are higher. You don't want to mess with them. Governments take money seriously. For example everyone knows that Isaac Newton was a gre…

Few know? That's part of every grammar school boys education. Or was, in my day. Newton sending a couple of dozen men off to Tyburn to be hanged, drawn and quartered was quite memorable.

I live in the United States and grew up in Canada. It certainly is not in the curriculum here, and has been a surprise to everyone I've mentioned it to around here.

If you grew up somewhere else, it may be common knowledge there.

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